Bear started “quietly” moving around before 6. At 6:10 he started talking to Sassy to let her know wake up was imminent. At 6:15, I heard a veiled threat on Bear’s life—not quite sure if it was Sassy or Bunny but I was fearful for him. So fearful, that I lay perfectly still and pretended to still be asleep. I did not want to be an accessory to murder, but not so concerned that I was going to risk bodily harm to stop it.
On the way out of camp, I forgot to ask Bunny if she had turned on the tracker. Slippy was well enough acquainted with our routine that he picked up my slack and chimed in “Bunny, did you start the tracker? You know, you only have ONE job to do in the morning.” Sadly, for the 180th time out of 199 times, Bunny had not started the tracker.
The trail picked right back up like we left it—steeply downhill, only much worse. We were actually climbing down a waterfall. The stream where we had gotten water last night was now the trail we were following. I wonder if this is how the Appalachian Money Club does their trail maintenance and design—let nature choose the route and then not worry about putting any effort to improve it. This was an extremely slick and dangerous route.
It was only 2.7 miles to Galehead Hut from the campsite. Once we got to the bottom of the waterfall and the intersection of a side trail to a parking lot, the trail was much better. One thing I noticed is that the AMC was putting a lot of effort in closing down stealth sites by cutting down small trees and piling them in the sites with any other debris they could find. I have to imagine that if they put half as much effort into actually maintaining the trail, things might be more enjoyable.
Of the 2.7 miles to the hut, well over 1/2 mile falls into their “revenue protection zone” (also called forest protection zone). No one is allowed to camp in the protection zones so the Money Club is guaranteed to make money. They have a nice little monopoly with the National Forest Service. When we got to the hut, we went in to check if there might me some food; possibly some leftover breakfast or some things to buy. The staff was incredibly rude. Bear was enquiring about getting some soup when the guy asked “do you want any soup or not?” Bear replied he hadn’t made up his mind yet when the snotty mouth brat said “It doesn’t matter since I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the guy behind you.”
I decided against the $2 prison soup and bite size brownies for $1. Instead, I bought the only other thing available, a piece of jerky for $2. If the AMC is so friendly to thru-hikers, they might actually have some items of food for sale. I opted to do the one thing that always makes me feel good when visiting the AMC—I left them a $12 piece of me to deal with.
Walking away from the Galehead Hut it suddenly became clear to me. Thru-hikers are regarded as the poor where the Smokies are the Republican Party and the AMC is the Democratic Party. The Republicans are very up front about not wanting anything to do with the poor where as the Democrats act like they care about the poor until they actually have to do something that might help them. The Smokies couldn’t have more open dislike for thru-hikers without allowing an open hunting season on them. The AMC acts like they care about the thru-hikers in order to protect their monopoly with the National Forest Service. They don’t want any bad vibes to interfere with their revenue stream. Like the Democrats, they only care about their big money patrons…the rich Bostonians who come pay ridiculous amounts of money to stay in the huts.
I’m going to give the National Forest Service the benefit of the doubt on this one. I think they really want to develop an infrastructure in the mountains similar to what France, Italy, and Switzerland have done—create a series of huts within a day’s walk of each other where hikers can stay overnight. The biggest problem the NFS has is a lack of competition. They have given the AMC a monopoly on the Whites so they have no need to make things affordable. The AMC exhibits everything that is wrong with capitalism without competition. They are no longer a trail maintenance club but a high end hotel operator.
After leaving the hut (hut score 0 for 2 with 1 bye), we climbed 1300’ up South Twin Mountain for a snack and a poor view of Mt. Washington. I will admit to anxiety about going over Washington. When Bunny and I visited Marcia and Peter 3 years ago, we drove up Mt Washington one afternoon. We had 80 mile visibility without a cloud in sight at the top when we arrived, so went inside for to use the bathroom and grab a cup of coffee. When we came back out, we had almost zero visibility. The weather can change in an instant on Washington. This is the highest point in the northeast with the wildest weather swings in the US.
Anxiety aside, we had a pleasant ridge walk to Zealand Mountain. By the time we arrived at Zealand Mountain, the sky had cleared and we had great views of Washington. The trail was surprisingly nice down to Zealand Hut. We thought we might have better luck here and tried to ask for work for stay, but all the slots were already taken. We asked to buy some soup thinking we would have to wait since they were already serving supper to the hut guests, but they were incredibly accommodating and friendly. They told us we would just have to eat it on the porch. I bought a Snickers and two bowls of soup. Before we could finish, we could hear thunder coming over the mountain. The weather can and does change quickly in the Whites.
Here is where my memory disagrees with Bunny, Bear, and Sassy. When I went back inside to turn in my bowl, I asked if we could sleep on the floor because of the approaching storm. I was told we had to move on. The sky was growing dark and the thunder was LOUD. We knew of a stealth site just outside the revenue protection area, but I thought the hut might show a bit of concern and not make us hike on with an electrical storm approaching—no such compassion. I’d score this hut as 1/2 point good for food (excellent soup, but they didn’t follow the AMC posted thru-hiking pricing policy of $2 for first bowl and $1 for additional bowls) and 1/2 point bad for turning us away with an approaching storm. Of the four huts we have passed, the score is 0.5 good, 2.5 bad, and 1 unrated because we didn’t drop off of Franconia Ridge to visit Greenleaf Hut. We still have 3 huts to pass, but I’m not getting good vibes from the AMC.
We found the stealth camp just outside of FPA, but it was already filled with another group of students from Brown University. We asked if we could share the spot and they were fine with that. As soon as we took our packs off, we felt rain. Just a few drops. Bunny and I decided to get out our umbrellas, but Bear and Sassy rushed to set up their tent. Before we could open our umbrellas, the sky opened up. I have never seen such a sudden rain. We decided to wait to put up our tent, but Bear and Sassy had gone beyond the point of return.
It took almost 20 minutes for the rain to let up enough for us to set up. By then, Bear was inside of their tent bailing out water by the cup full. It looked like they might have a miserable, wet night. We tried to stay as dry as possible while cooking and getting ready for bed, but it continued to drizzle well into the night.
EFG