Halfway There

We left North Woodstock for our jaunt into the Whites last Thursday, hoping to stealth camp along the route up to the southern Presidentials.  Unfortunately, the campsites had all been closed due to overuse (a euphemistic way of saying that people are pigs and tend to make fires and leave toilet tissue everywhere).  We ended up at Greenleaf Hut, for our first White Mountains hut experience.

Looking down on Greenleaf Hut from Mt. Lafayette.

View from Greenleaf Hut.

On top of Mt. Lafayette.

The Appalachian Mountain Club (known affectionately J among thru-hikers as the Appalachian Money Club) maintains a number of high mountain huts, mostly frequented by families and weekend hikers.  A stay at the hut includes dinner, breakfast, a bunk, toilet, and running water, but no heat, light in the bunkrooms, or showers, all or over $100 a night.  AND the majority of the huts are booked weeks in advance, making it nearly impossible for thru-hikers to stay in them.  They do have a work-for-stay program for long-distance hikers, allowing you to sleep on the dining hall floor and eat leftovers, in exchange for doing a few chores.

At Greenleaf, we ended up doing some windows and sweeping the bunkrooms—taking maybe 40 minutes all together.  The unfortunate thing was that the hut was almost a mile off the trail, adding 2 miles to our trip and was about 1200 feet below the ridge we were hiking on.  Any thru-hiker will tell you that extra miles are a bad, bad thing, and it’s extra bad when you lose elevation (Climbing extra miles really sucks!!!).  The problem in the Whites, though, is that so much of the trail runs above treeline, through very delicate alpine environments.  It’s actually illegal (enforced by a $5000 fine) to camp above treeline, so you either stay at the huts or drop well below the trail in order to find a campsite.

One of the weird things to us about the Whites is how crowded it is here.  There are so many different trails, with relatively few people actually hiking on the AT.  The huts, lodges, and campgrounds are all packed.  We ended up at a campground in Crawford Notch a couple of nights later, only to be assaulted by an onslaught of children.  Some sort of scout or church group had taken over all but 3-4 campsites, with wholly inadequate adult supervision.  Sadly, children screaming until midnight does NOT enhance an ideal wilderness experience.  But we did get to shower and do laundry, so it wasn’t all bad.

We headed out from Crawford Notch hoping to reach Madison Spring Hut, on the far side of Mt. Washington.  The weather deteriorated rapidly, as we headed up toward Lakes of the Clouds Hut, the highest and most popular of the huts (and usually the most difficult at which to score a spot).  We literally were unable to see the hut until we were within 25 feet of it.  There were also reports of 70+ mph winds on the summit of Mt. Washington, 1.4 miles from the hut.  We decided to call it a day.  Although we were too early to get work-for-stay spots, we were even more privileged to score places in the “Dungeon.” Infamous among thru-hikers, the Dungeon is the winter refuge room at the hut, located in the basement, behind a clanging, solid metal door.  For $10 we got a wooden platform in the dank, dark hole and the possibility of dinner leftovers.  Honestly, the Dungeon wouldn’t have been so bad—without the hiker with the sleep apnea-induced death-rattle snore, the hiker with the crinkly, loud air mattress, and the third with the crinkly, loud space blanket.

Approach trail to Lakes of the Clouds Hut.
When we were coming down this trail,
we were completely socked in, with about 25 ft. visibility. 

View from Lakes of the Clouds Hut.

Thru-hikers go in, but they never come out....
The Dungeon door, Lakes of the Clouds Hut.

Pancho in the Dungeon.

Leaving Lakes of the Clouds for the summit of Mt. Washington.

The bad night of sleep was rewarded the next morning, when we summited Mt. Washington on a gloriously—and rare—clear day (It only gets 65 clear days per year on average).  As we neared the top, we heard the whistle of the cog railway that runs up one side of the mountain blowing.  I was very excited, since both of our dads are big rail buffs.  Then we could see a big puff of smoke, from the lone steam engine still operating once a day on the mountain.  By the time we reached the summit, I was able to snap plenty of pictures of the steam train coming up the mountain.

Mt. Washington Cog Railway. The steam engine
approaching the summit.

Descending Mt. Washington, to begin the traverse
of the northern Presidential range.

Looking back up Mt. Washington, at the cog rail tracks,
visitor's center, and some of the weather monitoring towers.
The visitor's center looks slightly like a 1960s spaceship
landed on the summit.

Looking out across the Presidential range,
 and a long day ahead....

Though we were blessed with amazing views, Mt. Washington is also the epicenter of the White Mountains tourist explosion.  Snack bar (always a good thing), gift shop (rarely a good thing), museum, displays, parking lots, etc….  Heading down from Washington, we were into the northern Presidentials, one of the toughest sections of the White Mountains—and easily the most spectacular area we’ve seen so far.  At least in the hiking arena, Washington is definitely overshadowed by Madison.  As one of our friends described it, Mt. Madison is a great big pile of rocks, requiring climbing straight up, hand-over-hand.  Then comes the descent. OY!!!  Crawling down the rock pile, then down a nearly vertical section of slick mud, roots, and rocks.  It was a pretty agonizing day for me, with the brutal downhill, coming into the campsite just as it began to rain.

Fortunately, we were heading into Pinkham Notch the next day, for a stop at the visitor’s center snack bar and a hitch into town.  Laundry, showers, beer and dinner with friends make for a great evening.  We ran into Swift and Deja and shared a couple of pitchers of Longtrail here in Gorham.  Today, we zeroed, which involved spending most of the day at McDonald’s, since our B&B  sadly doesn’t have Wifi.  Go figure. The place is pretty cool, though—an 1890’s house built by a lumber baron.  The only surviving descendant, who is 95 and lives across the street, owns the Mt. Washington auto road.  The toll road that the tourists (ie: those too lazy to hike J) drive up to the summit. Huh. Just curious how much that nets him every year….
Tomorrow we head back out, for the last 22 miles in the Whites.  We’ll be back in Gorham over the weekend (there are 2 road access points), for another day off.  Two zeroes to celebrate finishing the Whites and reaching the halfway point of our hike. Yay, Team!