Monday, 8/10

AT Miles = 9.5 / 1789.3
Other Miles = 0.9 / 57.3
Total Miles = 10.4 / 1846.6

Miles to Katahdin = 389.0

The weather toyed with me this morning. In my "Appalachian Pages" book there is a notation that "North side of Mt Moosilauke is steep and often slick," and I had heard that there are signs on the trail warning that it is hazardous when wet or icey. Since it was raining when I went to bed last night, I was determined to try to ascertain the weather before venturing up and over Moosilauke. Well, when I went outside this morning there were bits of blue sky showing and it looked like the weather was going to break up, so I was at the post office when it opened at 7:00AM to get my food drop and the warm clothes Jodi had sent to me, and by 7:45 I was walking up the road towards the trailhead.

As soon as I left the road I had to climb down a mud bank, then swap boots and socks for my sandals so I could wade Oliverian Brook, which was more a river than a brook. After a short warm up wherein the trail climbed rather easily, the world turned quite vertical and I spent the next few hours climbing steeply and steadily. The weather, meanwhile, had closed in again and I climbed through a heavy fog with quite warm temperatures and 100% humidity. I poured gallons of sweat and thousands of calories into climbing to the summit of Moosilauke, and in return I was treated to views that went on and on for two, sometimes three feet! I did prevail on a couple of day hikers who were also at the summit to take my photo next to the summit sign. I haven't looked yet to see how that turned out.

Some of you may recall that I climbed Moosilauke last February, on snowshoes, from the east. That was quite a clear day, though bitterly cold at the summit. If you go to the hiking folder in my photo gallery, there should be a Moosilauke album there from that trip.

With the wind blowing shreds of cloud across the summit sideways, my glasses were totally fogged up and covered with water droplets. I couldn't see anything with my glasses on, and without my glasses I can't see much of anything anyway, so I was pretty much blind. I managed to find a white blaze and started across the summit and down the north side. I missed the turn for the Beaver Brook Trail, which is the route the AT follows, and started down what I later figured out was the Benton Trail. After descending a couple tenths of a mile, I noticed that I was breaking through a lot of spider webs. I knew other AT hikers were ahead of me this morning, so those webs shouldn't have been there. That's when I stopped to study the map and figured out what I had done. So, I turned around and climbed back up those couple of tenths, then started down the correct trail.

I picked my way down the rocky trail until I reached the Beaver Brook Shelter. This was my nominal goal for the day, and I could have stayed here, but it seemed early to stop and it wasn't a very inviting spot anyway. I thought of pushing on 9 miles to the next shelter north, and was getting ready to leave when another thru-hiker, Baltimore Andy, showed up. We fell into a very pleasant conversation and then a couple of day hikers stopped by and they joined the conversation. Again I was going to leave, then I remembered my promise to myself to stop pushing so hard for miles all the time and let myself enjoy the hike more, so I settled back and let the conversation flow until it was well past 2:00PM.

Finally I left, with the goal simply of hiking down to Kinsman Notch, at which point I would decide whether to go on another 7.5 miles to the next shelter, or to hitch into town for the night. Well, the 1.6 miles from Beaver Brook Shelter to the Notch took me nearly an hour and a half to negotiate. The Beaver Brook Trail here descends very steeply over a jumble of wet rocks and boulders. Even going downhill, I was sweating up a storm and was exhausted from concentrating so intently on foot and pole placement to avoid taking a bad tumble. It was nearly 4:00 when I got to the trailhead, much too late to set off to hike another 7 1/2 miles, so I turned my attention to trying to hitch a ride into town. I've been told that it's tough to hitch around the Whites, and so far my experience bears that out. I lucked out, though, and a family I had passed on the trail just in from the road, and exchanged pleasantries with, saw me and offered me a ride into town. It turns out that they, too, are
from the Boston area. The husband said he used to climb Moosilauke all the time as a teenager, and that he had proposed to his wife at the summit. They are in the Whites on vacation, and were trying to decide when their daughters would be old enough to be able to make the climb to the summit. They asked a lot of questions about thru-hiking, and very kindly went a bit out of their way to drop me right at the motel here. Now I just hope I can get a ride back out of town and up to Kinsman Notch in the morning.

My plan for tomorrow is to hike the 13 miles from the Notch to Lonesome Lake Hut, where I am going to make my first attempt at getting work for stay. Hopefully that will work out. That will leave me just a few miles from Franconia Notch on Wednesday morning, where I need to go into the town of Lincoln to pick up my bounce box at the post office. On Wednesday night I will be staying with a couple that live near Franconia Notch. They have been reading this blog and very kindly offered their hospitality wqhen I reached the area. I am greatly looking forward to meeting them.

I was hoping last week's weather was a portent of a changed weather pattern for August, but it seems now we are back to warm humid weather with a chance of thunderstorms pretty much every day. I hope the weather treats me well as I make my way through the Whites. Being above treeline in a storm is no fun, to say the least!

So, goodnight from North Woodstock!
—
"Home is where I hang my food bag"

Monkeywrench
Allen Freeman
allen@allenf.com
www.allenf.com
allenf.blogspot.com