Date: 2008-07-24
From: Osgood Tent Site NH

To: Carter Notch Hut NH
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: fog

Day 158 Thursday July 24 ¢ Carter Notch Hut NH - Miles Today: 10.7 Total Miles: 1863.1We could sum up today's journal if we wanted to the lazy way with just one word - RAIN - but since we want to make sure that Mrs. Grasshopper is doing all her typing, we'll give a little more information. We enjoyed our 12 hours of sleep last night. We had rain during the night, at one point in time, quite heavy. We figured out how to use our rain pack covers to stretch between the gap of the tent platform and the rain fly to keep rain from splashing in the tent. We hung one vestibule off the edge of the platform and used the 2 rain pack covers for the other vestibule. Our issue of rain splattering in the tent has been resolved.We had a leisure morning as we figured we had just 9 hours of hiking and we did not want to arrive at the hut too early if we were going to seek work for stay. But we also had in our game plan to scope out stealth sites near the hut in case we are not able to secure work for stay or in case we just wanted to tent instead. We get more sleep by staying in our tent versus the hut, so if we find a really sweet tenting spot, that just might be our option for the night. We should have known first thing this morning that something was up because when we went to bed last night we could not hear a creek near us. When we woke up this morning, we could hear a creek roaring. That was our first clue - we missed it. We left camp about 7:00 and quickly came to the roaring creek. Guess what? All these days and nights of rain meant a wet creek crossing for us. Since there were rapids or white water in some places, Brakeman spent time looking upstream and downstream to find us the best place to cross. It happened to be downstream from the trail. Our crossing was about 25' yards and knee deep. We just had a little bit of white water near the end. Grasshopper nearly slipped but was able to catch herself by placing her hand on a boulder which prevented her and her pack containing all the clothing from getting wet. The issue we had after crossing was that we were now 20 yards downstream from the trail. A very big steep treed bank separated us from the trail. We bushwhacked back to the trail, not an easy thing to do with big ol' packs on but we made it.Today we hiked down to Pinkham Notch (2050¢), where there is lodging and restaurants, and then we hiked up and over Wildcat Mountain (4063¢). Of course we had no views today because we were socked in with fog and a light rain all day long. At one of the points where we should have had a view overlooking the notch and the mountains, we could see nothing but the whitish gray fog. Brakeman stopped and hollered for Grasshopper to come back and take his picture overlooking the so-called view. Grasshopper hollered back, ¢No way am I back tracking just to take your picture looking at nothing. I¢ve already climbed this much of the mountain and I¢m not going to climb it again!¢   Back and forth this argument went, until Grasshopper finally came back down and took his picture. Imagine her surprise and embarrassment when she discovered a southbound couple coming down the trail right behind her, and realized that they most probably heard the recent exchange. Funny.We climbed 4,260 feet today per Upload and Stitches¢ 2006 AT Journal. Gotta love The Whites!Due to all the rain, the puddles on the trail were 4-6" deep. We have given up on trying to keep our shoes and socks dry. If there aren't enough rocks to rock hop the creek, AKA the trail, we just walk right on through it. The puddles were so deep that the water went up and over into our shoes, dumping all kinds of little pine needles and other prickly things in our socks.   It made for one big soggy day. We had a couple bouts of thunder but we never did see the lightning so we don't think the storm was too close to us. Although it rained all day, it wasn't as bad as the solid rainy day in Pennsylvania when we headed to the 501shelter - it wasn't quite as cold today as that miserable day. We started our hike today in raingear and were able to shed it for a brief time when it stopped raining. It was too hot to wear when it was not raining. The rain started again, and we opted to just put on our jackets and sacrifice our shorts, as it had gotten too warm for full raingear. But as we gained altitude the wind started to howl and we put on our rain pants as hypothermia conditions can arise very rapidly in the mountains. It never really did get cold - not overly warm either - but not cold.We didn't see any other northbound hikers today and only saw 2 southbound hikers, who we don¢t believe were thru-hikers. Based on the size of their pack we¢re guessing that they may just be going hut to hut, as paying guests. We're wondering if the northbounders figured out it was going to rain all day and decided to just stay put and not hike.We arrived at the Carter Notch Hut a bit before 4:00. Not only were we able to score work for stay but we also scored a bunkroom to ourselves! We don't have to sleep in the dining room! Which means we can go to sleep when we want to! Although the capacity for the hut is 40, they have only 10 paying guests tonight. The croo was very nice, which is not what we had heard on the trail. We had heard these people were very "by the book" and would only ever take 2 hikers seeking work for stay and only after a certain hour. Perhaps the trail information was wrong or we got our huts mixed up. Or they had sympathy for all the hikers due to the continued bad weather.The only drawback about this hut is that everything is in separate buildings - 2 bunkhouses, a restroom house and a dining room house. And since it's raining, that means we have to put on our wet raingear to go to dinner and to the restroom.   Since dinner and our work for stay chores was not until 7:00, we spent 1.5 hours relaxing on the bunk beds before dinner trying to get warm and dry. We kept our wet t-shirts on as we were trying to use our body heat to get them dry. It was not working out too well. In addition to her wet shirt, Grasshopper had on her heavy fleece top and bottoms, 3 army blankets, and her knit hat! Life was beginning to get good again. In addition to his wet shirt, Brakeman had on his heavy fleece top and 1 army blanket. No way were we leaving our wet shorts on, though. They were too wet! We ended up wearing them over our leggings to dinner, which helped dry them for tomorrow.Dinner was quite good. We had curly pasta with beef sauce and it was delicious. There weren't a ton of chunks of beef - just a few bites each, but the sauce was really good. We also had lentil soup, a corn and pepper side dish, fresh baked bread and chocolate cake for dessert. Everything was very good. The croo has a yeast starter that they use for all of their homemade breads each day. They are quite the cooks. I can¢t imagine doing breakfast and dinner each day for up to 40 people. We got quite our fill of good eats, but we had to work for about an hour, so I think they get their money out of us too. Turns out that we are the experts in stovetop cleaning as we got that chore again tonight. It was a 6 burner stove. After getting the stove cleaned, we had to line the oven and the drip trays with aluminum foil. I can't say we did a super good job on any of it because by the time we started our chores it was close to 8:00 and we only had one thing on our mind and that was going to bed. I¢m afraid we rushed through the chores without doing a really good job. We were too tired to care. Sorry Croo.Although we ate after all the paying guests, we ate in the dining room and chatted with them a bit. We did not feel quite like the second class citizens as we had at the other huts.   Perhaps having our separate bunkroom and not having to hide in the corner of the dining room helped. It also helped that there was plenty of food for us. At the Lake of the Clouds, there was barely enough lasagna to feed the 5 of us doing work for stay. Panic set in when we saw the lasagna disappearing as we stood in line for our chance to help ourselves. There were no second helpings that night.The forecast we saw yesterday called for tomorrow to be sunny, but since it's rained all night long last night and all day today and it is still raining, we're not quite seeing how a sunny forecast for tomorrow is possible. But better things have been known to happen, so let us hope. It's hard to believe that tomorrow we'll be at the Rattle River Shelter, which is just shy of Gorham and the end of the Whites. WOW. The scary part is that all of these wet weather systems that we've been having, have also been hitting Maine, which is already known to be wet, muddy and boggy. I cannot imagine that we will have a good month ahead of us, but let us hope that things take a change for the better.   Goodnight.