Date: 2003-08-31
From: N. Woodstock, N.H.

To: Greenleaf Hut
Miles today: 6.4

It's Sunday morning, and coffee and bagels across the street fix me right up. A shuttle back to the trailhead will be available at 9:00 a.m., so I have a couple of hours to kill. I buy deli stuff from the Citgo Gas Station and, honest to God, it turns out to be the BEST deli sandwich that I have ever had! No kidding! I would go back there in a heartbeat! Who knew? The shuttle drops me off back in the Flume Visitors Center parking lot, after me and the shuttle guy discuss the ramifications of the recent collapse of the "Old Man in the Mountain" face. There was a well known and highly publicized rock cliff known on N.H. license plates as "Old man of the Mountain". (It's kind of like a logo for that end of the country.) Well, recently (as in less than a year) the face (forehead, eyebrows, nose & chin) collapsed and fell off the mountain. All the T-shirt vendors and license plate makers, and postcard sellers are at a loss as to what they should do with all this inventory of a geological feature that doesn't exist anymore. It's a mystery!Meanwhile, I'm hauling my too-heavy pack up the Trail to Liberty Springs. It's not too bad, but steep. Everybody and their dog passes me. I don't care. The new boots feel great. Liberty Springs is there in a couple of hours. Whadda ya know? The caretaker is the same guy that told us about the Pine Martin over at the Kinsman shelter. John something-or-other. He fills in for other caretakers when it comes their turn to get out of the woods for a couple of days. We have a nice time palling around for awhile and them I'm off again, ever upward to the first of the Franconia Ridge quartet, Little Haystack Mtn. At just about this point, I come upon and go around, the only hikers that Texas Jack has ever been known to pass. That would be Mud Butt, Bumpkin, and Paper Maker. (In days to come, I encounter this trio frequently, but this is the first.) It seems that Bumpkin and Mud Butt are fast friends (Paper Maker is Bumpkin's husband, just, in his words, "Along for the ride.")Well, these two struck out from Springer Mtn. earlier this year, but where I thought 4 and 5 mile days were slow, Mud Butt, it seems, was only able to do 2's and 3's. They were able to do the Smokies and had a great time along the way, but as the year wore on, and Virginia was unending at 3 miles per day, at about this point the picture blurs, but they figure that the main attraction of the Trail is Katahdin, anyway. So they call up Bumpkins husband and he drives out, picks up the girls and they all yellow-blaze on up into New Hampshire to a place where they figure they can hike to Mt. Washington and then yellow-blaze up to Baxter St. Park later on in the year. Mud Butt by this time has lost (she says) about 45 pounds, but the Whites and Franconia Ridge is about to take the legs out from underneath this girl. She's only about 5'2" and she's having an exceptionally hard time with some of these sheer up's and down's. Admittedly, one does somtimes have to hang on to trees and brush in order to get up and down the Trail. Horses and mules can't climb THIS steep!The fact that the rocks are already huge (and getting bigger the farther northeast one goes) and usually wet doesn't help. I absolutely could not do this without hiking poles. Mud Butt falls down a lot and this isn't the kind of place where you want to be doin' that! All this develops later, as at this point I remember coming around this group having lunch at Franconia Ridge on a sheer bald with a view of the Kinsmans on the other side of U.S.-3. That's a nice view all right, but I've been there and I continue to climb until I reach the top of Little Haystack, after crossing over Mt. Liberty.Now THIS is something! I pause at this minor summit to enjoy the Best Dang Deli Sandwich I have ever had in my life! And I took some pictures of the tiny ant-like hikers clambering over Lincoln (5,089'), Lafayette (5,249') and Garfield (4,488'). Off, far in the distance, tiny sail-planes (gliders) flirted dangerously with the summit of distant Mt. Lafayette. In the distance, occasional dashes of sunlight thru the clouds show a mini swarm of colorful gliders, attracted it seems, as distant bees to a mountain of honey. Such thoughts as I enjoyed my sandwich, and wished there was someone around to tell about this fine sandwich shop I had just discovered, when, Eureka! Up hikes who but Heidi!!! (much bells and whistles) who is the hut master at the Mt. Lafayette Greenleaf Hut, and who is out for the afternoon just hiking around ('cause that's all there is to do in this neck of the woods) and who, when informed of the newly discovered "Greatest Deli in America" promptly invites me to "work for stay" at Greenleaf Hut.Well, shucks! "I didn't know ya'll would want an ol' mossback like me!!" said Texas Jack, a quiet smile showing slightly behind barely-parted lips. "Sounds good", says Jack. "Will be there as quick as I can", and off she hikes, back toward Greenleaf Hut, 3 miles away, across 3 mountain peaks, and 1 1/4 miles down into the valley below...for fun. Plus which, she's gotta be back to the hut by 3:00 p.m. and I don't figure I'll be there before 6:00 p.m., all this with Franconia Ridge spread out before me. There must have been a couple of hundred, if not more, section hikers out this fine Sunday Morning. I was glad I was up there, but I used up all my water at lunch. Looks like I'll have to hike dry for 5 hours or yogi some from a section hiker, as the only water anywhere around is from a well at Greenleaf Hut. (Another reason to stop there!) Guess I should have pumped an extra 2 liters while I was socializing with John back at Liberty Springs. Oh well! Texas Jack hops down off the rock he has been seeing all this from, and he joins the line of hikers slowly fading into the distance toward Mt. Lafayette. The hard stuff is done with. By this point we are entering an Alpine Zone above treeline for the most part. The day is clear, but cold and windy. The Trail is well marked and follows the absolute summit trail snaking it's way over these 5 "bad boys" lined up, side by side, like giant school boys waiting to trek in from recess. The gliders soared lazy figure 8's around Mt. Lafayette, but the afternoon was late by the time I was able to get to the top of this one. I had been able to hear the hum of the 40 mph. gusts blowing thru the wire rigging when the sail-planes came over, but by the time I could see them eye-to-eye, they had stopped flying so high for the afternoon. I could still see them spiraling around, but closer to a landing site as the day wore on into evening, and they lost their thermal updrafts.That's ok, I'm finally hiking the 1.1 miles down from the mtn. to get to Greenleaf Hut. I'm pretty well dried out by 5:00 p.m.-ish even tho I've managed to yogi an extra liter of water from some French speaking section hikers. They were happy to share a few sips from everyones flask. Nice folks...thank you for the water. Well, it's late by the time I get there, and I wasn't the last one to ask for work for stay. Before the evening was over, the regular crew were refering to us as a "small hiker army." (The eats weren't as good as Lonesome Lake Hut, either.) Nevertheless, Heidi took us all in and let us stay. Thank God! No one wanted to have to hike back up the mtn. after being refused work for stay. No one had to this nite and we slept on the floor and the kitchen tables.