Date: 2005-08-19
From: Garfield Ridge campsite

To: Crawford Notch/US 302
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: broken clouds

We had a pretty lazy start this morning. The moon was beautiful last night as it was full and like a night light shining into the shelter all night long. This morning we had a leisurely breakfast of pastries with coffee and tea. It seems as nearly everyone got a headstart on us. When we left, Snowbunny and Hairball were still there along with 3 section hikers that stayed with us in the shelter.There were many people out on the trail this morning. The Whites are a very popular place to come hiking, and it is my view that people up here tend to enjoy hiking as a pastime and not just an occasional activity. It seems that hiking trails is an everyday part of people's lives here. When you live in and are surrounded by mountains as beautiful as these that is quite understandable. Bug seems to be drawing quite a bit of attention with his kilt from people who aren't as familiar with the thru-hiking community. He has been asked if he is Scottish, if he plays the bagpipes, what clan, and all kinds of other questions.Once we had arrived at the Galehead Hut, I purchased a fleece toboggan since it has gotten rather chilly over the last few days. I certainly want to be prepared for hiking over Mt. Washington in a couple of days. Bug happened to look up at the chalkboard there and notice that the hut master's name was Bethany Taylor. I found that pretty crazy considering there aren't many Bethanys out there, let alone Bethanys with my maiden name. It was time to go up the mountain, the tough climb of the day and Hairball suggested we break down both of our trekking poles. We climbed to the peak of South Twin Mountain at 4,902'. It was a tough climb, but not so tough compared to the Kinsmans the other day. It was cool being up there with Team Hairbunny (Hairball and Snowbunny) because they are from New Hammpshire and this area is their stomping ground. They were giving us a 360 degree tutorial of the mountains around us. They are working on hiking all 48 4,000+ peaks in NH. Several of them are crossed on the AT, and many are bypassed but are accesible by side trails.At Zealand Falls Hut, Bug enjoyed a bottomless bowl of split pea soup while I settled for lemonade to go along with my pepperoni sandwich. One of the 'Croo' members was baking an apple pie for dessert for the evening meal and it smelled so good that my mouth watered just smelling it. Bug and I could have stayed and done a work-for-stay at the hut, but we had already told Clean and Fig & Just Visiting that we would be coming to Ethan Pond tonight. Sadly, we pulled ourselves away and left Team Hairbunny at the hut cleaning windows. The good news for us was that the next 5 miles held easy hiking. The trail here follows an old railroad bed. We were to Ethan Pond campsite in an hour and a half. It would have been much more pleasant a hike for me except that the morning's 8 miles had my left heel, my right knee, and my left wrist bothering me. I was happy to arrive at the campsite, but that joy was short-lived since everyone had hiked on from there to Crawford Notch. Ethan Pond was incredible and so beautiful! We didn't really feel like hiking on, but neither did we feel like doing work-for-stay this late or paying $16 to camp. That being said, we hiked the extra 2.9 miles down to the Notch. It was very easy terrain, save the last 2 tenths which were a steep down. Upon passing the parking lot, we met Fig who told us they were all spread out in the woods in stealth camping spots. We found a spot, set up and got in the tent. Bug is cooking dinner now and I doubt that the ranger or anyone else will find us out here. The forest is pretty dense and we barely found a spot big enough to place the tent. It may not be ideal, but it is a place to call home for the night.