Date: 2004-08-22
From: Lakes of the Clouds Hut (Cont'd)

To: Osgood Tent Site
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: few clouds

What a strange day.It started out well, with clear cloudless skies and perfect weather.It started to go bad when I discovered that the ziplock bag I used for a wallet was missing with all my money, ATM card, telephone calling card, credit card and ID. Everything. I searched my sleeping bag in case it had fallen out of my pocket while I was asleep but it was not there either. By now I was frantic. I turned out my pack and stuff sacks, retraced my steps through the hut. Nothing.I worried my way through breakfast with a rising sense of concern, then asked the information volunteer if it had been turned in. Nope. I rechecked everywhere again and again. Where could it be? I had had it just last night, the hikers were not the sort of people who would run off with it, and the hut only had so many places where a wallet could hide.When I told the volunteer I had gotten up in the night he asked me if there was any chance my wallet had fallen into the toilet. I replied that sounded pretty far-fetched. But after looking everywhere else all over again, for lack of alternatives I checked the toilets. Sure enough, one had a suspicious clump of tissue in the bowl. When I probed it with a stick, there was my wallet! I think it had gotten tired of thruhiking and had tried to drown itself.A thorough rinsing and it was good as new. Weak with relief, I thanked the volunteer profusely for his lucky guess. It had been equally fortunate I had lost it here, where the hut had rather anemic flush toilets. All the other huts had composting toilets that would have swallowed my wallet without a trace. I stuffed an extra $20 bill into the tip box in gratitude, grabbed my pack and headed for the Trail.That turned the day good again as I started up Mount Washington swaddled in nylon pants, Goretex coat and balaclava against the cold wind. I got to the summit without trouble and got a picture of the locomotives and cars of the 140 year old cog railway, sent some emails to let everyone know I had reached the summit safely, and refilled my water. The essentials done, I went on rather than going to the snack bar and exhibits as I had gotten a late start and needed to get below treeline by dark. The day turned even better when I crossed the railroad tracks and started along the chain of peaks in the Presidentials. The view was incredible and the weather warmed nicely.The day got a bit worse again when the trail, or lack of one, began to wear me down. Many places were nothing more than a line of cairns to mark the route through the boulders. I was amazed that Lonesome Dove had braved it in yesterday's bad weather and hoped she was all right. Finding my way was hard enough in good weather! Then I ran into her slackpacking southbound! She told me she had gotten as far as the summit before wisely heeding the advice of the rangers not to go further. She had gone down by road and taken shelter for the night in Gorham.I started stumbling and reached the state where common sense indicated it would be wise to stop at Madison Hut for the day. But the hut-master, all smiles, said in a silky voice that it was suuuuch a nice day that they were encouraging everyone on to Osgood Tentsite. Even after I told her how much longer than expected it had taken me to get to Madison, she assured me it was only three miles and I could easily make it in 2.5 or 3 hours.That was when the day turned really sour and all the good feeling I had built up towards the AMC evaporated into hot anger. The "trail" led steeply up and over Mount Madison and down a long ridgeline over large boulders. The inevitable happened and I tipped over backwards and crashed hard onto the rocks. I passed a sign and to my disgust I found it had taken two hours to go just one mile. Not even blueberries were enough to put me back into a good mood.It was nearly dark when I finally got to the tentsite mearly 11 hours after leaving Lakes of The Clouds. Other hikers were stumbling in long after dark.