Date: 2013-07-15
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Miles today: 0.0

I woke up around 5:20 and rolled out from under the table. After putting my sleeping pad away I grabbed a cup of coffee and walked outside to see the now raging rapids and falls from the previous night's rainfall. Once the croo gave us the go ahead Fly and I set the tables for the guests and kept busy clearing and cleaning the dishes with the croo. After we were done we sat down to a huge pile of leftover blueberry pancakes and porridge with butter and real maple syrup. It was tough to stop my gluttony. Real, good food is such an oddity out here in the woods! We took our time getting hiking. One of the croo told me as I was getting ready to leave that the whites are some of the toughest hiking in the world. I figured he was just trying to make me feel better about it being hard, but he went on to talk about hiking across the US, as well as in Nepal, Bhutan, and China. He told me that every where else in the world trails are made for pack animals or machinery. The grade and difficulty of the AT, especially in the whites, makes it unique amongst trails. The 6 miles after Zealand Hut were great. The trail mostly followed an old railroad track that was used for turn of the century logging. At one point the trail opened up at a massive rockslide above and below and blueberry bushes were abundant. Eventually the trail descended down to Crawford notch and over the Saco river. I swam here, cooked a mountain house lunch and watched trout swim and feed. I killed a yellow fly and threw it into the water and watched a hungry trout slurp it down. After a long break fly and I climbed up to the Webster cliffs which offered a great view to the west. At this point we began to hear thunder and I could see a storm approaching. We pushed on over a false summit and did some really difficult climbing in the rain up to Mt Webster. There we saw a couple of gray jays fighting over a perch. Mt Jackson was a tougher climb at the end. I chose to throw my trekking poles up the rock face and climb up after them many times. The descent was equally difficult but soon tapered out to a steady swampy rocky downhill. In a mile or so we climbed a small hill before a steady incline to Mizpah Hut. We were soaking wet hungry and exhausted when we arrived around 7:30. We asked the croo If we could do some work in exchange for food and shelter and they agreed. They still had leftovers out from dinner and we feasted on rice peas bread apple cinnamon cake salad and a really well done cut of beef. I are until I was about to pass out. We visited with some hut guests we knew from Zealand before being put to work in the basement. Fly reorganized a pantry full of dessert items and food while I scraped the ice out of the freezer and cleaned it out. The croo was really trusting to leave us alone in the basement with all their food and snacks. There were big bags of cheese in the freezer I had my eye on! We made quick work of it and went up stairs to set up our beds. A large group of high school aged kids are here and they went to bed right at lights out around 9:30. Then fly and I lay out our pads on the dining room floor. Just as I was about to snooze the rain hit. I'm happy to be here!!