Date: 2015-05-28
From: Zealand Falls Hut

To: Lakes of the Clouds Hut
Miles today: 19.1
Weather: light rain

After another good nights rest, I woke early this morning and ate breakfast and enjoyed a few cups of coffee. We waited until 07:00 for the weather report before heading back out. Twigs also left out with us this morning. Rewind- I met Twigs back in Bennington, Vermont. He is also going to Katahdin. He does big sections and is on his third and final section right now. Back to speed- he was at Zealand Falls with us and also pulled the zero with us. We left out this morning after the weather report and hiked the first 8 miles in no time due to the easy terrain. After stopping for a quick snack at the railroad tracks, we took on Mt. Webster- our first official climb into the Presidential Range. It was pretty steep and the rocks were wet and slippery like usual. Mt Webster had many false summits but was still a beautiful partially exposed hike up. After summiting Webster we only had 3 miles until Mizpah Hut where we planned on just stopping by. We also summited Jackson before reaching Mizpah. When we arrived at Mizpah we heard some distant thunder and had our qualms about pushing on 5 more miles to Lakes of the Clouds. There was no room for us at Mizpah and the staff there told us that Lakes wasn't open yet, but there was a dark dank cellar called the "Dungeon" that served as an emergency shelter. We decided to push on. About two miles in and we came completely out of tree line. Minutes after hiking up onto exposed ridge we saw a huge storm rolling in from our west. Literally not even 30 seconds later a wall of torrential rain socked us with winds at over 50 mph. I was starting to think I should have tried to just sleep on the porch or shed at Mizpah. The storm lasted about 40 minutes and then suddenly stopped. The sun tried to come out but visibility wasn't too great since we were in the actual clouds. Easily one of the most breath taking days on the trail today hiking up on the Presidential Range.We got to Lakes of the Clouds Hut just before 16:00 and walked around back to locate the dungeon. We opened up the metal doors only to find that the entire room was an ice block. Literally. All the water runoff from the cloud condensation and nearby lakes runs underneath the Hut and collects and freezes during the winter. Well it was a VERY harsh winter. About an 8 ft tall ice block succumbed the entire room from floor to ceiling. We were at 5100 ft elevation with another huge storm rolling in and the temps were dropping fast. I ditched my hammock so I had no shelter with me at all. Now say even if I did have my hammock, we were well above tree line so it would be impossible to hang and camping above tree line is illegal. The reason that camping is prohibited above tree line is because there is an endangered plant species that grows ONLY on the alpine of New Hampshire... nowhere else in the world! Anyways, I was SOL... or so I thought. There were a few workers inside the Hut preparing it for the summer season. They let us in and we explained to them our situation. Tom, the one in charge of the preparation crew, agreed to let us sleep on the floor in the dining area. We were more than happy to clean the kitchen and bathrooms for a spot indoors. We busted our butts getting the place looking good. It was his last day here before the full service crew starts to move in for the summer so he told us we could eat what we could find. That's all we needed to hear. We found a bull bag of bow tie pasta, tomato paste, onions, garlic, butter, black beans, and canned chicken and sardines. We made enough for an army... which equals about 2 or 3 hikers. We all had 3 heaping plates. We stayed up for a bit and talked with Tom while trying to dry our boots out in the oven. Extremely grateful for Tom, the indoors, and pasta!