Date: 2015-08-23
From: Hanover, New Hampshire

To: Gorham, New Hampshire
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: light rain

Post at Gorham New Hampshire, Sunday Aug 23We are at the White Mountain Lodge and Hostel.   Northbound milepost 1890This hostel is on US highway 2.   US 2 also goes through my hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, so that tells me I'm on the northern border of the USA (sort-of, except for the state of Maine, of course)I remain in good health. My weight stabilized long ago at about the mid 150¢s, about 10 pounds below my usual weight.   My knees give me an occasional twinge of pain, but nothing consistent or constant.   I read that the White Mountains of New Hampshire is the leading cause of knee problems on the AT, but I am not suffering from knee pain.   The 1890 miles I have done is both a blessing and a curse - Blessing in that my body is as hard and physically fit as I have ever been, but also beat up somewhat.   I get tired on the trail, and sometimes just have to will myself to keep going, but that is to be expected, so I keep moving on. The New Hampshire /Maine border is at NB MP 1907, 17 miles from here. So we are very close to being done with the state of New Hampshire. We are done with the famous/fearsome White Mountains of New Hampshire.   Here is our actual and slightly projected figures for the state of New HampshireNBMP        Date        Location/Comments1907        Aug 25        Maine/New Hampshire border, 2 days from now1750        Aug 8        Hanover, NH, border of NH/Vermont157 miles in 17 days = 9.2 miles per day   This includes two zero days, one in Hanover, NH, one today in Gorham, NH. So our miles per day dropped in New Hampshire, due to the White Mountains. The White Mountains cover 100 miles in New Hampshire, from NBMP 1790 at Glencliff, to our current NBMP 1890 at Gorham, NH. That part took us 11 days. What I¢ve read and heard about the White Mountains of New Hampshire was true. #1 - The Whites have the most spectacular scenery and views and vistas on the AT, thus far. (Not having done Maine, I can¢t speak for it.)   We walked above tree line in the Whites for about 10 miles, on three separate occasions.   The views above treeline are continuously fabulous, if the weather is cooperative, meaning it is clear, not foggy and not raining. We had mostly good weather. It was clear much of the time, unusual for the highest peak, Mt Washington, where it is cloudy 300 days per year.   It was also warm and muggy. I didn¢t like the heat, but it was probably better than cold rain and fog. We had just one day of fog and slight rain. Despite my admonition to ¢No Worries¢ to stop taking so many pictures of views and vistas, I took a few dozen pictures of them. The hiking above the treeline was sometimes easy, that is, once you reached the treeline, the trail then had no serious climbs. #2 - Also what they said, the Whites are by far the most difficult part of hiking the AT, again with the possible exception of Maine.   The climbs and descents in the Whites were long, sometimes 2000 feet. Sometimes 500 to 1000 feet.   But the climbs and descents were steep, too steep for my liking. Our most recent descent, 1000 feet, into Imp campsite from North Carter Mountain was just plain dangerous. ¢Not any fun¢ says No Worries.   A couple times in that descent I was holding onto the whatever I could with both hands, stepping onto whatever my feet could get ahold of, and wondering how to make the next move down. A wrong move would be injurious.   There are no switchbacks in the Whites. The trail just goes straight up the mountain or straight down the mountain.   That is why the Virginia AT as well as the Pacific Coast Trail and even the Great Smokey Mountain National Park of the AT are significantly easier - they have graded switchbacks.   The other exception to the ¢easy¢ hiking above treeline is that sometimes the trail does ¢boulder hopping¢ This occurred at Mt Madison as well as Mt Washington.   So there we ¢hop¢ from boulder to boulder.   I use my poles for balance, but the boulders are 2-4 feet in diameter, so there are drops of a few feet between the bounders. So that is also slow going. I believe I will never again do any hiking in the White MOuntains of New Hampshire - It¢s too tough. The White Mountains do have a series of six ¢huts¢ that provided some relief. These huts are expensive to stay at, about $100 or so per night.   I tried to do ¢work for stay¢ at one of them, but was told I was (again) far too late, that they already had triple the number of work-for-stay volunteers as they needed. So we didn¢t sleep at any of the huts, but we did go to all of them and pay for a bowl of soup or a eat a baked good.   They were most welcomed.   The shelters in the Whites cost us $8 per night, but had wooden platforms on which to pick our tents, so they were a nice change to get our tents off the ground.   Twice we did ¢stealth¢ camping when there were no established convenient campgrounds.   Twice we also were able to buy lunch, on the top of Mt Washington, and at Pinkham Notch (the valleys here are called notches), at the AMC Visitor Center. Those purchased lunches were most welcomed. We stayed in three hostels in New Hampshire, to give us some time out of the woods. 1) The Hikers Welcome Hostel at Glencliff, NH, at NBMP 1790, Sat and Sunday Aug 8 & 92) The Notch Hostel, at Franconia Notch, NBMP 1816, WED Aug 123) (today) White Mountain Lodge and Hostel, NBMP 1890, Sat and Sunday Aug 22 and 23I suppose the worst places give the most memories.   For that, the Hikers Welcome Hostel is on my list.   It has an outdoor shower and laundry, meaning the shower is temporarily set up outdoors, in a dirt/wooden platform. I declined to take a shower.   They also recycle everything, including food waste. Consequently, there were frequently 2-3 skunks wandering around.   Since the main bunk area was full, I slept in a kind of large tent, outside. The temperature was pleasant, but the skunks wandered into the tent and under my bed during the night. My bunk make shooed them away.   The Hikers Welcome Hostel also had junk scattered all over the place, and all over the main dining table.   Unorganized.   I do want to express appreciation to this place however, in that they provided my ¢slackpacking¢ about 14 miles from Kinsman Notch back to their hostel at Glencliff, over the long ascent and descent of 4802 foot Mt Moosilauke. The Notch Hostel and the White Mountain Hostel are among the nicest, cleanest hostels I have been at. Looking ahead¢¦.NB Milepost 1890 at Gorham NH, my current location, means I have 300 miles remaining, that is, 17 more miles in NH, then 282 miles in the last state, Maine.   The southbounders (and we still see a lot of them), tell us ¢You are almost done¢.   Relatively, that may be so, but 300 miles still is a lot, and we have heard that southern Maine is as tough as the Whites. So we expect our miles per day in southern Maine will remain about 10 miles a day.   Probably at the end, at the fabled ¢100 mile wilderness¢, our miles per day will increase. Anyway, we expect to finish at Kathadin about a month from now, about Sept 24 or so.   Then back to the real world. We ask most of the southbounders when they started at Kathadin, so we can estimate when we will finish. The answers vary a lot.   The fastest hikers left just 18 days ago.   But some left two months ago.   One month seems reasonable. I also get to anticipate returning to the ¢real world¢.   I am glad that I am retired and do not have to go back to a 40 hour work week, or, for most of the younger crowd on the AT, look for a job.   While I have been in the woods, my real life back in Minnesota has little impact on me. But this past week I got the news that both vehicles of my daughter and son were totaled, in a period of three days. Although the vehicles were totaled, meaning the crash was that severe, nobody was injured more than bumps and scrapes and sore muscles, as far as I was told.   And Ann was not in the crashed mini-van, meaning her baby was not involved. O¢Neills have replaced their mini van with an identical one.   David and Stephanie are currently without a car in Stevenville, Texas, where David is working on a Data Mining Masters degree, and will have to figure something out for a car. The return to the real works is often a period of depression for many AT hikers.   For 5-6 months, we have been immersed in a completely different world, mostly outdoors, overdosing on the outdoors, involving nothing of their regular life.   I have not significantly dealt with any issues back in Minnesota, other than hearing the latest news. All that will come back the day I return.   Whether I suffer in any respect with postpartum trail depression is to be determined.   But I hope not. I will attempt to post my pictures from the White Mountains, if the data speed at this hostel will permit it.