Date: 2004-07-04
From: Horns Pond Lean-to

To: Lakes of the Clouds Hut
Miles today: 151.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Sorry it has been so long since the last journal entry. It seems that Trevor has been socializing! :-)<July 4th, 2004 Lakes of the Clouds Hut (333.8 miles)It¢s Independence Day. This year I¢ll be spending it at Lake of the Clouds, elevation 5,000 feet. Surprisingly enough, Sherpa and Flake have showed up with a 13+ year old bottle of whiskey for the celebration.Today was a very interesting day indeed. Goose and I summated Madison (5,363 feet) Mt Adams, Mt Clay, Washington (6,288 feet) and many others. On our way there however, we took a wrong trail and ended up going all the way around Mt. Washington, then we had to north-bound to the summit, then back, track down to Lake of the Clouds. This mistake probably added at least 3 miles to our day. All in all however it was worth it.We met a man named Polar Bear and Jeremy They seemed a little different so we quickly walked away. Further down the trail I am walking with my head down and I look up at the surprise of a passerby. As he came closer I could see a 100% resemblance to Jerry Garcia! It was amazing. Even weirder was the fact that I was listening to the Grateful Dead on my MP3 player. His name was Uncle Walt. He was a great man-very kind. He gave us a brief explanation of the huts ahead.Next we met Bone Dancer and his friend. They reminded us that we should moon the cog railroad so the driver could throw coal at us. He also told us how he managed to make $40 on the top of Mt Washington playing music!The environment on the top of Mt. Washington is very strange. Tourists around everywhere. My favorite quote was from a women who looked at the 8 foot climb to the summit sign and said ¢we have to climb all the way up there?¢ Ironic huh? You drive up 6,280 feet to a parking lot and you can¢t climb 8 ft to the summit! This is America!One guy came up to me and asked if I wanted him to take my picture. He explained that he knew how I felt about all the tourists. You come to the trail for solitude and simplicity-but you join hundreds of others who drive up or take the train. They pay $90 to stay at a hut(they don¢t even get sheets! Just a blanket on bunks four high) I stay in exchange for hours of work! Why? Because I¢m a bum! A thru-hiker really. Everyone wants to take care of you. The night of the 4th I did dishes with Goose and Def Balance. We met a German section hiker named Frank. Frank stayed in the dungeon. The Dungeon is a putrid emergency shelter. It smells awful and it¢s damp and moldy. The bunks are soggy plywood and the smell makes you nauseous. Poor Frank had to sleep there while we got to sleep on picnic tables in the dining room! All because we were thru-hikers and he¢s not. I felt really bad.Later on that night Sherpa, Flare and I sat outside and listened to the fireworks down below in the surrounding cities. Every once in a while the clouds would clear and we could actually see a few fireworks.   We drank whiskey and hung out like old times!Sherpa and I ended up staying awake until about 3 a.m. just chatting and laughing the night away. We learned that the food here does funny things to weekend hikers! I was in a stall in the bathroom, Sherpa was next to me and there was on stall open. A man comes in with his young son. The boy had vomited in the Bunk Room and all over the bathroom. Then, all of a sudden a man runs into the empty stall and explodes before he even sits down¢¦It was horrible. Sherpa started to giggle, causing me to burst into laughter-this continued on all night and we could hear it from our beds in the dining room.