Date: 2009-08-04
From: Lonesome Lake Hut

To: Liberty Spring Tentsite
Miles today: 5.5

Tmax here... When you do work-for-stay at the huts you sit outside while the guests eat, go to bed after they turn lights out (because you sleep on the tables or on the floor in the dining room) and then have to get up in the morning before the guests and again wait for them to eat. After the guests are done with their meal, you get the leftovers. The Croo was good to us though and the cook even made me some vegan pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast we swept floors and folded blankets in the bunkrooms. This made for a late start, but the weather was beautiful. We hiked down to Franconia Notch and Topofgothics walked over to the visitor center to pick up our first food drop while I started up the 2500 foot climb to the Franconia Ridge. I was slow but steady and arrived at Liberty Spring before Topofgothics caught up to me. (Topofgothics here... I attempted to make a new personal record in how quickly I could ascend in an hour. Having the full food drop in my pack made this task a little more challenging. Started the timer and off I went! With only one or two short breaks to catch my breath, I was only slightly disappointed to find I had fallen 40 feet short of my 2000 feet in an hour goal hitting it bang on in 1 hour and 1 minute!) I was getting the beta from Johnny Mohawk (the tentsite caretaker) on the possibility of stealth campsites on the ridge when Topofgothics arrived. We decided that we would head up to Mt. Liberty (a 4000 footer not on the AT) for dinner and sunset and would just stay at Liberty Spring for the night, heading over the ridge in the morning. The view from the summit of Liberty was just as awesome as ever and we logged in a great deal more vista time!   ****At the notch, I gave Terri my food and while she started up the hill, I stashed my pack and left to pick up our drop. An hour later and fully laden, I soaked myself in the stream and set my timer. 2000 feet in the hour was the goal. The last necessity was something to get my groove going. Pulling out my cell phone, I opened the music database and went to choose some tunes. The two-gig card was inserted, and my main body of music was on the eight gig. Without exiting the database, I switched out the cards. Before I knew what was happening my phone stated to go absolutely crazy. The battery life was draining faster than I could ever imagine. When it stopped, I inserted another battery and to my amazement and total horror, the card was wiped! Hundreds and hundreds of my best tunes were gone in an instant. I was livid. I was crushed. If a tear came to my eye it would not have been surprising. After gathering my wits, I shut down the phone, put in the card with my audio books on it and choosing one, started up this massive climb which I had been anticipating for so many hundreds of miles.I missed my goal by either 40 feet or sixty seconds, whichever you prefer. I should never have stopped to take those sixteen breaths! Catching up to Terri at the campsite, I was demoralized for losing my prime form of non-natural entertainment, and with no way to download any other music to the card. Some invectives were uttered, and she did her best to appease me, letting me know that it was not the end of the world. We¢ll have to see about that. We chose to stay at the Liberty Spring tent site for the night and spend plenty of time on Liberty Mountain, the first of my many side trips to four thousand footers. It was wonderful, and with a tad less wind, we may have waited it out for sunset. Thankfully her tent does not need to be staked, and using the tent platform was no problem.