Date: 2015-08-12
From: Trapper John Shelter

To: Woods Road
Miles today: 16.4

Today was a doozy. And I have a feeling that I'll be saying that a lot in the next few weeks as I'll make my way through the Whites. Ole Skool (whose spelling completely contradicts his name, as I told him too) had been talking about getting up at 4:30 and hike 28 miles but in the end it was 5:30. I was still comfy under my bag and it was barely light so I waited until 6 to start packing up. All my stuff is very noisy, which is another reason I prefer tenting. I usually try to set up away from others so I don't disturb them when I get up. In a shelter, disturbing others is pretty much unavoidable. Yesterday two of the people in the shelter were using headlamps without red lights and that's really annoying as well. Probably no more shelters for me.It looked as if it was going to be a beautiful day, so I was hoping my still very wet clothes would dry quickly. It is so not nice putting those on in the morning!As I had seen yesterday, I started climbing Smarts Mountain right away and it was 50% responsible for today's doozy factor! I'm so glad I decided to stay put yesterday rather than climb this after hiking 11 miles in a downpour. It was very steep and slow going. I did get a great view on the way up, when it was still sunny, and took a ten minute break chatting with a couple of southbounders. I think there are lots more southbounders this year as well, I see tons of them at the moment. After the break, the trail just kept going up and I thought I surely was almost at the fire tower at the top. I asked a southbound teenager and he estimated I still had 1.5 miles to go! What?! It was tempting to dismiss his estimate, but it was clear I was not just a quarter mile away as I had thought/hoped! Turns out he was pretty close with 1.5 miles, too. In the end, it took me 4 hours to hike 6.7 miles. The weather had turned and now it was all cloudy again, but I sat outside at the fire warden cabin that serves as a shelter on Smarts Mountain. It didn't start raining until I was on my way down and it didn't amount to much either way. But the trail was a muddy, sloppy mess from yesterday so it was still pretty slow going. I was passed by Blue Suit (hikes in blue scrubs, arrived at the shelter late yesterday) and a little bit further down the trail he seemed to be stuck on some boards in the middle of an enormous swampy mud puddle, with the boards only barely floating. I stepped on one and my shoe sunk in the mud, but Blue Suit was even more unlucky when he lost his balance and got one leg into the swamp. It went halfway up his calf! Seeing this, I revised my plan and went another way and managed to get across without further mishap. This was by far the most challenging of the mud puddles, but there were many that required good balance (and good luck).After the long descent from Smarts, the trail immediately started climbing again, this time up Mt. Cube. This climb looked shorter (didn't feel that way!) but steeper in the beginning. It too had nice views from several points along the way, which made me think I was at the top already, even though I knew that could not be. There were lots of rock scrambles too, and usually that means you're near the top. Not so on Mt. Cube. At least it was sunny again!Eventually I did pass the summit sign (no view here!) and started the very, very long way down. 3.4 miles down, to be exact, though I called it a day just before the bottom. I hiked for more than ten hours with probably less than an hour break total, and I covered 16.4 miles. Welcome to the Whites! And these are not the big mountains yet! Tomorrow I have a very easy day though (famous last words). I'll only go ten miles to a hostel in GlenCliff (I don't know why that C gets capitalized on my phone) where hopefully I'll have new shoes and a care package waiting. Immediately after the hostel is Mt. Moosilauke. The climb starts at 1000 ft and goes to 4800 ft, and I will not be starting that when I've gone ten miles already. Also because there is no camping or shelter for another 8, and I think today has shown that 18 mile days are not in the cards for me in this terrain!Being on two mountains today meant I had a pretty good signal for most of the day, but my stealth camp has none. Yoda told me that that's pretty much par for the course in New Hampshire, so map updates in particular may be delayed a bit. It's not even 8 pm, but I am ready for sleep! This hiking business is tiring!Open map in new windowWant to add a map to your journal?