Date: 2004-10-24
From: usfs osgood tentsite

To: gray knob cabin
Miles today: 5.7

"above the clouds"ross asked me to set my alarm early so that we could get a good start on the day. with hopes of traversing the northern presidentials to find a place to stealth camp near the lake of the clouds hut, we were going to need an early start. it is only ten miles, but it is a very long, very intense ten miles.so, i awoke to the sound of my watch beeping its little beep at six o¢clock. the inside of my tent fly (i¢m only carrying the tent fly and footprint- not the body) was covered in a layer of ice. the condensation from my breath had frozen over everything. appropriately so, since it was only 18 degrees when we woke up this morning. it was tough getting out of the sleeping bag. i did unzip the tent fly and laid there for a while, watching the night sky fade with the approach of dawn. ross was awake in his tent and neither one of us wanted to get out of our warm bags. the sun finally crested the ridge that is the carter-moriah range and shown through the trees into camp for a few minutes before disappearing into the clouds overhead. during that brief window of sunlight we made our move and starting packing up our gear.i started hiking a little later than i would have liked. it was almost eight o¢clock when i hit the trail and began the long climb towards mount madison. i¢ll have to admit that i have been a little wary of these mountains. for some reason, i have been trying my hardest to psych myself out with the thought of traversing the northern presidentials. i don¢t know why. i¢ve climbed 12,000-foot mountains in february through five feet of snow in five-degree temperatures with fifty mph winds. this should be nothing. as soon as i started hiking, i realized that my worries were for naught. there was nothing to be afraid of. i¢m ready for this. i¢m prepared both mentally and physically. ooh, look out for the white mountains. they¢re sooo scary. i say piss on the white mountains. i¢m not afraid of them or anything they can dish out. bring it on.the climb to mount madison was long and arduous. it wasn¢t long before i was shedding layers. the clouds were thick overhead. i was hoping for decent weather for this section of the trail, but i¢ll take whatever the good Lord gives me. i knew that we¢d be reaching treeline about two miles from the osgood tentsite. from there, we would be above treeline--out in the open, completely exposed--for the next thirteen miles. i was curious as to what the weather would be like once we got above the trees. i was curious what the trail would be like. would it be covered in snow and ice? i hoped so. i could only hope to have to break out my ice axe and crampons. regardless of the weather, i¢m glad to have a hiking buddy to traverse this range with. someone to experience it with. someone to watch my back.ross jumped ahead when i stopped to make a poop. i figured he would wait for me to catch up when he got to treeline. the sun was trying to break through the clouds, but they were too thick. small streams of light would filter down through the trees momentarily, but would disappear again as quickly as they¢d come. the temperature dropped as i gained elevation. i caught up to ross not too far below treeline. i took the lead and soon the clouds burned off. yes. the clouds that we¢d been hiking in dissipated and we were left with amazing hiking conditions.it all happened so fast. one second i was hiking in the clouds with limited visibility and the next i was beneath deep blue skies, basking in the morning sun. it was incredible. the trail was encompassed on both sides by stands of spruce that were about eight to ten feet high. my views were limited to that of the blue sky above me. at last, there was a small hole in the wall of trees that afforded a magnificent view of mount adams. ten feet further up the trail, i came to my first real view on a rock outcropping. it was at this point that i realized that the clouds hadn¢t burnt off like i¢d thought, we were actually above them.yes. we were above the clouds.i climbed onto a taller rock and had a rather majestic view. the valleys were completely full of clouds. and, the mountains that we would be hiking over today shot up from them as if they were shooting out of a body of water. i called to ross down the trail and told him to hurry up so he could come and see this grand sight. i dropped my pack and set to work doing what i do- taking photographs. we decided that this would be a great place for a break. a group of outward bound students came down the trail. we exchanged pleasantries as they passed and ross talked to their leader, a fellow brit, for a while.as soon as we started hiking again, i knew that a ten mile day was out of the question. i knew this because i hadn¢t walked 14 mile before i had stopped and was taking more photographs. i¢d never make it to the lake of the clouds hut today at this rate. ross and i discussed our options and came up with a new plan. we decided that we¢d enjoy the day and not rush into the miles. play it by ear.on the summit of mount madison we found a place to sit out of the wind and have a snack. we discussed more options and realized that we wouldn¢t be able to make it to our eventual destination of franconia notch at the rate we were going. so, we revised our goal and decided to take our time through the northern presidentials and shoot for crawford notch as our departure point.when i first set out on this adventure i figured i would give it about five weeks and see where it got me. when i was vacationing in maine a few days ago, my brother (you may remember him from the short stint he did through the grayson highlands with me in 2002. he was appropriately dubbed, ¢brother¢) invited me to join him and some other guys on their annual fishing trip to north carolina¢s outer banks. how could i pass that up? i couldn¢t. so, i decided to cut my adventure from five weeks to three. when mandi dropped ross and i off we told her to meet us at franconia notch on thursday so that she could fetch her husband and i could begin the long journey back to north carolina.we passed the madison springs hut, which has been closed down and boarded up for the winter. we quickly moved on towards thunderstorm junction. since the weather was so nice, we decided upon a short side trip to the summit of mount adams. the AT doesn¢t go over mount adams, so we left our packs beside the ten foot rock cairn at thunderstorm junction and made for the summit. the wind was fierce on top of the mountain. i arrived first and hid between two rocks while waiting for ross. the afternoon was getting late so we had to decide what our course of action would be for the evening. according to my map and book the randolph mountain club (RMC) has two cabins below treeline on the western slopes of the range. these are much cheaper alternatives to the AMC huts during the summer. the RMC cabins are open year-round, so we decided that they would suit us quite nicely.the gray knob cabin is a very long 1.2 miles from thunderstorm junction down lowe¢s path. after a wrong turn at a trail junction we finally arrived at the cabin. it appeared to be a quaint two-story cabin. inside, we made introductions with the cabin caretaker, alex. after making arrangements to stay the night, we dropped our packs upstairs and headed back to a lookout called the quay to watch the setting sun.caretaker alex has retired to his room for the night. ross and a french-canadian father and son are upstairs asleep. i have spent the evening enthralled in all of the literature that is on the bookshelves here. the majority of it is about the white mountains. there is a notebook full of newspaper and magazine articles about various hiking disasters that have taken place in the presidential range. reading some of these stories makes me thankful that we had such incredible weather today. today was a good day. today was a great day. i can only hope that tomorrow will be the same.thank you God for blessing ross and i with an amazing day in these beautiful mountains. i thank You for this great weather and for this great creation that You made. i ask that you continue to watch over us and show us new and wonderful things. i am thankful for everything that you do in my life. i thank You and praise You and it is in Your son¢s name that i pray these things. Amen.