Date: 2011-07-09
From: Lake Of Clouds Hut, NH 

To: Mt. Washington Summit
Miles today: 1.5

Start Lake of the Clouds Hut, NH, mile 1847.0Stop Mt Washington summit, NH, mile 1848.5Sleep bed in Joe Dodge Lodge, Pinkham Notch, NHCell noneOld Goat's Notes:Wow what a difference a day makes. Yesterday Mount Washington was clear and sunny, today it was foggy and windy with little to no visibility. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny again. That is exactly the same weather we had in 2006 only I hiked through it. This time we decided to take the shuttle down the mountain and make a few changes to our plan. Tomorrow we will be heading south to pick up the section we skipped. When we tried to bump our reservation back a day we discovered the next hut we were going to is booked solid until next Wednesday. We made a new reservation for that night. Once this section is done we will have more flexibility as to where we will stay each night. We are being spoiled by having a bed each night and someone preparing our meals. A funny thing happened yesterday that I forgot to mention. We kept seeing a white building with pointy towers on top. This building is the Mount Washington Inn. It is in one of the ravines just below Mt Washington. As we hiked we would turn a corner and it would come into view. I would call out "Hey kids there's Big Ben" like Chevy Chase kept saying in the movie European Vacation. We both got a good laugh from it. We were freezing up on Mt Washington this morning and now we're sitting here with the window open in our room. This is peaceful but we still have to go up and conquer that mountain. I hope we have good weather on Wednesday I would really like to know what the view looks like. Check 6's notes:What a day! We hiked 1.5 to the top of Mt Washington in 40 mph winds and inside a cloud. This morning's weather report said it was supposed to clear as the day went on, so we waited inside the warm building for a while hoping the weather would clear so the rest of our hike would be safer and easier. Some friends of ours tried to hike out but came back in saying it's worse outside than when we got up here. We all then checked the weather reports again and discovered the conditions have become too dangerous for us to hike on to the next hut (5 miles away). The winds are now gusting to 65 mph (hurricane force winds are 70 mph) and there's word out that there's a rescue in progress on one of the trails. (The driver of the shuttle coming down the mountain said he heard 2 guys were hanging onto a rock and screaming for help.)So...sudden, big change in plans. We just changed our reservations to go to the AMC Joe Dodge Lodge in Pinkham Notch tonight (taking a shuttle down from here), and then tomorrow drive back to the section we missed before we started these hut reservations. We'll hike the 2 day section there and then come back up here by shuttle on Wed to continue on. There aren't any openings in Madison hut until Wed. While we were waiting up here we were so surprised when Dr. Wnorowski came over and said hello to us! There is some bike event going on. A large group of bikers had just gotten to the summit just before we got up here. He had biked up the mountain in that race group. Dr. Wnorowski is the doctor who did the surgery on Old Goat's knee and my shoulder surgery back home! What a small world! It's later now (for my entry). It's so frustrating to have it be so beautiful down here - people are lying around sunning themselves without shirts on. The weather down here is perfect right now. We think we can see the towers at the top of Mt Washington from here, which means the clouds have cleared from the summit. It doesn't mean the temperatures it winds have improved though. We just went to the shuttle base office and asked about getting a shuttle back up Mt Washington on Wed and talked about the difference in the weather up there and down here. They have the same weather screen in their office and it shows the conditions up there being just as bad as they were when we came down. I know OG is very frustrated with aborting today's hike, but I am very glad we did with the conditions as they are up there today. I pray we have better conditions Wed so we can continue as planned. At least we will gave completed the two days we had to skip over to start our hut reservations when we get back up there Wed. I like being able to say we've hiked the entire AT to "here," wherever we are at the time. By the way, the rest of the day yesterday at the Lake of the Clouds Hut was lovely. Rather chilly, but we have our down jackets with us so we could stay warm enough. The sunset was spectacular. I woke up around 4:30 am to a wild rainstorm going on outside. The wind was howling and the rain sounded torrential. I had gotten up to pee and found the outside door by our bunk room ajar. I couldn't close it, but a guy came by who got it closed. When I returned to our bunk room a guy was hastily grabbing his hiking boots from just outside the door. He surely hiked in soaking wet boots today!It was only windy (but we were inside a cloud) when we got up. By the time we started hiking the rocks were dry. We were happy for that. Hiking in a cloud was difficult for me because the glasses lens on the windward side was constantly fogged so I could only see well out of one eye going up the mountain. Wiping the glasses didn't keep them clear for more than a few steps. The hut was full to capacity (96 people!), so it was crowded and people had to sleep on the 3rd level bunk beds. We had arrived early enough to have our choice of bunks. I prefer a bottom bunk. I use ear plugs in the huts, so I slept okay for most of the night. Sent from my iPhone