Date: 2016-08-22
From: 1835.9

To: 1843.7
Miles today: 7.6

Last night, intense rain with high winds. Wow. Beside Zealand hut is a waterfall that was about 20 inches across yesterday. Today, at least 3-4 meters. Tons of rain. Wind had been whipping all day yesterday and now has turned 180 degrees, with a serious drop in temp. Up at 0600. 2 hikers were on the hut front porch who had been rained out with a poor choice of camping site. Claimed the water in their tent was coming up and over their sleeping pads. had ALL their gear spread out over the rails, floor and had strung lines to hang more. Croo girl came out and nicely asked him to pack up his stuff, as the guests would be coming out and needed to get by to the bathroom, steps, etc. Guy was VERY entitled: "Just trying to dry it out", "why can't you help hikers", "can't get it packed very quickly". Kept trying to have the last word and the young girl got hostile as well, giving him 5 minutes to pack up. I wanted to slap the punk kid. He kept mouthing to me about they needed to help the hikers and I told him the hut is for PAYING customers and they don't OWE hikers anything. He got pissed and shut up. While I was eating breakfast, told the girl it was the first time I'd seen the "entitled hiker" mentality and it was disgusting. Yeesh. Determined came by as I was waiting for work for stay. He lost one of his poles in the flooding creeks when he tried to toss them over to better cross. One hit a tree and disappeared down the creek. Told him I would try for phone coverage and make sure we were picked up at the Notch, as we were pretty sure we had told them Tuesday. He went forward.SOBO came over to talk - told her about Determined's pole and she said she had snagged it over by where she had been camping. She brought it over to me and eventually (2 hours or so), I caught up with Determined and gave it to him. He has new poles coming in to the hostel, but still needed two for some pretty wide creek crossings. Blessing #4: Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, but incredibly decent Trail. Someone really screwed up and put the Trail down an old railroad bed. Hardly any rocks, straight, no climbs, great! Made the 7.6 miles in a touch over 4 hours. THIS is what the Trail should have been the last 3 days. Blessing #5: Determined got to the highway at 1400. I had NO cell service, so we tried to hitch in to the AMC center where we could get coverage. 2 guys from India or Pakistan picked us up within 20 minutes. Picture it: Me as the Charley Manson look-alike contest winner and another older, scruffy looking hiker (sorry, Determined, but you know it's true! ) and we were picked up by two local, clean, neat businessmen. Wow. Would not take any money. Really cool. Called the hostel - they would get us at 1845 instead of 1800 as they were running late. No prob - we had lunch, sat down in the front lobby, charged phones, did texting, took short naps, whatever. I got a fuel canister for MUCH cheaper than a normal outfitter, so that worked. Shuttle got us into Lancaster by 1945 or so. Too late to resupply for tomorrow, so have to take zero day. No probs - weather the next 4 days is supposed to be optimal for the Presidential traverse from Madison to Washington. Hope it's true. Washington had 90+ gusts with 70+ mph the previous night, with rain. NOT great hiking weather. It will take me at least 3 days to get up and over. Other hikers at the hostel allayed my fears even more, saying it was NOT as bad as what we had gone through before. Crow from earlier has decided to yellow-blaze up to Gorham - means he is skipping the Whites entirely, as he can't get up and over them too well. He's worried about injuries and not finishing at all. I told him he could always come back and section the Whites or slack pack them. Truly sorry to see him go, but may catch up later on. Hostel is run by the 12 Tribes - a religious sect who operates them up and down the Trail, but no trying to convert you. Everything an a suggested donation basis, but no prob if you can't pay, evidently.Hostel is non-alcohol, so my birthday shot of bourbon will have to wait until the summit of Mt. Washington. Sorry, Dad. Oh, yeah. Happy Birthday to me. *sigh*