Date: 2005-08-06
From: Crawford Notch

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I'm almost in the middle of Woodstock right now. I started out at 6:15 this morning, sat out in the middle of the road, stuck my thumb out for 45 minutes and finally gave up.I went to the public phone and tried to call the AMC shuttle, only to find that they don't even open until 9:00. So, I stuck my thumb out again and started walking. I walked for a couple of miles before a couple of guys picked me up. Their names were Norm and Peter. They drove me about 14 miles to a gas station and dropped me off there. I went in and grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee.I went back down to the road again and started walking. Another man stopped and gave me a ride down to the intersection of 93 and 3, which put me 23 miles to go to get to Linclon. There was a general store there on the corner. I went in and got some Velcro and glue to do some repairs. When I got out I stuck my thumb out again and started walking. By that time, the AMC Shuttle bus drove by and I flagged it down. The driver, Ron, gave me a ride to within 4 miles of Lincoln for $10. Now I have to pay $10 to get back again if I use the shuttle. We arranged it where he is going to come get me by 1:30. We'll see how that works out.Anyway, it's a nice way to spend the day, just walking around and hitch-hiking through the back roads of New Hampshire. It's a beautiful day. A beautiful day to be going up Mt. Washington. I hope Vern and Albert are having a grand old time up there. Within the next couple of hours, they should be up on the ridge where they walk 12.5 miles above the tree line. So far, everything is working out great. I got into Lincoln, which was unbelievably crowded. It was like Ft. Lauderdale beach on a summer weekend. So busy, you can hardly find a way to cross the street. When I got there I found the outfitters', he changed over my pole with no problem. Instead of black, it's silver, but I don't care. I also got a new shirt that's going to be more suitable for the weather than the Buzz Off shirt I have been carrying. It's a windproof, breathable shirt. I packed up some stuff and took it to the post office to send back home. I went to McDonald's and got something to eat. Then I walked the 1/2 mile back to 3. This guy named Steve Martin, who is the maintainer of the Trail in Moosilauke, picked me up and drove me over to Liberty Springs, and now I'm sitting at the off-ramp here, waiting for the shuttle. I have about 90 minutes to wait, so I'm probably going to take my shirt off here and lay in the sun a little. I'm thinking of going to the Willey House instead of the Crawford Notch Campground because it's only 1 mile from the A.T. and they serve hot breakfast there. At the Crawford Notch Campground, they don't have any hot food, and it's 3.7 miles from the Trail. Otherwise, it's a great place to stay. I'm excited now, I got everything done, life is good, and tomorrow I'll be headed to Lakes of the Clouds Hut. I got a weather report, and tomorrow will be just as gorgeous as today and all the way through to Monday. That means I get to go through the whole Presidential Range in good weather. I love it!!I decided to give up on the shuttle and take a chance in hitch-hiking. I stuck my thumb out, and after a series of rides, I believe 5 altogther, the last being a long one from a guy named David, I ended up at the Willey House on US 302. I sat at the Willey House and ate again. Today has been about nothing more than eating and storing calories. I'm also drinking, trying to hydrate as much as possible. I am more than a little excited and anticipatory about the big climb up to Mt. Washington. I was trying to figure out where I was going to stay tonight, I really didn't want to go back to the Crawford Notch Campgrounds, because that's almost 4 miles from the Trail. I had one hell of a time trying to get a ride out of there this morning. I hung out at the Willey House and asked if there was any possibility of me tenting here. They told me that the Dry River Campground, which is where most people tent, is down the road and was full, but that if I really needed to, I could camp behind the Willey House up in the woods. They said there were some flat areas up there. It was exactly what I wanted. That turned out really well.I waited around until about 5 o'clock, in the meantime, I sat around and ate and looked at the scenery, then went up to pitch my tent. As deep as I thought I put myself, a little kid managed to find me anyway. Such is human curiosity, he was just crawling around in the woods. I think I scared him, because when he saw me, he ran. I didn't see him again. If I couldn't hear anything, I would be in an amazing place. Looking out of my tent right now, I see the very imposing, almost vertical wall of Mount Webster and Webster Cliffs. The cliffs rise 2,000 feet directly in front of me. The base of the mountain is probably 1/4 of a mile from me. Directly behind me is the even more imposing face of Mount Willey. I am camped right at the base.There's a very busy US 302 is between the 2 mountains. The traffic is crazy, I might as well be camped next to the Washington Beltway. I'm going to have to wear earplugs to sleep tonight. The Whites are a big tourist attraction. Willey House was just packed. Willey House is a historic house that was converted to a tourist trap, restaraunt, snack bar kind of place with a pond and some trails leading out of here. It certainly is a very busy place. The good thing is that they close at 5:00 so people have been pouring out of here. I can still hear plenty of them running around. It's 5:30 now, about 60 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. The sky is absolutely dark blue, which means that there's no cover to hold in the heat tonight, so I expect that it's going to be very chilly tonight once the sun goes down.The entire face of Webster is still in sunlight. I'm in the shadow of Mt. Willey and the shadow is crawling quite rapidly up the face of Mount Webster. There is a trail, I think, that goes directly up the face, if you went up this thing, you would surely need climbing gear. It goes up 2,000 feet almost at a 70 degree angle. The trails here are very rugged. In the past few days here, there were consistantly steep trails that you could probably never climb up if they hadn't piled rocks up that you could climb on. 45 degree pitches are very common hikes with rock scrambles that approach 70 and 80 degrees. In some places, if you lose a hand hold, you risk the chance of falling a good 20 feet before you hit anything. Matter of fact is, that on any given day, at any minute, your hike can end up here if you lose your concentration, or if you don't pay attention to what you're stepping on. (As OC1 almost found out yesterday when he took his dive) I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. The game plan right now is for me to go to sleep soon, which means I will probably wake up in the middle of the night. I would like to pack up and get out of here really early. Probably when it's still dark. Instead of hitch-hiking down to the Appalachian Trail, I think I'm going to walk and use that 1 mile to warm up my legs because, immediately, going north out of Crawford Notch is a very steep ascent. The profile map shows 2 particularly steep sections of 300-400 feet each on this first leg. That's about 2,200 feet of climbs. I don't know what to expect. It seems to me like it's going to be more rock scrambles at 1/2 mile per hour.I'm very glad I took the day off today. One of the things that kind of shook me up last night was, when I was sitting, sewing my backpack, my knees kept getting tighter and tighter and for the first time this trip, I tried to pull them back and have my heels touch my butt. They would not, no matter how hard I pulled. I kind of freaked out a little bit. I took 4 ibuprofen and 2 Tylenol. After about 2 hours, the swelling went down. It scared me a bit there.That's all for tonight.