Date: 2009-08-24
From: Lakes of the Clouds Hut

To: Madison Spring Hut
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: fog

August 24 --The night's sleep was Far from perfect with most of the 90 bunkers finding their way to and from the restrooms across the creaky boards, some with noisy footwear, all with headlamps, throughout the night waking me often, and from my floor perspective I could see brilliant stars, and sitting up, the silouette of Mt Washington. Each time I checked my watch and the closer to dawn, the stronger my thoughts for a predawn photo hike to Mt Monroe, which I quietly dressed for when the time came. Outside, the fog clouds were typically unsettled as I began my way up the familiar path stepping eagarly, but about half way up the heavy clouds formed covering most everything below. I waited 5 minutes, but no change, so I headed back down. Nearly back to the hut the visibility returned and I quickly scrambled back up Monroe, all the way this time, and I was rewarded with views, esp to the SW with peaks poking through the valley fogs, beautiful. When I returned to the hut, back in the fog now, the croo was setting up for breakfast, working around my stuff in the aisle so I quickly gathered everything and packed outside on the bench where some early hikers were limbering up like runners before an event. Grits, Wingo and I had agreed to morning work-for-stay so when the breakfast tables were cleared, we dug into the pile of pancakes, bacon and cream of wheat several times. I noticed that rain had began to fall and retrieved my pack, the others did the same just as the sky opened, and within minutes we watched water pouring off the bunkhouse roof as if it was being sprayed with a fire hose, comfortably still soaking up syrup with the remaining pancakes. We swept the bunkrooms, which again hadn't seen a broom for quite a while, and were ready to climb +1000' to the Mt Washington summit. The rain had conveniently stopped and Wingo led the way past the lower lake and to the right, way to the right of the second lake, Grits followed and I cautiously lagged. Wingo I met the day before starting at Crawford Notch, but I had heard about him the day before as the guy who needed to repeat a section of AT he had missed by taking a side trail off Mt Guyot, or somewhere nearby. To his credit the AT takes on many different names through the Whites and there are many side trails with similar names to make it more confusing, even with a good map it must be checked and rechecked. Worse, sometimes the AT uses yellow blazes so that they are more visible in snow! So it was an opportunity for good natured kidding that I couldn't resist when I saw Wingo stop and look around, I now recalled from last year's hike that the trail skirted the shore of the 2nd lake and we were on our way, me leading, Grits behind me. Soon we spread out, now in fog, and I could no longer see either and I concentrated on the cairns and trail signs, climbing steadily, changing direction often, finally seeing a massive guy cable, I realized I had reached the summit. Without having been there beforehand, I don't think I could've easily found the summit sign, 6822', for a photo or found the observatory/snack bar/gift shop, the clouds were very thick and stationary. Inside, hikers' packs went downstairs and I found Alabama Grits, Slagline, Juice, Mammallama and Nature hanging out, I joined them before snacking. They were out in the downpour earlier, soaked, and worse, Juice and Mommallama missed the AT and went all the to the cog rail, then found their way to the summit. "So much for an early start," Juice critisized himself. I helped him feel dumb about it by bringing up purism and offered him an asterisk. Wingo showed up, but where was Grits? We snacked, I bought 2 postcards, one for Fast Eddy, the other for Dr Gold thanking him for keeping me healthy "all these years" so that this could be possible. Preparing to leave downstairs we were joined by Hobbit, et al, it was great to see them, I thought that they had gotten ahead, soon we were off, I left hiking with Nature and Wingo as the sky cleared with intermittent local clouds, but the long views were limitless, Adams and Madison in sight as the Cog Train descended. Unfortunately for us, the diesel locomotive was on line and we missed the old coal fired boiler. The climb up and around Mt Jeffereson and Mt Adams, and the views of the Great Gulf Wilderness were spectacular as the steady wind blew local clouds. As I passed Juice, Mommallama and left Nature, and came to, appropriately named Thunderstorm Jct, the weather quickly changed, typical of the Whites, to a cool, blowing rain. I covered the pack and pulled on my rain pants and pushed on to the Madison Spring Hut. I caught Grits, who had missed the trail to Mt Washington, along the way, and arrived at the hut, soaked, around 16:00, immediately inquiring about work-for-stay. "We won't turn anyone away in this weather," was the kind, sympathetic response and I warned that there were 4-5 behind me. The rest arrived soon, as well as Zipper, soaked and shaky, her first work-for-stay, and we waited in the bunk area, with three SoBos, for dinner to end. Alabama Grits had stopped, but he, and another guy, decided to keep going. For Grits and me, the work was easy, removing the contents of 3 kitchen shelves, wiping them down and replacing the stuff, after a dinner of not much divided by about 10 hungry of us. Sleeping was packed, I picked a floor spot between 2 tables with Zipper on one table and a SoBo on the other, Grits put 2 benches together to sleep on, ah... the comfort of the down bag.