Date: 2017-08-11
From: AMC Highland Center

To: Lakes of the Clouds Hut
Miles today: 11.0

Thunderstorms roll through overnight, waking me several times. Better now than later! There's a hot breakfast buffet in the lodge. I chat with Pierre from Montreal who's dayhiking the area for a few days. He offers me a ride back to the trail and I'm quick to accept. Along the way through Crawford Notch we see the Frankenstein railroad trestle high up the hill, part of the tourist line that serviced the old Crawford House resort a century ago. Named not after a mad scientist but a painter who founded the Cincinnati Academy of Art.I hit the trail at 8:15. The AT follows the Webster Cliffs Trail for most of the way to Mizpah Springs Hut, six miles away and 3000 feet up. At first the trail is gravy, but I still manage to lose it to a deer path for a few minutes. Then it becomes rocky and steep, then it turns into boulders, then ledges, then cliffs I need to use my hands to scale. It takes me two and half hours to climb two and a half miles, my slowest progress the entire trip. I pass a man and his college-aged son halfway up. The man is hard of hearing. "Ask him how far we've come!" he tells his son. The GPS and contour map show us at 2400 feet elevation. Mt Webster, the first peak, is 3900, so plenty more to come. The man has section-hiked everything south of here. It's taken him 30 years. His son is joining him now after his old hiking partner had to drop out on Moosilauke. "I wish I'd started from north to south", he says wistfully, referring to the tougher terrain to come. I notice as I part that his left arm is amputated above the elbow. I wonder what it's like to hike with one good arm, so I immobilize my left arm for awhile. I find myself trying to wave it for balance as I climb.There's a great view from Mt Webster across the Presidential range with Washington just under the clouds. Visibility is not as good as the last couple days, but it's good enough. The trail continues to be tough until Mizpah Springs Hut. I trade info with some southbounders along the way. It won't get much easier. At the hut I start scarfing down lunch from my bag and a bowl of lukewarm potato dill soup from the hut croo. A couple dozen northbound thruhikers filter in. I've no idea who most of them are or where they came from. I decide to get ahead of them to ensure I get a place at Lake of the Clouds Hut, five miles away in the shadow of Mt Washington.I climb over Mt Pierce, take a side trail to the summit of Mt Eisenhower, which brings me back above 5000 feet, and continue on over Mt Franklin. This section is entirely alpine, above the treeline, with commanding views of Crawford Notch. Much of the terrain is just rocks and ground cover. Cairns guide the way instead of blazes. The fog and clouds have been rolling in and a stiff wind, over 50 miles an hour in places, sends curls of fog racing over the landscape. I need to brace myself in the saddle ridge between Eisenhower and Franklin against particularly high winds. I'm still in my short-sleeved shirt and starting to get chilled despite the exertion.I reach Mt Monroe shrouded in fog and pass up the side trail to the peak. The hut is less than a mile off and it's starting to rain. At Lake of the Clouds there are already half a dozen thruhikers signing up for work for stay. It's only 3:30. I get breakfast cleanup duty, which will delay my departure, but at least I will get fed and a warm place to sleep. More thruhikers stream in. The common room becomes a beehive of activity between guests and hopeful thruhikers. It's cold, windy, and foggy outside. Some of the hikers will get to pay for spots in the Dungeon, a basement bunkroom that earned the nickname for its less than clean and welcoming appearance. Some are in limbo, and many get turned away. Hikers loiter while the hut guests are fed. Then the nine work-for-stay hikers, me included, ravage the leftovers in the kitchen. It's a better meal than at Galehead, warm, and plenty of it. The Dungeon hikers look on hungrily, munching on their Ramen. It's a surreal scene. A croo member says they will set a record of hosting 25 thruhikers tonight (previous record was 23). Not only that, they had to turn away 20 more. Quite a difference from Galehead where it was just me and Pilgrim. Another hiker tells me a local hostel, the Yellow Deli, dropped more than 20 hikers off at Crawford Notch this morning. That explains the crush.The clouds have lifted and we get a beautiful view of the valley and distant ridges before dark. Mt Washington is clearly visible in all it's stark austerity.