Date: 2008-07-05
From: Crawford Notch

To: Nauman Tentsite
Miles today: 6.0
Weather: broken clouds

The day before the day before the ¢Death March¢ over the Dead Presidents. Or I should say all but one is dead. Here comes the political statement of the diary¢¦who in the hell decided to rename Mt. Pierce to Mt. Clinton? I suppose if I could make a little stain on a blue dress and look like a total A¢hole lying to the world about it I can get a mountain named for myself right? So I will not ever call it Mt. Clinton, I will forever refer to it as Mt. Pierce! So jumping ahead, here we are on the summit of ¢Mt Never to be Called Anything But Pierce!¢We start with a ride down the street in the AMC Shuttle. As we disembark we notice three young kids (25 is the new young for me) with these ENORMOUS wood packs on. They are members of the oncoming trail maintenance crew heading up the mountain. We ask the usual, ¢where are you going¢, ¢how heavy is the pack¢, and wish them luck. The answers¢¦¢unintelligible (she was hoisting the 60lb pack up as she answered)¢, and ¢if I knew how heavy it was I¢d quit¢. Summed it all up as we caught up with the newest member of the team, a pretty strapping gent with one huge back on doubled over and gasping for air a short way up the trail having lost the race to the top to his two female coworkers. So, upwards and onwards we go, snapping a few pics, enjoying the sights, and really, just taking a nice walk in the woods, straight up of course, but a nice walk. It¢s a short day (5 hours), having only to get to Mitzpah Hut for lunch and to the Nauman Tent site 100 yards down the trail. A few hours later we are there where I realize I¢m missing something¢¦MY FOOD CACHE from the B&B¢s fridge. I was going to go cold this part of the trip to see if I would like not having to carry a stove and fuel and cooking. Well, I was cooking anyway for Cindy but my experiment was not going to happen. Luckily I always bring extra vittles so we aren¢t starving.At the hut we have some soup and meander down to the tent site where we meet another of the fine caretakers. As I may have mentioned earlier, the tent and shelter caretakers are the best of the bunch. While the hut caretakers are constantly busy and generally frazzled at dealing with day-hikers the tent-shelter caretakers are a lonely group that love company. Once we were set up Cindy and I went over to check in and say Hi. We stay for maybe 20 minutes chatting it up about anything and everything. A nice kid and like all the others has a pretty interesting ¢other life¢ as an artist who¢s actually showing her work at a gallery in her hometown this summer. More on her later¢¦So, getting ready to cook dinner and I stroll over and see my former shelter mates Flash and Crash. I see them looking under the tent platform and kind of nervously pacing. Evidently there was this ¢gray furry thing¢ running around making noise. I remark that it may be a man eating version of the local possum which, like my boxer comment at Kinsman Pond, was a little less amusing to them than It was to me. Off I go to the bear box when I see the resident artist and caretaker doing poo!So, what amuses men more than farts, belches, and poo? Watching a girl elbow deep in it with a smile on her face! I decide to get the low-down on poo duty, often called composting, on the spot. You see signs, placards, hand written notes from caretakers in all the privies, or outhouses on the composting process. The half hour discussion was quite interesting to this biologically inquisitive lover of nature, but for the journal and anyone that may get this far in the read, I¢ll just say I emailed the ¢Dirty Jobs¢ show on the Discovery Channel and recommended this particular job; AMC Shelter Caretaker¢ for an episode on the show. Off to dinner, sleep, breakfast, and finally, Day 10 of Waldo¢s travels!