Date: 2011-10-20
From: New Hampshire

To: New Hampshire
Miles today: 0.0

Presenting "On the AT in New Hampshire Part II" staring Trudge, Eureka, and other wayward thru-hikers taking place somewhere between 9/3 to 9/27. Please enjoy your popcorn while you patiently wait through these enticing ads and previews created to waste your time and mine.Welcome to www.trail journals.com!! We offer a wonderful site with only a few minor glitches. Our site will fill all your needs no matter what length of hike you are undertaking. Just beware you may not actually have any computer access while in the woods making it very difficult to use this site. And, when you do rarely have access you will either be too exhausted from your strenuous hiking or the site will most assuredly be down. Plus, do not attempt to utilize trail journals at Trail Days in Damascus because everyone and their brother will be hogging up the internet waves making it IMPOSSIBLE for this wonderful site to work. With that being said, I hope you all sign up right away and immediately start you own blog. Happy Writing. Also, with the help of our many bloggers we have learned that it is much more satisfying to write occasionally and from memory, rather than slaving away over the keyboard while you treacherously make your way through your journal day by day. Now that my cynicism is out of the way, I can begin to share with you the rest of my thoughts on New Hampshire. Since we are nearing the end of our trip (will it ever really be over or are we now what you would call professional/perpetual hikers?), I thought it would be good to reflect on some of what I have learned about myself. One of my weaknesses that has often gotten the better of me on this trip is my fear of heights and the possibility of falling. Now this fear isn¢t necessarily a weakness, but rather how one chooses to go about dealing with it could be a real weakness. One morning, we were hiking up a mountain called South Kinsman and I had a near breakdown as I was paralyzed with fear.   The trail was a series of different-sized boulders in which you had to climb up hand over hand. I am fine as long as there are tons of trees nearby blocking my view down. However, since we could see into the valley, I had this irrational concern that I was going to fall off the mountain. In reality, if I slipped I would have fallen only a few feet. Trudge offered his hand, but I couldn¢t let go of the rock. The rock is more stable than a person, right? What if I pull him down too? So, what did I do with this fear? I cried a little, whined a little, and eventually pulled myself up by my boot straps (or rather my hands and knees) and kept going.   This same type of panic happened to me several other times and places. I would ultimately keep going, but sometimes it would take awhile.   The problem with all of this is I was never truly in any real danger of getting seriously hurt. I wasn¢t being reckless, the trail wasn¢t exceptionally slippery, or even rather very difficult.   I feel (and Trudge would probably agree) that sometimes my fears keep me from moving at ¢normal¢ pace. I sometimes even question if I can make a short little leap from one rock to the next when rock-hopping a shallow stream. Do you remember when you were a kid and you would try anything because you didn¢t know that it was dangerous or didn¢t care about the possibility of a scraped-knee? I think I have I have lost some of this courage.   Now just for my mother¢s sake, I want to reassure everyone that if I manage to re-cultivate the audacity of a child that I still will always be careful and will never ever hike Knife¢s Edge on Katahdin.I bet you are all dying to hear about our experiences in the White Mountains. Cold, wet, beautiful, difficult¢¦about sums it up. However, since the White Mountains are now Trudge¢s favorite section of the trail I suppose I¢ll elaborate (a little..if you are lucky). One of our first experiences involved hiking up Franconia Ridge, which our guidebook describes as ¢leaving people awestruck in any kind of weather.¢ This certainly applied to us, but if we had been in a complete white-out with no views and ice hitting us at 50 miles an hour I¢m not so sure how awestruck I¢d be. We only had chilly weather and tolerable wind, but might have missed the blizzard conditions by hours. Since we are such smart hikers, we each purchased an extra warm top layer in nearby North Conway for just such an occasion after passing through. When we traversed the ridge, it had been raining and snowing the day and hours before. The trees and rocks were covered in rime ice, which (according to good ole Wikipedia) is a white ice that forms when water droplets in a fog freeze to the outer surface of objects.   This is typical for White Mountain ridges and summits and leaves one feeling like they just steeped into a different world. The ice either has a feathery, spiky, or comb-like appearance and can leave all sorts of strange-looking patterns on the rocks. The trail seemed to go on forever on Franconia Ridge as there were many false summits. Although we couldn¢t quite figure out what was what, we probably had views of Mountain Washington and the other Presidentials far off in the distance. We climbed up over the rocky ridges of Mt. Liberty, Mt. Lincoln, and Mt. Lafayette completely exposed to the elements. I wonder why there is no Mt. Eureka or Mt. Trudge?   All in all, we were definitely left ¢awestruck.¢ Thanks to the guidebook for telling us how we were to feel.By this time in a NOBO (north bounders) hike, many of us are running low on money. Thankfully, the Appalachian Mountain Club allows work-for-stay for thru-hikers at their off-grid huts in the Whites. Even though we got to the White Mountains late enough that some of the huts (i.e. fancy lodges) had closed for the season, we were able to find work-for-stay at two of them. While the work usually involves cleaning, sometimes thru-hikers are asked to entertain guests with stories of the long and arduous trail. At Galehead Hut, we were offered a court jester position in which we danced on our heads and juggled flaming knives for the perplexed guests. In actuality, we did none of that, but rather sat around a dinner table and shared AT stories and answered many questions. Why do your packs weigh so much? How do you get enough calories? What do you carry? Trudge blossomed on his first public speaking engagement. In exchange for this simple task, we got leftover dinner (which was quite yummy) and a spot on the floor to set our sleeping pads. Even though we had a place to lay our heads and free earplugs, sleep alluded me because the hut crew had decided that the hut was party central. All of their friends were visiting and I felt like I was back in college at a frat party (which I never attended). Slamming doors, bumpin music, dance-party style. Since, I wasn¢t paying I probably didn¢t have the right to complain, but that didn¢t stop me. Plus, the building was full of paying guests and if you have ever stayed at an AMC lodge you are well aware of the dent it makes in your checkbook. So, after tossing and turning, I ¢snuck¢ into the dormitory and found the one and only empty bed (and of course it was the top of a 4-tier bunk). I slept their fitfully, while still hearing music and now snoring. Eventually, I went back to the dining room to find Trudge fast asleep and comfortable. The party was still going on and we can¢t have Trudge comfortable when I¢m not. After asking them to be quiet and not having any success, I went back to ¢bed.¢ Then, when I heard one of the revelers say ¢ I can¢t sleep here,¢ it was my cue to yell ¢NEITHER CAN I, NOW SHUT-UP.¢   Immediately, a hush fell upon the room, I fell asleep to a vomiting partier, and Trudge laid awake wondering why his sound sleep had to be disturbed. Now, on to bigger and better things: the famous and infamous Mount Washington. I imagine some of you possess a bumper sticker that reads ¢This car has climbed Mount Washington.¢ There is no sticker for hiking up, but there is the satisfaction of having absolutely no view, not even 10 feet in front of your gosh darn face. We (Trudge, Katdog, and I) couldn¢t even see where the trail was heading or any of the myriad of buildings that have been built upon the summit of this massive mountain. The commercialization of the mountain resembles an amusement park or perhaps rather Niagara Falls. You can go to a museum, buy a hotdog, pick up a postcard, and even send it from the post office at the top! We were hoping (wrongfully so) that there would be tourists up at the top who would be willing to take us down. Our good friends Sarge and Weaver (who had flipped to Maine and were hiking south) were in nearby Gorham and we had made plans to catch up. No one out of the five or so tourists we asked were ¢able¢ to give us a ride. ¢I have too much camping gear.¢ ¢My car is too full.¢   They would come up with any sort of excuse not to help us out. What they didn¢t know was we can fit in very small places and even hold our ginormous packs on our laps.   Oh well, it was late in the day and the weather was bad, what did we expect.. We had no other responsible choice other than to shell out $45 each to ride a shuttle down the damn Auto Road, which is a about 7 miles long and takes approximately 20 minutes. What a rip off. But, we did get to see our friends in Gorham, which I suppose is worth more than 135 stinky bucks. Trudge and I decided rather than pay to go back up the Auto Road, we would southbound the rest of the Whites towards Mt. Washington. This time we didn¢t get all the way to the top, but we were graced with some amazing views of clouds covering the tops of the mountain range. At about three miles from the top of Washington, we decided to head off the ridge to Gray Knob cabin below tree-line. The rain, wind, and fog would have AGAIN prevented us from seeing anything at the top.And this brings me to my last point, which is I complain a lot. It could be about not having a view, being stuck in the rain, carrying a heavy pack, hiking at night, or about anything really. My dear, Trudge, has had to listen to this for almost 7 months (as of today). The day we hiked off the ridge to Gray Knob I was ready to quit.   The path to the cabin went on forever over rocks and more rocks. Trudge bounded along as if he was meant for this type of hiking, while I was barely crawling. I mentally (thankfully had enough foresight not to complain out loud that time) made a list of all the reason I could give for quitting. However, thank goodness I didn¢t. How embarrassing would it be to quit when you only have one state left? And that brings me to Maine¢¦.