Date: 2013-07-04
From: Osgood Campground

To: Lake of the Clouds Hut,NH
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: light rain

The past few days have been a whirlwind, so I will try to sum them up. On the night of 7/2 I stayed at the Carter Notch Hut. I did work for stay so I washed dishes and some windows in exchange for leftovers and a place to sleep on the floor of the dining room. The people working there are really cool and the location was surreal - alpine lakes and misty ridges, to name a few sights. The hike into Pinkham Notch was mostly nice over the Wildcats (Sarah Jones I thought of you on the way) and we even got a nice sun break while up on the observation deck on top of the highest peak. Needless to say, we all took off our boots, socks, and wet clothes and dried out all our wet gear. From this spot we also got a sneak peek at Mount Washington which had a storm cloud shrouding its' summit. Once the rain clouds started rolling in we quickly packed up and headed down. The descent into the Notch was about 2 miles of straight up downhill which killed my knees by the end. Luckily there's a visitor center at the bottom which served me up a tasty burger and salad which I washed down with a chocolate milk. Conveniently, the daily downpour happened while we were eating, so we stayed mostly dry. We had only 5 miles to the Osgood Campsite but they were mentally taxing and lethargic. I tried my contrail tent with 2 people again, this time in the rain and it once again held up really well with only a little condensation buildup. The next morning was the steep and long climb up Mt Madison followed by Adams, Jefferson, and good old Washington - all on Independence Day! It was actually a nice sunny day with a breeze that definitely increased with altitude but never got too strong. The clouds started to roll in near the summit but I still got some incredible views along the way. We stopped into the Madison Hut for lunch which ended up being a crappy broth soup, but I got a brownie the size of my face so that made up for it. Between about halfway up Madison and past the top of Washington the trail is above treeline and straight up rock hopping, which is really fun providing the rocks are dry. It was warm and mostly clear until about 2 miles from the summit when the fog rolled in and it started raining, making rock walking a little more sketchy. Summiting felt so good! I have been thinking about Mt. Washington since Katahdin and reaching that sign at 6,286' felt awesome! I'm not going to lie, though, I was a little grumpy that so many people were up there who had driven or taken the cog railroad while I had to walk my ass off with a full pack all the way up the mountain. My grumpiness wasn't lessened when we couldn't find the trail down because it was so foggy, or that all of my toes were rubbing themselves raw on my threadbare sock liners. However, these emotions were all relieved when I ate my weight in food leftovers at the Lake of the Clouds Hut. This Hut is a lot busier than the other 2 I have stopped in, with about 90 guests per night, but still plenty of leftovers including an All-American apple cake! Yummy! The clouds cleared in time for us to see a beautiful sunset over the valley, and the town down there put on a small fireworks show. It was really neat to see fireworks form above!