Date: 2008-07-22
From: Crawford Notch NH

To: Lake of the Clouds Hut NH
Miles today: 11.2
Weather: fog

Day 156 Tuesday July 22 ¢ Lake of the Clouds Hut NH - Miles Today: 11.2 Total Miles: 1842.4We awoke a little before 5:00, which seems to be our normal wakeup hour. It was really neat sleeping in the yurt. We enjoyed peeking through the skylight at the sky during the night to see what was happening. We got up at 5:00, packed up all of our gear strewn around for drying, swept out the yurt per our instructions, and walked to the road about 5:45 to begin our hitch. There were not too many cars going down the road at that hour and in between cars, we saved our legs by sitting on the pavement.   We wondered how long this hitch was going to take when the second car that passed us stopped and picked us up. So cool. We were really pleased to be able to secure a hitch so quickly at such an early hour. Our Trail Angel was a man headed to work at a resort at the top of Mt. Washington. We talked about mountain road conditions in winter and he said that the threat of hitting a moose scared him more than the snow and ice.We were hiking by 6:00 a.m.! We started out the day with a huge incline. Actually the entire day was uphill, as we went from elevation 1277' to 5000', with the beginning part being the worst. We had good views in the morning. It was great to see the panoramic views of the mountain ranges and the deep Crawford Notch where we had just spent the evening. As the day progressed, it became cloudier, but that just brought more neat views - the clouds would roll in and then roll out, lifting and twirling around as we hiked above tree line towards the hut. We had more bog areas today. As we walked on the floating boardwalk, we noticed the mud bog shifted with movement of our weight. On the top of one of the mountains, we paused to investigate the bog beneath our boardwalk. We stuck our hiking poles down in the bog to see how deep it was. Our sticks could not touch bottom! Yikes ¢ this bog is quite deep. We definitely do NOT want to slip off the wood planks! I'm not quite sure if we would ever surface. Death by bog on the AT. I can see the headlines.We had a brief 20 minute rain in the afternoon. Since we were above tree line, we put on our full rain gear, as we needed to be dry in the event of a significant temperature drop. No problem though, as the temperature did not drop drastically.Upload & Stitches¢ 2006 AT journal, reports that today¢s section of trail had a total elevation gain of 8315¢ for us! That¢d be our all time record. We are really thrilled that we did not know the details of the total elevation gain as we hiked! It¢s much better being in the dark on this one. Gotta love being a mushroom, sometimes!By the time we arrived at Lake of the Clouds Hut at 3:00, we were dry. We sat outside, as it was too early to ask for work for stay. We passed an hour talking with the hut guests. We told the story about the couple who gave Grasshopper a fresh pair of hiking socks and how they sort of freaked out when they heard we were thru-hikers. Just as we finished telling the ¢celebrity¢ story a group of middle-aged ladies started talking to us and asked, "Are you thru-hikers?" We of course said, "Yes." to which one of the ladies responded with, "OHHH, my first thru-hikers - can I take your picture?" So we got our picture taken again. Meanwhile Grasshopper looked over at the other couple, winked and smiled and said to them, "You see this celebrity part I'm talking about?" It was priceless to have just told them the celebrity bit and then for them to witness it in live action. It¢s always quite comical. But we do love talking about our adventure to any willing ears. One of the ladies asked if she could try on Grasshopper¢s backpack. Upon doing so, she noted that it was actually lighter than what she was carrying. Then she had her picture taken with Grasshopper¢s backpack and hiking poles. We were quite the celebrities. Pretty neat. Maybe we should have been charging a dollar or a snickers bar for each picture request! As we chatted with the other guests, we kept an eye on the trail for more thru-hikers so we could be sure to get up and request our work for stay before their arrival. A little before 4:00, we saw Hometown and Rethinker coming down the trail, so we made our mad dash inside to request work for stay. It was a delightful, painless, easy process. Gosh, why did the Galehead Hut croo give us such a stressful time? The options at this hut were 1) stay for $10 - no food, or 2) work for stay and get food. Once we learned that the work would be performed this evening, we decided to do the work for stay and get the leftover food. While we waited for dinner, Grasshopper spent another hour chatting with her fan club ¢ the ladies who earlier had taken our picture and tried on her pack. Unknown to her, Rethinker was watching the process across the room and chuckled. He was thankful that she got cornered and not him! Little did he realize that Grasshopper enjoyed every minute of being able to flap her jaws about her adventure.Rethinker explained to us how he got his name. A few years ago, he and his wife realized that they did not like where they lived or their jobs.   So they needed to rethink a few things. First they packed up and moved from Georgia to Johnson City Tennessee, as they both enjoy the mountains and he enjoys fishing.   Next, they took a year off from work while they rethought what they wanted to do. They ended up in the book business, which was a natural fit as his wife was previously doing work with publishers. Apparently they buy overstocked books and host fairs in malls a few times a year selling at huge discounts. Truck loads worth of books. He works 7 months a year. Sounds like he¢s found a great way to balance work and pleasure.   Rethinker shared with us that we were not the only campers last night that marched into the Crawford Notch camp store and complained about a site flooding. He said another couple was requesting a total refund when their site flooded. The owner only offered to give them 2 additional days at some later time for free.   Not good PR, guys!More hikers arrived before dinner - Segue, Floyd and a young couple south-bounding ¢ Eera & BearDance (AKA Andrea and Hank).   Segue did part of the trail last year before contacting a ferocious case of Lyme Disease. He¢s back this year doing part of the trail with Floyd. Floyd is a slow hiker without a lot of confidence on rocks, so the two of them teaming up makes for a great partnership. Eera and BearDance are from Chicago where they both attended Northwestern University. BearDance is working on a graduate degree in philosophy and Eera completed a MS degree in plant biology. Since BearDance is using his downtime to study, he opted to pay for his stay rather than perform work for stay. Eera opted for work for stay. Eera shared with us their horror story of being pushed on by the Carter Notch Hut croo, resulting in a long 15-mile day ending well after dark. Gosh, these huts can really be a pain.Dinner was lasagna, salad and so called 32-bean soup. Grasshopper is not sure how they could call it 32-bean soup, as she did not have 32 beans in her entire bowl of soup. Brakeman explained that she just needed to learn how to scoop the soup from the bottom of the pot, and then drain most of the liquid along the side of the pan, before depositing it in her soup bowl. Well drats, too late now. Our work duties were to sweep the dining room floor, clean the dining room tables, de-ice the freezers, and clean all the stove top grills. It wasn't too bad - probably less than an hour of work. The most challenging part was getting the chore done properly. First they told us to sweep the dining room floor, but we had no dustpan. After requesting a dustpan and finishing that task, someone remarked that the dining room tables weren¢t wiped down yet. Well, drats, wouldn¢t it have been easier to do that before sweeping the floors? So off we went to wipe down the tables, which were caked with food and were occupied by the guests chatting or playing cards. We made as little disturbances as possible with the guests, knowing that we are non-paying guests and should remain more or less invisible. Then Grasshopper was told to de-ice the freezer while Brakeman cleaned the stove grills. She was supposed to de-ice all of the freezers, but Grasshopper managed to take so long doing the one freezer that the croo told her that was enough, as they could not afford to keep the freezers opened that long with solar power. COOL ¢ our work is done! Rethinker washed dishes, cleaned stove tops and cracked 50 eggs for tomorrows breakfast. Hometown washed dishes for about 1.5 hours before dinner, so he did not have any after dinner chores. And all we could be thankful for was that we were not Eera, who was told to put on her boots and heavy jacket and ¢follow them¢ for her chores. Dang man, what could she possibly have had to do? That¢s mean to be sent to do cold labor when hiking the AT is difficult enough!It¢s 9:00 and as you can probably hear, it's still a busy evening in the hut with everybody up and goofing around. We have a much younger crowd here tonight so rather than everyone heading to their bunk at 9:00, they are still running around. It will be lights are out at 9:30, so life is still good.We're just 1.4 miles and 1,288' below Mt. Washington. We're looking for an early start and hopefully a clear morning to enjoy the views up and over Mt. Washington. It's 9:06. We're going to get all of our gear ready for tomorrow and get our sleeping stuff out. Hopefully they'll start quiet hour here in 24 minutes! Goodnight.Oh wait, we have to have a little excitement before falling asleep. As we all started getting out our sleeping bags and putting them around the dining room area, we realized that the young southbound hiker, Eera, who was doing work for stay was missing. We remember her being told to get on her boots and her jacket and saw her leave the area for her work for stay duties. We had finished our work about a half hour ago. Her husband asked a croo member, who had already retired to their quarters for the evening, to see what had happened. Turns out she was still in the dungeon, scraping ice out of the freezer. None of the croo, or the husband who was studying for his graduate degree, had noticed that she hadn't returned. Not too good. The croo at this hut was definitely laid back. Several times we heard a croo member tell their team leader that something needed to be done. He was more interested in just goofing off. Hopefully, after tonight, we will be done with the huts. We get to bed late - 9:30 ¢ and it¢s 10:00 or 10:30 before our minds shut down and allow precious sleep to take over our bodies. That¢s just not enough rest for a thru-hiker.