Date: 2022-07-22
From: US 302

To: Nauman Tentsite
Miles today: 6.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Nothing truly wild is unclean. -John MuirI was rounding a corner coming downhill off of South Twin peak several days ago. Below me about 10 yards ahead, in the middle of the trail, a Grey Jay was washing himself in a puddle. I was able to stand and watch him for several minutes. He looked very clean to begin with but, nevertheless, spent some worm-energy and daylight time to stop and clean himself. Our cats at home do this too; lick themselves incessantly despite looking always clean. I¢ve never seen a dirty snake, rabbit, fox, bear, or bird. Fur coats are always smooth and shiny, feathers are always arranged orderly, scales are shiny.Hikers, on the other hand, are typically pretty filthy. It takes a lot of work to keep yourself clean outdoors. I¢m a pretty sweaty guy and my boys come by it honestly. One of the reasons I enjoy swimming in the wilderness is that it gets the salt off, un-mats the hair, exorcises the pores (if only there was a sauna!). Hygiene is made more difficult by the lack of routine out here. Brushing teeth, hand sanitizing, tick checks, and the like don¢t come naturally. I did, early on, set my watch alarm to sound every night at 7:42. I make an announcement: ¢The time is 7:42. Check your body for ticks. When you¢re done, check pets of your neighbor¢s body too. The alarm went off at Stratton Pond Shelter in the middle of dinner time. I made the announcement a bit louder than usual and 20 hikers, without batting an eye, got right to it like it was completely normal.)We¢re still working in a hygiene routine. It seems like the hikers with the best tooth-brushing routine brush immediately after eating. Hand sanitizer is in the poop kit as well as on the shoulder strap. Baby wipes are on quick draw. We still have a hard time even finding the toothbrush some days!I awoke around 6:30 this morning in our dark bunk room. I¢d been feeling pretty bad yesterday and had gone to bed about 7:30. I made my way downstairs and started navigating the kitchen, cooking breakfast among 5 other hikers doing the same. One of the girls said ¢I feel like we¢re in a musical! We just need a song to sing.¢ Six cooks in the small kitchen was pretty comical. Not much was said but everyone was polite, trying to be as small as possible. I got 5 ¢Uncle Buck¢ sized pancakes, 2 pounds of bacon, and a dozen eggs cooked as the boys and Joni appeared in their usual order: Baxter, Joni, Jasper, and finally Grayson. Grandpa was at the hostel at 8:15 to shuttle us back to Crawford Notch. We stopped for some cash in Lincoln on the way.We got back to the trailhead and we¢re shouldering packs when Grayson started crying. He wasn¢t feeling good at all. He said his throat was sore and he had a headache. I asked if we should take a zero - we had mentioned the possibility to the group yesterday. He said he thought he¢d be fine, that he just wanted to sleep a little longer. Joni and I looked at each other and had the conversation-with-eyes-only that spouses do occasionally. We decided to go ahead. Webster Cliffs was first. We could see the overlook high above us from the road. About halfway up I have Grayson an aspirin, a Benadryl, and an inhaler puff. Those did their work shortly, even the Benadryl and it¢s ¢sleepy¢ side effect. We found a pretty sweet stealth site way back in the Hemlocks where we could eat lunch out of the wind. Bagels, cheese, and beef jerky were on the menu. Joni and I decided that Grayson and I would nap there for an hour and a half while she hiked in with Jasper and Baxter. We were only 4 miles from Mizpah Hut and it¢s nearby tent sites. I gave Joni the stove kit and they headed onward. Grayson and I got out puffy jackets and sleeping mats and both promptly fell asleep. What a great nap! We awoke at 2:40 and packed up. Grayson was feeling much better. Hopefully that trend continues.We hiked on. As I walked down the trail a dark blue bird, maybe a Junco, flew over my left shoulder at speed, dropped 2 feet in the trailway, and banked into the thick fir forest. I watched him for the split-second possible navigate his way through the branches and trunks with irregular wing flaps, short dives, and banks to the left and right. As I walked forward and aligned my line-of-sight with his direction of flight I was astonished at the density of the forest he had just slipped through. I have a similar appreciation for the 3-D mapping of the forest that a squirrel must have - the exact negative of the Junco¢s mapping! Then I pull out my simpleton¢s foldable, 2-D map to see where we¢re going next (or worse, the dumbed-down 1-D profile map so popular with thru hikers). Over Webster, over Jackson, and down to the hut. We arrived about 5:30. Many of our NOBO friends are here: Trash, Frodo, Samwise, Grass, Zipper, Catch-up, Snoopy, Clean Machine, and Yogi. Mountain House for dinner. A hiker was giving an impromptu lecture to the group on the ¢kitchen¢ on the importance of breakfast calories. It was like a sermon in church that you¢re sure the pastor wrote after hearing about your most recent sins. We need to up our breakfast game. We¢re set up in a tent platform. Joni and Grayson in the Copper Spur, the other 3 of us in the Triplex.We¢ve got several options for tomorrow night¢s tenting. Washington¢s summit is just over 6 miles from here. Getting on the north side of that is priority. There are some options for renting off the north side of the ridge. Osgood tent site is 15 miles from here and down Madison¢s notoriously steep NOBO descent. We¢ll let tomorrow write itself¢¦