Date: 2006-08-04
From: Pinkham Notch, NH

To: Mt Washington, NH
Miles today: 13.4

I woke up at 4:45am and posted a journal entry, then packed up and Mrs Gorp and I headed up to Pinkham Notch with both cars.On the way to Pinkham Notch, I had a bull moose run in front of me and I had to slow down quickly.It was great seeing him even if it was only for a few seconds.Mrs Gorp and I got to Pinkham Notch at 6:20am, but they don't start serving breakfast until 6:30am.We were sitting out front talking to a peak bagger when I saw a guy walking up that I recognized from earlier this year...Cookie.He was walking with Bush Whacker when I saw them about a day or two into this hike way back in March.He said he remembered that I didn't give him any of my brownies when I stopped at the shelter for dinner.I remember that he didn't give me any cookies. :-)))Pinkham Notch opened up for breakfast and we all went in and ate together.It had been raining litely when we left Gorham, but it stopped and looked like it was going to be a nice day.Mrs Gorp was talking to the guy behind the register in Pinkham Notch after she was done eating her breakfast.His name is Michael Walsh and his wife's name is Sarah Warren and it turns out they were the couple in the photo on the '06 Companion in all the snow.I said goodbye to Cookie and congratulated him on nearing the completion of his thru hike, then we drove my truck over to the entrance of Mt Washington Auto Road.We got there at 7:30am and I believe we were the first ones to drive up to the summit of Mt Washington today.It was very exciting for me because I had never driven up there before.Someday I hope to run the foot race to the summit, but I'll have to get in much better shape than I'm in right now to do that. :-)))We stopped a few times and I was busy taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful morning.The road was 8 miles long and took about 30 minutes to drive up.The guy at the gate at the bottom of the mountain said it would be better to drive up there in low gear, so I did.The whole drive was quite an experience...I loved it!!I parked the truck in the summit parking lot and walked up to the summit.It was very nice out....48 degrees and fairly calm winds with lots of clouds laying on some of the lower mountains and clouds in the sky that were way higher than the nearly 6,300 foot elevation I was at.I could see for miles and miles.I was carrying some gloves, a rain jacket and a wind hat, but didn't need to use them.Mrs Gorp was standing in front of where the Mt Washington web cam is located and trying to let the whole world see what she looks like this early in the morning. :-)))I was busy looking off at my surroundings and taking pictures.It was 8:40am before we finally started walking north on the AT.We walked by the cog railroad tracks and I picked up a few pieces of coal that the conductor had thrown at Chief and Liteshoe when they mooned the train in '03.I ran into two sobo's by the names of Don and Grits near Edmund Col.I had been wondering how Don made out in all the rain and high winds because I knew he had been planning on walking into the Whites the day that crappy weather hit.Turns out he held up at Madison Springs Hut for a couple days until the very high winds and heavy rain stopped.I climbed about 15 minutes north of Edmund Col and sat down and waited on Mrs Gorp to show up.She can walk faster than me on climbs and flat ground right now, but when there are rocks around, I get ahead of her.She showed up and we walked into Madison Springs Hut together.I sat there and ate some gorp I had. I wasn't very hungry because of the big breakfast I ate this morning.When we left the hut about 30 minutes later, we had a hard time finding the AT, so we had to ask where it was.We climbed on up to the summit od Mt Madison next.Mrs Gorp said she felt like she was holding me up, so she aked me to go on ahead and we'd meet back at her car in Pinkham Notch.I did walk on...and on and on....it was a long down.I finally got to the side trail of Osgood Tent Sites, but didn't stop.You really have to stop at each trail crossing and study the signs they put out.It's hard to figure out where the AT goes. There's very few white blazes and no directional white blazes. They don't recognize the AT as the important trail through the Whites.Several times we started going the wrong way, but realized it didn't look right.Well, somewhere down below Osgood Tent Site, I missed a sign...or a turn or something and ended up on the wrong trail.I didn't even know it for well over a mile because you don't normally see white blazes anyway up here.I ended up near Dolly Copp Campground....over 4 miles from where I was supposed to be.I figured I made my best effort to follow the AT here in the Whites, so I walked from where I was at to Pinkham Notch.We figured I probably walked close to 3 miles out of my way.I ended up getting to Pinkham Notch just 10 minutes before Mrs Gorp did.She said she almost went down a wrong trail, but someone had scratched a "Not the AT" into the sign and she went the other way. Guess I missed reading the scratched sign.Oh well, it was such a beautiful day out that it didn't bother me to get lost for a while. :-)))We drove toward Crawford Notch where we will climb over 5,000 feet in elevation tomorrow to get back up to Mt Washington where my truck is.On the way through Gorham, we decided we better eat dinner because we didn't know what there would be to eat over where we were going.We stopped at the Italian place and I had fish and chips again since they were so good yesterday.Mrs Gorp was allowed to order off the senior menu....again!!! :-)))That's two days in a row that she got away with ordering her dinner off the....ummm....more mature person's menu. Ha!!!We drove to the other side of the mountain after dinner and got a room with wi-fi and I loaded almost 30 photos from today's walk.