Date: 2007-09-18
From: Imp Campsite

To: Carter notch hut
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: clear sky

A nice relaxing 7-mile day ¢ sort of. I woke up around 8 to what I thought was the noise of trekking poles on the rocks near the shelter. A couple with a dog was camping at one of the tent sites and I thought they were packing up and getting an early start. Turns out, it was a rather large bull moose instead. The big fella must have wandered down the rock slide the water for the site was flowing down. He ambled right past the shelter and was no more than five feet away. Ragnar was awake but facing the other way and I called out ¢moose, moose.¢ Spyder woke up and we all stared as the moose kind of poked around the site a bit before lumbering off. All of our cameras were hanging in our packs on the other side of the shelter so none of us were able to catch a picture.I packed up and headed out around 9:30 and proceeded up the Carter range and all three of its wooded summits. There were some nice views of the Presidential range between the summits and I took a nice break at one and watched some more of the black smog from the cog billow past Mt. Washington. I could also see cars winding up the auto road. It¢s a bit of a downer to see that kind of shit in the middle of the Whites, knowing you will have hiked some serious climbs to get to that point while some fat tourist drove a car or took a train to the same spot. Granted, it¢s the only way some of those people be able to visit some of these places, but shouldn¢t that really be the point; that there are remote places out in the wild that should be a challenge to see. Save the cogs for an amusement park, although I think it could be argued that¢s exactly what Mt. Washington has turned into.As I was contemplating the cog and the auto road, a cute blond nobo passed by followed by an older man. The blond cruised by but the older guy stopped to talk awhile. I forget his name, but he knew the entire flip-flop crew and had actually flip-flopped himself and was completing a section northbound to finish off the Whites. I packed up and headed over the last carter peak down to Zeta pass. I chilled there awhile smoking cigarettes and Spyder eventually showed up. Highlife and Ragnar soon followed. The two of them said they were going to take a side trail around Mt. Height and scoot up and over Carter Dome to the hut and get their work-for-stay over as early as possible. Spyder and I decided to head up Mt. Height and see what we could see. It was a tough .5 mile climb and totally worth it. The view was 360 degrees with a great panoramic shot of the Presidentials and what looked like Franconia Ridge in the distance. It was so nice that Spyder and I decided to stay up top and catch the sunset. As we were chilling up there, we noticed the sun was dropping at an angle that would put it right behind Washington when it finally set. We decided to wait anyway which turned out to be a good idea because the sunset was still quite beautiful despite a big mountain in front of it. Just as the sky was turning a nice orange color, the cog sent up a big plume of black smoke into the sky. Spyder and I kind of looked at each other then turned back to Mt. Washington and began hurling obscenities at the cog and its audacity at trying to ruin our view.We finally put the cameras away and hoofed it the mile or so to Carter Dome, running into a nobo named Sudoku at the top. We caught a few more pictures in the fading light before switching on the headlamps for the descent to Carter Hut. About a half-mile from the notch, we could see lights from the hut ¢ way, way, (when I say way I mean WAY) down in a spot that looked like we¢d need ropes and climbing gear to get to it. The drop was steep and not much fun in the dark. But our headlamps did the trick and shortly we rolled into the hut where Ragnar and Highlife had been hanging out for a few hours. We washed dishes for our work-for-stay and headed to bed.