Date: 2008-07-28
From: Mizpah Spring Hut

To: Stealth Site near Peabody River
Miles today: 16.2

We hit the trail before 6:30 am after being treated to a beautiful sunrise this morning. After about 1.5 miles, we broke through the tree line to an absolutely perfect day. The trail from Mt Eisenhower to past Mt Madison, a distance of about 13 miles, is completely above the tree line. It is one of the reasons we wanted to position ourselves to do it in one shot; if you get a good weather day, you can take advantage and hike the whole ridgeline without the threat of bad weather. Bad weather during this stretch either forces you into one of the huts or more often than not, down a very steep side trail into the tree cover. The General and I made the base of Mt Washington by 9:45 am and summitted in just picture perfect weather. Who did we find on the top? Mouth, Chef and Peg Leg. They just shook their heads and laughed. The tortoise and the hare syndrome, I suppose. Folks hike from hut to hut up here for holiday and the trail past Mt Washington was absolutely chock full of people. I have taken to calling them "beanies" as most are completely decked out in brand new gear, much of it inappropriate to their hike (think expedition-size backpacks and special forces k-bar knives.) This is not an exaggeration and much of it from L¢L Bean. We don't intend it in a mean-spirited way, it is just a little joke to keep the General and I entertained. As you can see people for miles away on the ridgeline, beanie spotting was a favorite theme of the day. We see all of them because we pass all of them. We just hike at a much faster pace with far fewer breaks and we inevitably pass every one. The folks are generally very nice and most let us pass straight away but a few hardy souls (always men, by the way) sense us catching up and speed up in an attempt to match our pace and beat us to the next hut or whatever. This invariably results in some sort of mishap for the guy as the terrain is very rocky and unforgiving. We saw a few tumbles today but fortunately no one was seriously banged. For the record, these are no different than my tumbles. Mine just have fewer people watching! Speaking of which, it had been a long time (NY I think) since I last took a good roll. Well, that streak ended today for both the General and I. Just as we were coming down the far side of Mt Madison, heading back to the trees, it started to rain and the wind started to howl. We made it off the rocks to hit the very steep, muddy descent into Pinkham Notch. It had been a very long day and we were both pretty waxed when, in the space of about 10 minutes, the General fell twice and I fell once, snapping my trekking pole clean in half (yet again). Ugh. To make it worse, the tent site we wanted to use was completely full so we had to hike on. There were absolutely no stealth spots so we hiked on for about 2 miles until we finally found a tiny spot to pitch a tent by a river. We set up camp, ate and crashed just after sunset. All in all, a pretty awesome day. JUKEBOX------------------------------Tell your friend about PocketMail and let the savings start rolling in!WARNING: This e-mail is a suspected phishing scam.