Date: 2017-08-20
From: Madison Spring Hut

To: Pinkham Notch / Joe Dodge Lodge
Miles today: 7.8
Weather: scattered clouds

Last night I did a variety of little chores for the Work For Stay ¢  helped clean off tables, sweep, clean windows, clean grills - and then we feasted! It was a Thanksgiving meal ¢ turkey, cranberry sauce, a baked apple with raisins, couscous, bread, peas, pumpkin pie. We were so happy! Then when it was close to lights out, the guests left the dining room and we set up our beds for the night. SOBO Trout, Greybeard, and Mother Nature pushed in the benches so they could sleep on the floor between picnic tables. I selected a bench seat against the wall and slept there. It was wonderfully warm! It was the first time in a while where I slept stretched out ¢ not balled up in the fetal position for warmth. The only downside was the epic snoring. Whenever I'm inside, someone always snores! (and earplugs aren't enough)So now....let me tell you about our hardest day in the Whites!* * * * *We woke up at Madison Spring hut and left early, since the regular guests needed the dining room for breakfast. If I had known what we were going into, I might have worn pants and probably would've taken less water. Anyway, we left the hut before they had posted the day's weather forecast, not that it would've helped much ¢ the weather hasn't been matching the forecast.I hadn't thought much about Madison before ¢ people talk about Washington, the Presidentials, the Wildcats -  and it's the lowest of a series of climbs (but at over 5,000 feet, still formidable) People also talked with some trepidation about being "above treeline," but I didn't really get what that truly meant either. I figured it meant full exposure to the sun. I didn't think about wind. I realize how foolish/na ve I sound. But when you're hiking every day, it's hard to keep up with all of the particulars of the terrain you'll cover.It was socked in and windy, much more so than the windiness we encountered back at Franconia Ridge. And it was all climbing rocks. The trail was marked by rock cairns at intervals. But the conditions were so foggy, we couldn't see the next cairn. We'd come up on a cairn and not be able to see anything ahead - it just looked like the end of the earth: "Here there be dragons." We were laughing at how strong the wind was, whipping the American flag at the summit like crazy! It was also all above treeline, rocky and barren like the surface of the moon.We took some photos and videos at the top ¢ because at that point, we still could. But after the summit was a long exposed ridge walk ¢ and that's where things got really hard. The wind just broadsided us - it reminded me of driving my parents' minivan along the Altamont Pass during string winds, the way the van would get pushed into the next lane. Except the van was now me in a pack, laden with 1 1/2 liters of water. (Mother Nature at one point dumped her water - but mine was in a bladder I couldn't reach. Also, she mostly dumped hers because she was so sick of her water bottles falling out!)The wind knocked us off our feet. We both took multiple spills onto the rocks, and at one point both of us were super low to the ground, trying to stay stable, and both got knocked onto our butts. I remember looking over at Mother Nature right after I hit ground, incredulous that she was in the same position!It was scary - I'd get blown onto my back and struggle to get back up again. Things were blowing out of our pockets, off our packs - even a zipper pull on Mother Nature's pack was ripped off by the wind!We were both holding onto rocks for support while also trying to avoid falling onto them. Somewhere in the madness, Mother Nature sliced open her pinky - and I could tell where she'd been, because she was leaving bloody fingerprints behind on the rocks!If she hadn't been there with me, I would have been really freaked out. I worried that we shouldn't be up there in those conditions. I worried that we'd never get back to treeline, where the blessed trees would finally block the wind!The wind was continuous, punctuated by these crazy gusts, which made it all even harder. We could tell when the wind would drop back a bit, and we'd try to speed to the next cairn for shelter before the next gust began. It was just insane.We were both tiring quickly. It was basically crawling - we stowed our poles because we needed our hands to grip the rocks for dear life. At one point I was going down the ridge backwards, crawling as if on a ladder, because it was the best way to stay low and stable. My pack was getting blown around my body, twisting everywhere. It took us about 2 hours to go 1 mile. I'd never been so happy to see trees again!I keep thinking about how much worse today would have been without Mother Nature to keep me company. I definitely would have gotten closer to panicking. There are parts of the trail that are so much better when shared with others. To have someone to laugh with when it gets hard, to break the tension when it gets scary. We have an ongoing joke that our hiking objective each day is: don't fall, don't die. So far we've been successful!* * * * *I'm now at the Joe Dodge Lodge at Pinkham Notch, praying that no one in the bunk room snores tonight. I found out that they didn't have laundry ¢ despite the fact that I was told they did when I made the reservation. So I did perhaps the most hiker trash thing yet this trip ¢ hand-washed everything in the shower using their shampoo and then hung it out behind the lodge to dry! At dinner I chatted with a New Hampshire family at my table, here to do a three or four night hiking trip, staying at the huts. They asked me lots of questions ¢ how do I charge my phone? (hostels, bathroom outlets, external battery) What kind of boots do I wear? (La Sportiva trail runners) What's "trail magic"? (good turns people do for hikers, anything from a cooler of sodas in the woods to a ride and place to stay for the night). It was sweet. You take all of this knowledge for granted, forget that you had to pick it up somewhere.My next food box didn't arrive yet - probably because I'm two days early. But I did have a great surprise: Mom sent me the sriracha bacon jerky, Scandinavian Sea Creatures, and Trader Joe's instant coffee! Fueled with these goodies, I can climb anything! Thanks Mom!And don't worry, I'm back from the windstorm and totally safe.