Date: 2004-09-06
From: AMC Campground at Mitzpah Spring, NH

To: Mount Washington
Miles today: 11.8

By mid-morning, the sun had burned away the mist which clung to the upper elevations of the Presidential Range where we were hiking. The scenery was spectacular above the tree line as the trail led us along the slopes of Mount Pierce, Mount Franklin, and Mount Eisenhower. The wind was moderate. The temperatures were cool and windy on the exposed areas and warm on the lee slopes. The terrain was rocky but the trails were okay.Several hundred feet below us, some thick white clouds were moving into the nooks and crannies of the mountain sides. The clouds resembled white quilts with subtle undulations of brightness. I felt an urge to run and leap off the side of Mount Pierce and land slowly into a puffy softness. How rare it was to stand above, rather than below, the clouds.The beautiful scenery also included views of the surrounding mountains, most of them lower in elevation.The dominant feature, Mount Washington, loomed ahead of us. A communications tower and a block shaped building were visible on the summit. Along a side of the mountain, tiny plumes of smoke were rising. These plumes were smoke from the tourist trains of the Cog Railway which ends on the summit. The smoke created a brown haze which drifted upwards and shrouded the view of the summit for a short duration. How odd, a haze of air pollution on the highest mountain in New England.Its upper slope was a gigantic mound of rocks and boulders. Will and I followed the white blazes and reached the summit around 2:00 p.m..There were actually several buildings on the summit and the terminus of the rail line. Dozens of tourists milled about. In the center of this scene was a red, metallic object shaped like an upside down horn. A barrier surrounded the object. There was a sign which identified the object as a device which collects and measures rainfall amounts. As I approached the device, a man bent over the barrier and spit into the horn shaped rim.Will and I walked over to a rocky high point where a sign identified the actual summit. A crowd of French speaking hikers were gathered around the sign. Speaking in English, one of them asked me if I would take a group photo. I agreed. As it turned out, I took about ten photos with ten cameras belonging to individual hikers."Un, Deux, Trois," I said before snapping each photo. These hikers from Quebec loved the French spoken cadence. When I had taken the final photo, I announced to them that I was a photographer. They broke out in laughter. I told them I was a hiker whose trail name was Paparazzi. More guffaws followed.Will bought me lunch at a snack bar. He asked an employee for information about how he could get off of the mountain. One of his questions mentioned hitch hiking. The woman behind the counter was rude and subtly disdainful toward him. Will told me that he would ask strangers for a ride to the bottom of the mountain. From there, he would hitch hike back to his car at Crawford Notch.Choo! Choo! A red passenger train pushed along by a coal and steam engine train approached the terminus. I snapped a photo as the train pulled in. A horde of tourists disembarked. I was told the price for a ticket on the train is forty-eight dollars.Will and I shook hands and parted ways.I left the summit and headed along the ridge toward Mount Madison, where there was an AMC hut and AMC campground in the vicinity.Early on, the cog railway passed within twenty yards of the trail. A train slowly passed by and I snapped a photo. A tourist waved to me and I waved back. I felt a burning sensation on my wrist. The wind had blown toward me some specks of hot coals from the train; one of the specks had landed on my wrist. I brushed off the speck and the pain went away.I was apprehensive as I hiked across the high country toward Mount Madison. It was almost dark out and there were no other hikers about. At the same time, it was exhilarating to trek alone across this wind swept, treeless ridge high above almost every other mountain in New England.I arrived at AMC Madison Hut just before dark. The staffers offered me a work for stay deal which included a supper and a breakfast. My job was to clean a cast iron stove. This job required me to remove pieces of the stove and clean them in a sink. I happily performed the task, grateful for a place to sleep.There were several thru hikers present who had also performed chores. One of them, a man in his early thirties named Hans, was a chess player. When the paying guests had left the dining room, Hans set up a chess set. We played chess while I cleaned the stove. Whenever it was my turn to move a chess piece, he would call me over from in the kitchen.There was an empty bunk room. We thru hikers were allowed to sleep on bunks instead of tables. What a luxury it will be to sleep on a mattress.