Date: 2015-07-06
From: Crawford Notch

To: Madison Spring Hut
Miles today: 18.2

Today was an extraordinarily long day. I woke up around six, and the sun was already bright and filling the bunk room with light. I went to the breakfast buffet just after 6.30 and filled myself up on pancakes and cereal. The range of food was pretty good, though I'm still not convinced that it qualified the price. The bunk house there is clearly not designed with thru-hikers in mind. I started hiking about 7.30, and tried to hitch hike. There were almost no cars, and the cars that were driving by gave me a very wide berth. About 7.50, a woman gave me a ride, though I don't know how far I had actually walked by then. I got back on the trail about 8 and started the long upward climb. Hiking today was almost all up. There were a few rocky sections where I had to use my hands and ditch my poles. I met Not Yet and his cousin but I didn't see them again. I got to the Mitzpah shelter after 11. I stopped briefly to refill my water and then I was off again. There was a timeline there that said that it would take me 5 hours and 20 minutes to get to Mt Washington. I figured that would be about 5pm. Before then, I still has plenty more upward climbing to do. After Mitzpah I got up onto the ridgeline and then that's where I was for the rest of the day. I foolishly didn't put on enough sunscreen and got sunburnt, though half the day was cloudy. From Mitzpah the trail goes up and a little down (as usual), but unlike usual it actually goes around a lot of the peaks. This was really good because I didn't want to do even more unnecessary climbing. The ridgeline wasn't easy hiking like Lafayette had been, it was incredibly rocky most of the time. It reminded me of Pennsylvania actually. The trail was full of day hikers again, but I passed most of them without a problem. I got to Lake of the Clouds Hut about 2pm, where I was surprised to see Sputnik. I chatted with him briefly and then made my way up to Mt Washington. It's only 1.7 miles from Lake of the Clouds but it's extremely rocky which makes it slow going. I passed by a sign which warned people from using the trail in bad weather. I then passed by a lot of people who were just in shorts and tshirts, carrying handbags or nothing at all. I wondered if these people knew how quickly the weather can change in this area, if they knew that Mt Washington has had snow on every single day of the year and has the highest recorded wind speed on earth. I passed by the majority of those hikers too. I was practically pouring with sweat as I climbed up the final leg to Mt Washington. For miles the bugs had been all over me, little black ones that were getting stuck to my skin. Several times they flew directly in my eyes and nose. I also saw loads of big black spiders crawling over the rocks. One strange thing about the rocks is that a lot of them have some kind of quartz rock that catches your eye as you walk over it. A few times, I climbed onto larger rocks and saw glimmers of light underneath in the crevices that looked like creepy eyes. I eventually got to the top of Mt Washington, which has a summit height 6,288 ft. For comparison, that would be 1,103 of me stacked straight up. There were a lot of tourists, but that's not surprising consider how it has a road and a cog railway. I took a few photos and went inside the summit building. To my delight, there was a gift shop and a little snack bar. I bought an over priced hot dog (which had a folded piece of bread for a bun) and a hot chocolate. I later went back for a coke to hike with. I also wandered around the gift shop for a little while and looked at the various posters around the place. There is one that has a list of all the people who have died in the Whites for about 200 years, including the woman who died in February of this year. I had gotten to Washington about 3pm, two hours earlier than expected. I left about 45 minutes later. I didn't bother to join the queue for the summit sign photo. (Seriously, it was a long queue.)Being at the top gave me an incredible feeling. The view was spectacular in every direction, but mostly I had a strong sense of accomplishment. My entire trip through the Whites had been building up to Washington, and now I had done it. I couldn't help but imagine how it would feel when I finally summit Katahdin. I started the extremely rocky descent. On the way, I spotted the cog train. The people on board waved to me, and I waved back. I didn't participate in the tradition of some AT hikers in mooning the train. About 5 minutes after that, I caught my left ankle hard against a rock. It felt like an explosion of pain. Exactly like hitting my funny bone, but there was nothing funny about it. The pain in my ankle didn't fade away, and I had to limp carefully on the rocks for a while. Even now, hours later, it still hurts to walk on.At some point, the hole in my shoe ripped open again. Apparently some thread just won't cut it. I'm going to call Salomon and ask about their exchange policy tomorrow. The latter part of my day, hiking from Washington to Madison Spring Hut, was mostly empty. I only saw four people the entire time. Of course a random trail runner appeared at the moment I was singing along to my iPod. My poles also got stuck in the rocks repeatedly, and both my poles lost the lower sections at various times. I don't know how to fix that other than just jamming them back into place. I eventually got to Madison Spring Hut at 6.30. I had covered more than 18 miles today, over some of the hardest parts of the trail. I was exhausted, sunburnt, my left ankle hurt and then I rolled my right ankle badly on my way down to the hut. I saw four hikers sitting outside- not a good sign. The guests were having dinner, and I walked up to the information desk. A croo member in an apron greeted me, asking if I was coming to check in. I said no, and asked about WFS. He said that they were all full up, but there was a campsite... I wanted to cry. I was so tired, I was in pain, and now I would have to walk even further to a campsite. I had worked so hard, and all of it for nothing. The croo member was alarmed and said that they would try to fit me in. There were already 5 other hikers staying. I was number 6. I was also the only one who had done more than 10 miles, the only one who had been on the trail since Georgia. I felt like I was more entitled to the WFS than the others, but that's really not fair. We're all hiking, we're all tired and in pain. I am just very lucky that the croo decided to let me stay. Hiking 1,800 miles to get to this point holds no sway in these parts. I had dinner (of leftovers) about 8pm, and now I'm waiting for the croo leader to return from leading a hike so that he can direct all of us WFS people to actually do some work. I hope that with so many, we can be done quickly. I really just want today to be over. I definitely reached my limit in terms of endurance and energy today, and I hope it doesn't happen again. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be pretty bad, with rain and thunderstorms. I only need to do 7.8 miles to get to Pinkham Notch, although I don't know how long that's going to take with my ankle and the probably millions of rocks. The first thing in the morning is a 500 ft climb up Mt Madison, but it doesn't look too bad compared to what I have done already.