Date: 2014-09-07
From: NH 25C, Lake Tarleton Road

To: NH 112, Kinsman Notch
Miles today: 13.9
Weather: clear sky

What a day! Today is an ambitious hike for Daniel's first day on the trail with me, Moto, and Simple. It started out pretty good. Linda, Daniel, and I ate breakfast at the Longhorn Palace, then went to pick up Moto and Simple at the hostel. They had spent part of their Zero chopping out an old stump with an axe. They told us a bunch of hikers left the hostel yesterday to hike Mt. Moosilauke in the rain. Glad we had a day off. Linda dropped us off and the hike was on! Mount Moosilauke's elevation is 4,802 ft, and the descent is a very, very steep downhill for 3.8 miles.We got a little confused around Jeffers Brook Shelter, but figured out we needed to stay on the road until the white blaze led us off. We were told that there was a tradition that male hikers hiked Mt. Moosilauke in dresses. We didn't have any dresses, but we found one hanging in a tree right before the Mt. Moosilauke ascent. No one wanted to wear it; thankfully, it wasn't my size! After a good, steady, uphill pull,we reached the summit. It was a little breezy; we took some pictures. We met Green Giant, his friend, Joe, and Hermes at the top. We ate lunch on the leeward side; Daniel commented that he was surprised we didn't take more rest breaks. We were just getting back in the trees, heading down, when we met a southbound hiker who said, "Hey, I just want to give you a heads-up that there is a dead guy a couple of hundred yards down the trail." We asked, "What happened?" "Don't know. The guy was with two of his friends and he keeled over." (We later learned that he was a well-known, respected trail runner from the area.) By the time we reached the scene of the tragedy--a relatively flat area about the size of a kitchen table--several people were standing around the body, which was covered with what appeared to be a rain jacket. We asked if there was anything we could do. They said, "No," they were waiting for more people to arrive to help carry the body down the mountain. Moto, Simple, Daniel, and I discussed it briefly and decided we would continue to head down. We met a lot of people going up while we were going down. This was an extremely steep, difficult climb, and was very slick with water. There were iron rungs hammered into the rock for hand and foot holds. I had to sit down and slide on my butt a few times. Moto and I were together, and Daniel and Simple were ahead of us. We met a US Forest Ranger who said that the NH Wildlife Dept. had jurisdiction over the recovery operation. We told him we had seen a military medivac helicopter earlier, and he said that was a just a coincidence and that a Reserve unit was having a training exercise. It would cost too much to remove a body by helicopter from the mountain. We caught up to a family who had an 8-year-old girl hiking barefooted. Amazing! By the time we got down to the parking area where Linda was waiting for us, it was about 7 pm. The lot was crowded with cars due to the recovery effort. It was a very somber time. The task of carrying the man's body down would take hours.Moto and Simple are with us now at the Mt. Coolidge Motel. We have moved from our original room to one of the cottages. Moto has the floor of the screened porch, and the rest of us are in the beds in the cottage. We went to dinner at a local place--kind of a bar/pool room. We were able to speak to Charles by phone during dinner.Daniel has survived his first day.