Date: 2005-08-31
From: Madison Springs Hut

To: Pinkham Notch, NH
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: fog

The Whites, holy crap we're in The White Mountains. The hut system didn't seem too friendly to the thru-hikers at the beginning, but things started to look good at Lakes of the Crowds when they accepted somewhere near 15 of us. The Croo at Lakes was awesome and hooked us up with some rad work for stay and food. The next day, (yesterday) we planned to head to Osgood Campsite after going over Mount Washington. Mount Washington was impressive, but somewhat muted due to the fact that I fell and broke my trekking pole on the way up. To make things worse, my camera battery died right after my Washington summit photo and my second battery had somehow slipped out of my bag. Things were looking pretty bad, but when we got to Madison Springs Hut they said that they could take our entire group of five for work for stay. Needless to say, we were more than happy to take some more work and a warm place to stay after the wet, wet, wet day.Sometimes best intentions don't work out. Sure we got to stay inside last night instead of sleeping, but...well. There's this little thing called Katrina, it's the remnants of a Hurricane, and you know what they say about weather in the Whites.Needless to say, we had to head UP Mount Madison in the howling winds and buckets upon buckets of rain. I had managed to get out of the hut fairly early and was second in line behind Thrifty up the mountain. On the way up I kept an eye on Kokomo, Quicksilver and Captain Bacardi and yelled out a fair amount of advice to them about the wet, slick rocks I had just hiked over. By the top I was fairly ahead of the other fellows, and the weather was well, a good bit worse. The wind was insane, the raindrops felt like bullets and I had to hold onto my pack cover, my camera cover, and practically everything that wasn't held on with straps and buckles.I'm not exaggerating, when I caught up to Thrifty, I had serious thoughts that I may die out here. The mountain was unrelenting. Thrifty and I had taken shelter behind a cairn and a rock to discuss options. I tried to prove to him that we could push on when the wind took not only my pack cover but also my kilt. Butt naked from the waste down I sprinted toward Thrifty and shelter to put on my rain pants. With restored dignity and restored clothing, we discussed all sorts of options, including holing up behind the rock, hiking back to the hut, or pushing on. Touk showed up sometime during this conversation, and we figured out that it may be possible to push on to treeline and possibly shelter from the weather. After 10 minutes of discussion, we could see Quicksilver coming down the mountain, he saw us as we prepared to press on and he pushed down the hill.When he didn't return, we figured he was either dead or successful and either option seemed better than waiting to shiver to death on top of the mountain. Fortunately for us, and he, we all survived.Ten minutes later we were in the trees, protected from the horrible Katrina. Let's make things a little better, when we get to the bottom of the hill and the Visitor's Center, Tink has a friend, the friend has a warm place to stay and an internet connection, and I have a smile on my face.