Date: 2008-05-17
From: Hanover, NH

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Hello!Sorry that this entry took so long to post online. I have been without internet access for more than a few minutes for several weeks! This trip is just getting more and more interesting as the days pass on. I can't believe that so much has happened since making it to Rutland, VT. We finished Vermont (!!!!!) finally and have also finished the White Mountains of New Hampshire and are currently about 10 miles away from the Maine border! I can't wait to be in that final state. Hawk and I came home for Father's Day and really shocked our families. It was such a blast, and we're heading back to Pinkham Notch in a few days. It feels so great to rest! I feel so much healthier this trip than last one. When I came home off the Trail last year, I was completely beat - couldn't run/walk very far because of knee pain, didn't want to work out or eat well, basically just felt kind of down. This time, I want to cook and run and enjoy my family and friends I get to see! I really owe this to our new hiking philosophy - slow and steady wins the race! We've been averaging about 10 miles a day or less in the Whites, and have really been enjoying ourselves. I was so excited to hike out of Vermont. We walked through a little town and hung out there for 3 hours or more, getting off of our feet, and hiked to the last shelter in VT. The mosquitoes were awful there, and the seasonal spring was all dried up! It was very bizarre, and we had to hike down to get water. So we hiked and hiked and it started becoming dark. We finally made it into Norwich with sore feet, to the tunes of a jam band playing for a reunion party! We danced down the hill and regained our spirits. After crossing the CT River in New Hampshire outside of Hanover, we felt joyous but very tired - the roadwalk was really dehabilitating us. We couldn't figure out where to stay until Ethan, a grad student at Dmouth and a PCT hiker, called to us and invited us to stay with him at his home with his fiancee and roomate. We gratefully took the offer and had a nice night there. We had hiked 18 tough miles, and took only 3 miles the next day to Velvet Rocks shelter. We were wornnn out. We bought lots of marzipan - our newest crave- at the coop and I caught up with some friends, Hawk's sister, and my fam on the phone. We hiked up Moose Mountain the next day. We just felt so tired from the roadwalk! We did see two teenage moose there, however, which was exhilarating for me. When we left Moose Mtn shelter the next day, I got some awful cramps and the bugs really started to eat us alive. In a fit of pain and panic, I couldn't handle the trail and began to break down a bit. We hit a road and I just started running down it with Hawk. There were at least 300 mosquitoes following us. It was AWFUL!!!! I couldn't relax for one darn second, and my stomach hurt so much. Hawk said, "This is beautiful section, Alley... why are we doing it in such an awful way? Let's just come back and finish this part later." I couldn't have agreed more. We hitched to Glencliff and stayed at the Hiker Welcome Hostel. When we go back to Pinkham Notch in a few days, we're going to slack that part, and knock it out of the way. The next day I felt much better - some trail angel gave me advil which did the trick. Then the excitement kicked in... we were in the WHITES!!! We were about to do Mt Moosilauke! We powered up it the next morning, ate some figs before going above treeline and had a lovely, expansive view. We chatted all the way down to the shelter where Franconia appeared to us in quiet blue light. It was magical. The next morning we woke up to a grunting moose climbing past the shelter!! She looked like a camel, and was breathing heavily. The downhill of Moosilauke took me about 2.5 hours. I am pretty slow going down. Poor Hawk had to wait a good bit for me. Over Mts Wolf and Kinsman, up and down the Franconia notch - Mts Little Haystack, Lincoln, and Lafayette- to stay at my first hut: Greenleaf. Then over Mt Garfield on a rocky way to Galehead hut, and then up and over Mts South Twin and Guyot to the beautiful Zealand and Thoreau waterfalls and Ethan Pond (where we didn't swim due to leeches... EW). Then down to Crawford Notch where we met Grizzly - a very dedicated hiker who ran a restaurant where he gave us a free brownie sundae! Thanks! And then up the Webster Cliffs and Mt Jackson to Mizpah, Mt Pierce and where we watched the sunset on the ridge after Mt Eisenhower. We woke up early and hiked Mt Washington (lovely, but verrrry commercial) and went over the incredibly rock and slow path that weaved over the Presidential Range - Clay, Jefferson, Adams. We stayed at the lovely Madison Hut, and hiked up and down Mt Madison the next morning (very slow going on the top). The views have been really lovely. We had a giant heat wave that kept bugs up at over 5000 feet! It was incredibly hot. We worried for the poor hikers in PA. Hope everyone had enough water! Then we got this very serendipitous hitch back to Vermont where our car was (Thanks Doug and Jeff if you read this!!!) and surprised our dads the next day. Well, back to the trail soon! Today I'm enjoying making banana bread and running with my lovely sister. Hope you all have happy trails and are enjoying a sweltering start to the summer!