Date: 2017-07-13
From: Hikers Welcome hostel

To: Moosilauke Lake
Miles today: 9.9
Weather: scattered clouds

"We should get going."Silence.Then there was spontaneous laughter from the group of us arced around the TV, watching Good Will Hunting.And to say there was silence between the sarcastic suggestion and the laughter isn't quite accurate because the rain that had been falling almost continually since last night was going through a particularly heavy shower, which is what had prompted the tongue-in-cheek suggestion.One of the many things this deluge had dampened was hiker enthusiasm, particularly for the nobos present who'd hiked more than 1700 miles and had little interest in tackling the first big peak of the Whites when the weather was terrible.Although Bashful (the German hiker formally known as Janine) opted to head out into the maelstrom to get her allocated daily mileage, most of the other sobos found excuses to put off our departure.I'm a little torn by this. There's still 44 trail miles to get to Hanover, from which I was going to go into Boston on Saturday to see some expat friends who I'd met in the Middle East. Now that the trail is out of the Whites and less arduous, I'd hoped to be able to knock out two 22-mile days, or possibly slightly shorter days then stealth camping a few miles from town and hiking in early on Saturday.The rain-delayed departure stymied those plans, although I still managed to do just under 10 miles after leaving at 2.40pm as the last remnants of showers ended. As I left, the others around the TV were just starting to watch Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I think it's fair to say this Fellowship of the Zero Day was going nowhere.With an even bigger storm bearing down on the region, supposedly arriving on Saturday, I might have to hitch into Hanover from an outlying road and then find a ride back out when I return to the trail on MondayAlthough the talk about the trail getting much easier after the Whites meant some of us were expecting something akin to a scenic travelator, I suspected difference would be comparative. But the first 10 miles suggested the travelator theory wasn't too far off. It was nice to be able to stretch my legs.There were a few other hardy souls out, most of them having walked through the rain earlier. The first, however, was a slackpacking woman who had left at 2pm. She looked like the archetypal dinner lady, being grey-haired, plump and elderly. She asked if there was anything terrible ahead, such as ledges or cliffs, and I was happy to advise that it was easy hiking to the hostel, although I tried to hint that the Whites would be another story.The rest all looked wet and bedraggled, making me feel better about my decision to wait until the rain ended. They all seemed to be just making the miles, and near Ore Hill camp ground, one delicately sidestepped the muddy bits of the path and complained how he'd never seen such a muddy route. Given that this trail would have felt like a superhighway if it'd been transposed into the middle of the Mahoosucs, I just smiled and thought about what he had to look forward to.Around 7pm, I found an excellent campsite beside a steam. The second course of breakfast, however, will be a 2000ft climb but after the last five weeks, I can't imagine it will be too bad...AT fact of the day: The Whites were certainly tough, but they came with compensations. I'm camping tonight and cooking for the first time since before Mahoosuc Notch, nearly two weeks ago. On every single night in between, I'd stayed in a high mountain hut or in a hostel down in the valley, eating the awesome hut food or town food instead of the provisions I was carrying.