Date: 2018-07-21
From: Nauman Campsite

To: Perch Shelter
Miles today: 10.4
Weather: scattered clouds

We weren't in a hurry to get on the trail this morning. We plan to get to Lake of the Clouds Hut which is only a little over 4 miles away. We made it to the hut at 1:00 and went in to fill our water bottles. We talked to one of the croo at the front desk who didn't give us the option of doing work for stay or actually staying at the hut overnight at all. He strongly encouraged us to hike on up Mt. Washington and then stealth camp on the way down or stay at the shelter more than 1/2 way down the mountain or hike all the way down to the road and go into town. We explained our concern about any of those options because we are slow hikers and probably couldn' t make it that far. He insisted that even though the trail is more difficult going down, we would be able to make it. We finally decided to try it. We had a bowl of vegetarian soup and took off.Mt. Washington is 6288 ft. and the second highest peak on the trail (behind Clingman's Dome). The climb up wasn't too hard...in fact we wondered what the big deal is about climbing it.  The weather was fantastic...we could see for miles in all directions.  We had heard before we went up that you could see for 100 miles today.  We got a hot dog and pizza, chips and Diet Cokes at the snack bar. While we were eating up walks Justus who we met at the Welcome Hiker Hostel and he had given us a ride to get ice cream. We talked with him about the Wildcat Mtns. which he had just finished and we would do soon. It was good to see him again. He had a shuttle arranged down the mountain to his car.We started down at 4:30 and got a huge surprise...the trail was just a jumble of rocks and it didn't get any better the further we went. We were above treeline so we couldn't camp until we got below treeline. The rocks got a little better but it was still difficult going. We walked and walked until the sun set and the wind picked up. The guy at the hut had told us we could take the Sphinx Trail off the AT to get down to treeline where we could stealth camp. We never saw that trail take off the AT. Now it was getting dark and we had no place to camp and rain is predicted for tonight.  We turned on our headlamps and the AT is headed up another mountain so we saw a sign for Israel Ridge Trail that is supposed to connect to the Perch Trail where the shelter is and kept going. At the next trail junction there are no signs for the Israel Ridge Trail. We did see a sign for the shelter so we go that way. The trail doesn't have blazes to follow but rock cairns. These get smaller and further apart as we go further.It's now about 10:00 and we're in the middle of nowhere in the dark with the winds blowing harder. The sunset had been reddish tonight so I thought it wouldn't rain because I'd always heard "red sky at night ...sailor's delight" but we weren't ready to test it out, so we kept walking. We were both incredibly nervous as it got later and later and our bodies were beyond exhausted. I fell over on my side a few times and Rosie Red had taken a tumble when her hiking pole collapsed as we got toward the bottom of a rock scramble so she wasn't much stronger.  After that fall she had quickly told me she was ok..  Finally at 11:10pm we walked into the shelter and campsite. It was empty but we were so thankful to be there. God had certainly watched over us tonight. We pitched our tent inside the shelter since no one else was there. It took quite a while for the adrenalin to calm down so we could get some sleep. We had hiked for over 13 hours and more than 11.5 miles over tough terrain descending Mt. Washington and hiked almost 2 hours after dark. What a day!!