Date: 2013-08-11
From: kinsman notch

To: crawford notch
Miles today: 43.3

I got back on the trail today after spending a wonderful weekend with Alison in North Woodstock. I was sad to see her go but I realize now I won't see her again until I summit at Mt. Katahdin in about a month from now. I hope she changes her mind and climbs the last 5.5 miles as it is truly spectacular and also a thousand feet shorter than Mt. Washington, piece of cake! I got dropped off at the hikers welcome hostel where I finally met back up with mother Teresa after more than two months. I am hoping to finish this section with her and a fella named peaches. Peaches got his name after an incident whee he was carrying a bag of peaches on his pack for a few days and as they softened up, he took a fall and smashed the peaches all over his gear. It doesn't take much to get a trail name and this one literally stuck on him. As it turns out, I am able o get involve with some slack packing along with these two thanks to Jetlag. Jetlag got off trail after hiking over 1600 miles and has since decided to come to the white mountains and provide mother Teresa and peaches with some ultimate trail magic by slack packing us through the white mountains. Yesterday we slacked for 16.1 miles and hiked between kinsman notch and Franconia notch where we climbed over south and north Kinsman mountains at about 4300 ft. The climb was the most technical climb of the trip and the rain added to the slippery suspense of trying to walk on long sections of smooth wet and mossy rock trail. We started at 7:45am and got off the trail about 6:00pm before having a nice shower and a steak in the evening, a nice benefit of slack packing. Today we half packed meaning, we only brought gear and food we would need for one night out as we hike about 27 miles between Franconia notch and Crawford notch. I lightened my pack by about 10 lbs and it made a big difference as we hiked over several peaks this day. From the parking lot we climbed liberty spring trail to Franconia ridge trail which took us over mount liberty( .3 miles side trail was awesome), little haystack, Lincoln and mount Lafayette. It didnt help that i twisted my ankle and slammed my body into the mountain, laying in pain for a few minutes and finally getting up and walking off the pain. Gotta watch my footing !!The Garfield ridge trail continued on the white blaze and after over two miles of above treelike hiking we dipped back into the tree line and ended up climbing Garfield and finally settled at Garfield shelter and campsites where I'm nicely tucked into my sleeping bag tapping on this mini keyboard. All of these mountains I've named are ovr 4000 feet, Lafayette is 5291 ft. The total miles for today was 10.5 and tomorrow we'll do about 17.4 miles to get to Crawford notch where we'll get picked up by Jetlag and brought to Gorham where we will rest before tackling the presidentials on Saturday and Sunday. The weather is cooperating well and looks good into Tuesday at this point so I've got my fingers crossed that we'll continue without getting wet. Looks like we could be in Maine by tuesday next week, the last and most exciting state in New England. It typically takes about three weeks to reach Katahdin once you get to Maine where it's wicked fun eh?!It's 6:55am and Mother Nature calls! Had to wait in line to use the privy and almost didn't make it. Thank god Cruise couldn't handle the odor or it would have got messy!! What a beautiful morning and I can't wait to get going. I am telling people that this next stretch is the easiest 17.4 miles you're gonna have in the whites but they are skeptical. We'll see what we'll see!!