Date: 2011-08-07
From: Osgood Tent Site

To: Stealth spot off of the Wildcat Trail
Miles today: 9.6

(In which I hike over the Wildcat range in the rain)I wake up briefly at 1am to sounds of rain, and double check that all of my gear is safe and my ground sheet appropriately folded before going back to sleep. It's still raining in the morning, and I pack up as much as I can in the tent before hopping out and packing up my wet tent. The rain is light and relatively warm, but I am still awfully glad that I finished the descent from Madison yesterday, and doubly glad to have finished Washington.I walk slowly and carefully down the trail, wary of every slick rock, and come to the unblazed Wilderness Area that the hut volunteer (I found out later that he wasn't a hut crew member, which I should have known by his knowledgeability) had warned me about. In addition to a lack of any blazes, the section also contains wooden signs that often omit any mention of the AT, referring only to local trail names. The secret to following the trail, I soon learn, is to look for the faint AT symbols that previous hikers have scratched in next to the right local trail (or in some cases, to look for the chiseled out patch of sign where the offending graffiti had been removed).When I reach the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center I am pleasantly surprised to find food, wifi and shelter from the rain. I eat two grilled cheese sandwiches while I dry out and catch up on some email. While I'm hanging out I meet Dutch, the only hiker I've seen with a beard bigger than mine (although not by much). "So you're Portrait," he says. "The sobos keep telling me that there was this other guy with a huge beard also." Like me, Dutch gave his beard a little head start before Springer, and while I admire his volume, I like to think that the variance in color gives my red and orange hued beard a little something that his plain brown lacks, as prideful as the thought may be.After three or so hours of lounging at the visitor center I finally hit the trail again when Doc Boom, Trashcan and Marathon show up, eat and head out. They each suffered through the hike up and over Madison that I found slow and tedious enough when it was dry. We climb up the Wildcats together, a series of steep ups and downs that no doubt offer great views when it's not overcast and raining. I stick with the group to give myself some pacers, and climbing up the steep wet rocks at their speed means that I am soon dripping with more sweat than rain."I really hope that the hut crew kids don't pull another power trip on us," Doc Boom says, fed up it seems not so much with getting turned away as with getting treated like a second class citizen. "I get it, they have to put up with obnoxious tourists all summer, but it's the 'get yelled at so you kick the dog' phenomenon, and we're the dog."When we eventually reach the hut, several ups and downs later, we are turned away by an unsympathetic crew, the only two spots having gone to Amanda and Jessie who showed up a half an hour earlier. Since this is the last hut on the AT, this means that we won't have to deal with the hut system any more, a pleasant thought. We are given rough directions to a stealth spot, but Doc Boom and co. are wary, having been directed yesterday to a tiny spot barely big enough for one tent where they all had to squeeze in for the night. When we reach the spot a quarter mile off of a side trail we are delighted to find an collection of six flat spots that could each comfortably fit a tent.We set up camp and I play some music on my speaker, and despite the wet, difficult day and frustrating hut experience, all of our spirits lift. "This is actually way better than staying at the hut," Marathon says, and we all agree. We cook trail magic marshmallows from the visitor center over Trashcan's alcohol stove, and for the first time in the Whites I feel like I am on the AT again, where a thru-hiker can feel at home.Having already made reservations at the White Mountains Hostel, I plan to stop just short of Gorham tomorrow and to nero into town the day after. A week or so later I plan to reach Rangeley, ME, one of the last town stops on the AT and my last mail drop for anyone who still wants to send me food or New Balance shoe prototypes.Jeffrey Stylos c/o General DeliveryRangeley, ME 04970Please hold for AT hiker, ETA August 15It's a difficult to think of Maine as anything but a fabled, mythological land, but with less than 35 miles of New Hampshire remaining, I will likely soon reach the AT's final state, as strange a thought as that may be.