Date: 2008-07-20
From: Liberty Spring Campsite

To: Zealand Falls Hut
Miles today: 17.0

Today turned out to be a wonderful hiking day. By leaving very early I managed to complete a total of 17 miles for the day. I don't think I have ever done this many miles in the Whites before in a single day.I woke up around 5:30am. Not sure why - should have slept later, but I didn't. Did a very quick pack-up and on the trail by 6am. Sunrise is so early that I could probably have started hiking as early as 5:30am.Today consisted of climbing/hiking the Franconia Ridge mountains - Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Lafayette and Mt. Garfield. This entire range makes for a spectacular site, both from down below looking up and looking down from the ridge line.Today was the first where I saw a LOT of hikers. I think most are only out for the day or maybe several days. I saw small tour groups escorting folks over the mountains. There are companies that make a living from charging people to escort them through the Whites. There are also a lot of upcoming freshman college students who go through a college "orientation" by hiking through the Whites.There is also a group of dedicated "4,000 footers" who have a goal of climbing all the 4,000 foot mountains in the Northeast. Kind of like the folks in Colorado who do the same thing there - but on mountains much higher. You would think those climbers would have a bit more experience than others. Maybe so, but perhaps a bit less common sense. I've seen a group of them before celebrate reaching a peak by raising a metal flagpole with their personalized flag on it - all while there was a very close thunderstorm passing by. I quickly got the hell out of their way and off the peak.There is about 5 miles of hiking to get through the Franconia Ridge. Even with the mountains, the hiking is surprisingly easy since you are mostly moving along the ridgeline. I think those 5 miles were a major assist in how far I got for the day. What probably slowed me down a bit, though, were the fabulous views and time to take a number of photographs.For breakfast I had not heated anything up (which I was now normally doing). So for lunch, I treated myself to a hot meal of Ramen with some peanut butter added (it really does taste pretty good). I was very close to the Galehead Hut and stopped in for a bowl of their soup. Unfortunately, they were out of soup, but one of the Crewe members had some recently baked brownies. She offered me two - without any charge. Very nice of her.The Galehead Hut is about 1,000 feet lower than the surrounding mountains. Besides the Franconia Ridge mountains, I next had to go over the South Twin Mountain (almost 5,000 feet), Mt. Guyot and Zealand Mountain. There was quite a bit of rocks climbing up and over South Twin Mountain. There are very low stunted evergreens on the north side of the Mt. Guyot but bare bolders on the south side. The wind was probably around 20-30 mph. You have to be careful of the wind when climbing over the bouldars. Getting into the evergreen shrubs as I descended helped block the wind even though they are not very high. I was surprised to see relatively few hikers/climbers on top of Mt. Guyot. However, later at a hut someone told me the AMC does not classify Mt. Guyot as one of the "4,000 footers" to be climbed - so fewer folks do so. Yet the mountain is indeed over 4,500 feet high.Next was a terrain change - a very wet wooded ridge and then the climb to the top of Zealand Mtn (4260 feet). The summit there is all wooded and you can't see much.   After leaving the summit the trail begins a steep (1200 foot) drop to Zealand Falls Hut.   There appears to be mostly day hikers at the hut. The crewe told me this hut is only 2 miles from a trail-head and a lot of people hike in for the night. I saw a lot of kids, also. They made a lot of noise in the evening. But I really shouldn't complain since I was able to do work for stay. I had a unique "work chore" assigned to me - I was asked to give a short talk about my prior thru-hikes and answer some questions. I was more than happy to do so because I love to talk and it enabled me to leave the hut earlier tomorrow morning.There are several garter snakes that live in a stone wall that is in front of the hut. I saw a dad with his sone looking at the snakes. The dad told his son that it was okay to pick up one of the snakes - which he did. The snake then bit the boy. A garter snake bite is not poisonous or serious, but you would have a hard time telling the boy that.   The crewe served a dinner of soup and salad plus some type of pasta and spinich calizones. They also had apple cobbler with ice cream for dessert. That was what the paying customers got to eat. By the time it was our turn, all of the cobbler and most of the pasta was gone. But that's just the way it works.