Date: 2017-07-07
From: Mizpah Hut

To: Gorham
Miles today: 6.4
Weather: light rain

I'd expected the Presidentials might be a little, well, boring once we'd dropped back into the tree line, but our glacial pace this morning along the Webster Cliff Trail wasn't because of trail difficulty.Instead the problem was the polar opposite: a series of gobsmacking views that had us continually stopping to soak them in.Rare, Dirt and a fast young sobo by the name of Switchback and I had the chance for a leisurely breakfast, since the young hut workers had asked us to do a morning chore of sweeping out the dining area in return for being fed all the excess blueberry and coconut porridge, coffee and cinnamon rolls left over from the paying guests' breakfasts.Since we were just sitting around waiting as the croo completed their tasks, I suggested we take the opportunity to do the sweeping. With everyone helping, it took about five minutes.But just to show that no good deed goes unpunished, the croo then announced that we needed to sweep all the bunkrooms and fold the blankets. There were a few grumbles about this, particularly since Dirt and Switchback were keen to get going, but we also knew that anything we did now wouldn't affect us but would the hikers that followed, so we kept silent and completed the work. Once again, with all of us involved, it took far less time than we feared and we were on the trail by 8.40am.After that it was the views that conspired to slow us down, but we finally dropped off the ridge and into the forest, where the absence of vistas meant we booked it to the highway at Crawford Notch.The others all went for a swim before climbing the other side of the valley towards Zealand Falls Hut but I was heading back to Gorham, where I'd stashed my extra gear while traversing the Presidentials. Now that we'd done the hardest above-treeline section of the trail, it meant I could send some of my cold-weather gear ahead to pick up after I finished the trail.Three hitchhiking lifts -- one with a pair of mountain guides with whom we chatted about adventures in the world's crinklier corners, the next with an AMC worker who referred to his workplace as the "Appalachian Money Club" and finally with a guy heading up for a fishing weekend -- got me back to Gorham and what was by now my second home at The Barn hiker hostel.There were a few familiar faces around, such as Fern and Gully who were about to head up to Madison Springs Hut but bailed because of the poor weather forecast.However, what made the biggest impression was how the next wave of sobos had arrived, showing the same familiarity with each other as the group who started around the same time as us but who is never seen. But I also knew the nature of the hiking community meant they're likely to be as friendly and approachable as the rest of us but we hadn't yet get the chance to break the ice.Life is good.AT fact of the day: So far the physical privations of the AT have precluded the kind of walk-and-talk that characterised my hikes on the PCT and the CDT. The cruisey terrain from Mizpah Hut meant the Dirt, Rare, Switchback and I could have the kind of wide-ranging discursive conversations. It's something I've definitely missed, but I hope the easier terrain marked by end of the White Mountains in a few days will allow that kind of hiking to take place here.