Date: 2012-08-05
From: North Woodstock, NH

To: North Woodstock, NH
Miles today: 16.4

This morning we were all up at around 6:00am and were ready by 7:15am to be taken up to the trailhead. Today it is to be mostly cloudy and foggy in the morning but it is to rain later on in the afternoon so we were happy to get an early start. We got to the trail at around 7:30am and headed back up to the mountain top. It was not a very long uphill climb but it was very steep and it was still morning so it took us awhile to get to the top. Jersey and Dakota Dan got out ahead of Big Sky, Hill Hiker and I and that was the last we saw them till we got back into town. We were going at a slower pace and we were feeling tired even though we did not have our packs. We got to the top of Mt. Wolf and took a break before heading down 1000 feet to the next shelter. The trail did not go down very steep at all but it was a continuous rock scramble and it took us forever to get down to the shelter. The down hills in the Whites are just as hard as some of the uphills down south.We got to the shelter and it was empty all but someone¢s gear that was all spread out. We just figured that they were just getting water or in the privy but no one ever showed up. We stayed there for a while and soon a group of nobo's showed up, their trail names were Todo, Bucket, Spot and Tex. We never meet any of them before and they were the first nobo's we saw in the last two or three weeks. We all stayed for a while and talked then got some water and continued on. From the shelter the trail started up to Mt. Kinsman and it was a 1900 foot climb. It turned out to be a very slow and tiring uphill, once again it was a continuous rock scramble all the way to the top and we were in the fog so all the rocks were slippery. We finally made it to the top and it was slightly above ridgeline but it was very foggy and windy so we did not stay for long. The trail went down a little then back up to the north peak of Mt. Kinsman then started down the other side very steeply. It went down about 1200 feet in about a mile and a half and it took almost two hours. At the bottom of the steep downhill, it leveled off a little and there was the Lonesome Lake Hut, our first AMC hut.I guess I will explain what the huts are because I will be talking about them more in the future. In the Whites there are huts along the AT and each one is spaced about ten miles apart. They were built back in the 1930s and 40s and can sleep anywhere 40 to 100 people. They are not intended for thru hiker use; you have to make reservations a year in advance and it costs $95.00 per person each night. You can only get to them by hiking to them; there is no electricity other than the kitchen and it runs on solar panels. There are no showers but there is a well and running water at each on. They are run and maintained by the American Mountain Club (AMC) and there are two to three care takers that do all the cooking and cleaning at the huts. Each day they cook backed goods, bread, breakfast, lunch and dinner for the guests but hikers can stop in and buy some of the baked goods and other food. The only way thru hikers can stay there is if they work for stay and it is first come first serve and they have limited space for thru hikers. Usually the work is cleaning dishes, sweeping floors or sometimes it is some random easy task. Oh and the hikers get to eat as much food as they want after all the guests are fed because they have no way of saving the food and it is just thrown out.Ok now that that is explained where was I, oh yes we got about 15 minutes from the shelter and it started to rain on us and then it soon poured on us. We got to the hut while it was still poring and they told us we could come in even though we were soaking wet. We sat in the kitchen/dining area until the rain quite then continued on to do the last three miles of the day. We went along side of a lake then followed a creek down the mountain. The trail was flooded from all the rain; at one place there was almost a foot of water on the trail. The trail had turned into a pond but we found a way around it and our feet stayed mostly dry.Going down the slippery and ponding trail really slowed us down and it was starting to get late. We got to a creek and found out that the bridge had washed out last year and there was a detour over it on another trail. We followed the detour and crossed the creek and continued down the mountain. We got to a sign that said two miles to NH 3 which was the road we wanted so we knew we were close. A little further down the trail we noticed that we were not seeing any more white blazes¢¦we had taken a wrong turn while detouring around the creek! We knew that this trail would take us to the right road anyhow so we just kept going because it was getting late and we did not want to go back up the mountain to find the AT. We finally got to NH 3 at around 6:50pm and called the owner of the motel in North Woodstock and told him where we were on the road and he came and picked us up. We finally got back to the motel at around 7:15pm and found out that both Jersey and Dakota Dan went down the same wrong trail that we did¢¦I wonder how many hikers have done this before. So far we have found out that the maintainers do not seem to want to help us thru hikers out at all; the signs are confusing, there are very little blazes and the ones that are there are so old and faded that we can¢t see them till we are right in front of them. Big Sky, Hill Hiker, Dakota Dan and I got to talking and we all decided to take a zero tomorrow because all our clothes and gear are wet, we still have not done our laundry or resupplied, today just killed us and we just need the rest, plus my new boots are starting to blister my feet a little. So tomorrow we are just going to do nothing and relax...night all.