Date: 2008-09-05
To: All Signs Point to ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂNoÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ
Miles today: 0.0

      Figuring that with all my gear in one place and already having the experience of packing it all up, I thought it would be a quick hour to get everything ready. I was wrong. We started the process at 10pm on Thursday and didn¢t finish until 1am. I packaged up all of our food into ziplock bags and struggled to fit everything into a pack which had become one half of its original size after squeezing the closed cell foam therm-a-rest inside to form a frame. I was so frustrated with the lack of space that anything remaining would have to be excluded from this trip: no crocs, no sunglasses, no visor, no comb, no nail clippers, even! The pack had reached its full capacity.         I still had to devise a final itinerary, knowing that Hurricane Hanna was on its way and Erik had no shelter! Since all of this had been my idea, I was the only one equipped with a tent and proper gear. Erik was just coming along for the ride as a good friend, so it was my responsibility to keep him warm and dry. I wanted to follow the AT on this trip, so my plan was to park at Pinkham Notch, catch the shuttle to Crawford Notch, and follow the AT for the next 26 miles over Mount Washington, onto Mount Madison, back to Pinkham Notch, and then over the Wildcats. As it was too late at night to check for shuttle availability, we arose at 5:05am, after less than four hours of sleep, threw our packs in the trunk of the car, and headed north with the assumption that all would work out. The first problem arose as we approached the New Hampshire tollbooths¢¦ my money was in a ziplock bag, stuffed inside of my backpack in the trunk. Where was Erik¢s money?- in the same place in his pack! The tollbooth collector was not amused¢¦        At 8:40, we reached the town of North Conway and stopped for a whole wheat breakfast bagel with eggs, cheese, and bacon, and a coffee on the side. It was delicious. At the stroke of 9, we called the shuttle reservation number, desperately hoping that they would have space for us on the 10 am departure. The next one would leave at 1pm and would not give us enough time to hike to the Mizpah Spring tent sites. No problem. There was plenty of room for us. We paid the elderly driver $16 each and told him where we wanted to be dropped off. Two college-aged AMC workers flirted outside the van, saying their summer good-byes. Then we were off. It was later during the ride that the driver told us he was not scheduled to go to our drop-off (even though it was listed as a stop in the printed schedule). He said he could drop us off at the Highland Center, which was 3.7 miles up the road from our trailhead. We could have reached our destination from a trail that started at the Highland Center, but it would have been a much shorter hike, and I really had my heart set on hiking on the actual AT. The only other passenger in the van was Beth- a caretaker at several of the mountain campsites. We soon found out that she had plans to hike the AT this coming March, as well, along with her mother. They were planning on completing the trek in four months. I could not help but make comparisons between us. It was so easy to see- a confident, strong-bodied girl, who made her living outdoors (carrying up to 125 pounds of supplies on her back to deliver to huts, living in a tent for entire winters, hiking all over the Whites and Maine with stories of moose and bear encounters), and me- a pale, inexperienced, and under-confident person, who had yet to throw a bear bag, and who wasn¢t sure how she could have possibly gotten the idea in her head to hike 2, 175 miles. I wasn¢t feeling very gregarious and I pictured myself in this same situation in Georgia. I imagined that I would be thinking ¢What am I doing down here, so alone and far from home?¢ Beth¢s attitude, on the other hand, was ¢Bring it on!¢ after I told her that it was supposed to be a cold winter.          She suggested that we could hitch a ride from the Highland Center to our trailhead. I didn¢t think I would have to do that until I started my hike in the South. As it turns out, the driver did have time to drop us off at our intended trailhead, so with an extra tip from Erik, we took our leave from the van at noon, put on our trail shoes, and headed across the street to start our 6.4 mile climb up the Webster-Cliff trail. Beth had informed us that this was one of the least favorite sections for the AT thru-hikers, along with Wildcat Mountain. Hmmm. Did I make such a smart plan for us unseasoned hikers? Before we hit the trail, I saw a large group of young people heading in our direction. Because they were on the AT, I assumed they must be thru-hikers, but then realized that thru-hikers don¢t travel in large packs. It must have been a college orientation group. We passed a father and daughter team, and continued climbing. I was loudly talking to Erik, who was behind me, when we heard a loud scampering noise in the woods to our left, about 45 minutes into our hike. It startled me. A bear or bobcat or other large animal must have been spooked and took off. A bird fluttered away a moment after. I wished I had not been talking, so I would have had a chance to see it. I kept looking off into the woods but never saw anything.          After nearly an hour and a half, we reached our first vista. Two hikers were sitting on a rock, eating lunch and enjoying the view. Two clues suggested that they were thru-hikers to me- one being the box of pop-tarts that I saw. Unlike the trip in Vermont, I no longer had the enthusiasm to talk to every thru-hiker that I came across, so we continued on and came to an area with an even more expansive view. Erik looked over the edge and exclaimed ¢I¢ve never seen this before!¢, to which a woman seated nearby looked on with pride, as if he had just climbed his first mountain. He was referring to the fact that he had never seen this side of the valley. We took some pictures and then the couple we had passed by came through. The older couple wished them well, clearly having already spoken to them. I piped in, ¢Are you going to Katahdin?¢ They said they were trying... ¢What about you?¢          ¢Not this time¢, I said. ¢Maybe next year!¢          ¢Don¢t do it!¢ the guy quickly said, without even bothering to look at me. ¢You¢ve really got to LOVE hiking,¢ he continued, ¢because that¢s all you do¢. They said they missed things like air conditioning, the internet, and food- things they had at work.       ¢But that doesn¢t make you happy¢ I reasoned. He nodded his head in agreement, but then commented on the monotony of the trip, yearning for the variety of things they did before this hike. They asked where we were headed that evening and said they¢d see us there. I asked what their names were and they said ¢John and Kelly¢. They had no trail names!        We wished the other couple a nice day and headed off. It felt like it was taking a long time to reach the peaks we had to cross. We finally got to one of the summits (according to Erik), but after taking a minute to choose between the two 180 degree directions the trail offered us, we realized we had not yet reached the true Mt. Webster peak. Once on the real summit, we pulled out our map to confirm. As we traversed the trail, I kept my sight on the Wiley house down in the valley for distance checks, but as we walked on, it barely seemed to change!            There were a couple of steep faces we had to descend and I had to do a little butt scooting, which was very difficult with the large pack and shift in the center of gravity. This seemed to be the biggest difference to me in hiking with a daypack, compared with a full backpack. The couple with the dog that we saw on Webster eventually passed us. They had no packs. They were just doing a day hike loop. The guy said, ¢Can I ask you a question?¢ He was wondering if permits were needed to camp. He said he had been dying to get out there. I wondered why he didn¢t just do it if he wanted to so badly, especially as it seemed so convenient for him to day hike in the mountains.        On we went, following the dog couple. We approached the summit of Mount Jackson, and remained just below to have our own space as we refueled with a power bar. As we headed to the expansive summit, the flock of people up there were all on their way out, so we ended up having it all to ourselves. By this point, we could see Mizpah hut in the distance, so that gave us a little perk of energy.                We continued on, back into the tiny evergreens. All of a sudden, I saw a good-sized white and black bird fly onto a nearby branch. Then, to my surprise, he flew to a branch that was even closer to me- maybe a foot or two away! He just stayed there, occasionally chirped, and looked right at me! I was amazed. A second bird of the same species flew to the original tree. Erik thought they were protecting a nest. It was the closest I had ever seen a bird- or at least one that stayed stationary for so long. We went on our way and a few minutes later, I saw a squirrel in a tree. I looked at him and then he did the most surprising thing- he winked at me! (No kidding! His other eye remained open!) Erik wondered if I was in Disney World!Not long after, we overtook two ladies that had been hiking in front of us. One had imagined that I was a bear following her, until she saw me. They asked us to save a place for them at dinner, but I informed them that we were tenting and would not be dining with them. They wanted to know how far the hut was and I said very close. Erik added that it was probably a quarter of a mile. ¢Oh! That¢s music to my ears!¢ the woman at the rear exclaimed. The ground flattened out and my pace picked up. I was passing people left and right. It felt great!             We made it to the hut by 5:30, used the bathroom, chatted with one of the ladies, Mel, who told Erik that she had climbed Katahdin eighteen years ago, and that this was her first opportunity since then to camp (?!), and then made our way over to the tent sites. The caretaker was talking to one party, telling them to put their food in the bear box. She directed us to the nearest platform and said she¢d be over in a minute (to collect our money). We decided to head further back where it was quieter. I didn¢t see any sign of Kelly or John. The caretaker told us that we were not allowed to visit the hut between 6-7:30 while the patrons were having dinner. We set up our tents and started water boiling for our Tuscan white bean soup. The package gave instructions to boil 4 and 1/2 cups of water, so we filled my MSR pot up to the brim! I think it is only meant to contain three cups. Erik had to keep lifting the pot off the stove so it would not overflow. We let the beans soak for another 12 minutes and at last, it was time for dinner. It was pretty tasty! We cleaned up in the dark and then headed back to the hut to use the bathrooms, brush our teeth, and wash up. I got to try night hiking as we made our way back to our tents, which was interesting as you can only see a couple of feet ahead of you.            It was 8 o¢clock and completely dark, and I didn¢t feel like writing anything in my journal. I thought it would be best to get as much sleep as possible as we hadn¢t slept much the night before, and it had been a long day. I guess neither one of us was really ready to go to sleep at that hour, though. By 10 or 11pm, it seemed like morning should have been there! Oh my goodness¢¦ The wind started whipping up high in the trees, and I worried that it would start raining and Erik and all our gear would have to come inside my tent! There wasn¢t room for all of this in my single-person tent! I tried to imagine what it would be like to be out in the elements, all by myself for six months. Hmmm¢¦ Maybe I just wanted to stay in my safe, warm bed. Eventually, we drifted in and out of sleep, and no rain fell.