Date: 2016-06-27
From: Mt. Washington

To: Pinkham Notch
Miles today: 11.5

Sorry for the long delay in posting. A lot has happened since my last posting on June 7. Last night we stayed at the White Mountains Lodge and Hostel in Gorham, NH. Saturday I hiked the AT section from Mt. Washington to Pinkham. In my opinion, this is clearly one of the 5 hardest sections on the AT and perhaps one of the 3 hardest. I¢ll provide some description of it a little later. But first I want to fill you in on what we¢ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. Most of you have heard of our narrow escape on Mt. Lafayette and we appreciate your thoughts and notes to us. We owe a great deal to Wolfman who found us and saved us from a life-threatening situation, and to the Pemigewasset Search And Rescue team led by the NH Fish & Game Department as well as volunteers from other groups who got us down to treelike and then off the mountain. We¢re still working on a summary of those events that I¢ll share when finished.After the Lafayette experience, we took several days off and supported Wolfman through the White Mountains and into Maine. He¢s now in Rangely and doing well. We were incredibly fortunate that he came along. We¢ve learned that he¢s very thoughtful and deliberate, but when he discovered us in trouble on the mountain he acted quickly, decisively and effectively. And we¢ve continued to hike and support One More. He has a vehicle and we have been able to use both cars to advantage.We have jumped around a bit. After our rescue, we went back to North Woodstock for a night, then on to the AMC Highland Center for a night where we rejoined One More and Greatness who hiked in from Galehead Hut that day. From there we moved on to the White Mountains hostel in Gorham. One More started hiking again with a section from Gorham to Gentian Pond and then he did the Wildcats north of Pinkham Notch. But the weather was shaky in the Whites, so we decided to move on to The Cabin in East Andover, ME and Princess and One More did the Mahoosuc Notch section to Grafton Notch. I joined him for a section north of Grafton Notch and then we hiked the section south of the Mahoosuc Notch to Gentian Pond. The weather in the Whites cleared up this weekend, so I hiked with One More from Mt. Washington across and down Madison. That is one nasty hike, we had terrific weather on Sat - I can¢t imagine doing it in foul weather. One More did the Presidential ridge from Washington to Crawford today. The winds this morning were higher and more gusty than Sat with less visibility, so I decided not to join him. It¢s a little disappointing since this is one of the most awesome hikes on the trail, but not in very windy weather. We picked him up later when he got to the notch.As I mentioned, we stayed at the White Mountains hostel in Gorham. Marni owns and runs it, and it¢s a must stay on the AT in my opinion. You can¢t miss it, the AT runs right past the front of the hostel. Marni bought it and set it up several years ago when her son thru-hiked the AT so that he would have a place to stay when he passed through Gorham. Marni is the life of the place, but she has a lot of good help, keeps the hostel extremely clean, shuttles to the trailheads and makes running a hostel look easy. She spends time with the hikers and stays in touch with conditions on the trail. She can get you through the northern end of the Whites and through to Maine. Check our the ¢White Mountains Lodge and Hostel¢ on Facebook to get an idea of what all¢s there. Later this afternoon, we headed back to The Cabin where we left our car (we¢ve been using One More¢s Highlander). The Cabin is one of our favorite places on the trail. Honey and Bear are terrific folks with an unlimited repertoire of trail stories. Honey reminisces about hiking up Mt. Washington years ago in sneakers by moonlight. Their cabin is full of memorabilia from previous hiking guests and their walls are full of photos of them at the Cabin with legends of the trail like Earl Schaffer, Baltimore Jack, Seiko, etc. They have been wonderful to us and have helped us get through the AT sections around the Mahoosuc Notch area (cited by the AT Guide as either the most difficult or the most fun mile on the AT). They seem to know every inch of the trails up here in New England and they¢ve spent years helping maintain the trails. While we¢re hiking from The Cabin, Bear tasks us to carry TP sealed in coffee cans to resupply the privies (to discourage mice, etc.) and to inventory log books, pens, etc. While we were staying there last week, Lester Kenway, President of the Maine AT Club was also there and gave us some insight on the work of the MATC. Another guest was Seiko, who has hiked the AT 13 times. He made a superb strawberry cheesecake for us this evening. A major attraction of staying there is that they can slack hikers all the way from Gorham to Rangely.When it comes to hostels, our favorites up here are the Bearded Woods in CT, Green Mountain in VT, White Mountains in NH, and the Farmhouse and The Cabin in ME. That¢s not to say these are the only good ones, but they are on our short list in the northeast.What about the hiking? Once we recovered from the shock of our Lafayette experience (we¢re still waiting to get feeling back in our fingers but Princess¢ cuts and bruises have cleared up), we have been tentative about returning to the trail. Princess did the Mahoosuc Notch again because she thought it was fun and I did the descent from Madison to remind me how tough the AT can be. And we have had some great experiences in the past 2+ weeks. We¢ve seen a lot of moose and several bears. We saw a big bull moose on Rt. 2 just outside Gorham this morning and we have a video of a moose with twin calves crossing the road at Crawford Notch while we were waiting for Wolfman to finish a section. Princess has a video of a grouse taking a dust bath that she took coming down the auto road from Mt. Washington. And we¢ve had a stretch of really good weather. I¢ll include some of the photos I¢ve been taking.So tonight, we¢re helping One More plan the rest of his hike to Katahdin and we¢ll head home after dropping him off at the trail head and taking his car onto the end point of his hike. We will not complete our 3rd AT thru-hike attempt this year but instead we¢ll get ready for our John Muir Trail hike starting in September. Afterwards, we do plan to cover some of the Virginia and Smokey Mountain sections that we missed earlier this year, and we¢re hoping that several of our friends will join us on some of those hikes.