Date: 2016-07-20
From: NH 16 - Pinkham Notch

To: Madison Hut
Miles today: 8.0

Up at 5:30 after a pretty good nights rest. Packed up my gear since I was heading out today into the Presidential Mtns. Hugh breakfast again and ready for the shuttle to Pinkham Notch leaving before 8. Stopped in at the visitor center for batteries for my headlamp and the spot. Met Gumby, a Sobo outside the visitor center. He was trying to get organized with all of his stuff scattered around him on the ground. Weighed my pack on a pack scale before heading out - 41 lbs with 7 days of food and 2 quarts of water, way too heavy. Started walking before 10 am. The trail starts out level and nice with a 1000' climb over Lowes Bald and got to Osgood Camp 5 miles in around 11:15. Ate a snack, camel'd up, made Nuun, and talked to a family out for the day. The climb up to Mt Madison starts steep for 2000' with the next 1000' rolling up and over six rocky shoulders on the ledge leading to the summit. The trail up to the ridge was strenuous, but my legs felt strong and the trail was much nicer vs what I normally saw in Maine on a big climb. The transition was the same though, hardwoods at lower elevations transitioning to pines and eventually krummholz in the alpine zone. I had worked up a pretty good sweat on the way up but cooled off fast once in the krummholz, it was windy and getting cold as I got closer to the top. On the ridge I met a woman in her fifties out for a day hike and talked for a while. We both love Mt Madison. My affection goes back to the first real backpacking trip that I went on. I was 19 and my brother asked if I would like to join him and a few friends on a hike into the Great Gulf Wilderness in NH. It was sometime during August of that year and a number of things happened that changed the course of my life. I don't remember if Madison was the first or second peak that we climbed, but I remember how much I struggled to climb to the top. The summit was in a cloud as we got there and we all sat down on the rocks looking out at whatever we could see with 40' of visibility. Our route was up past the Madison Hut nestled between Mt Adams and Madison with a final 500' climb to the summit. While sitting at the top, up came and old couple donning full packs and parkas can an old couple, probably as old as I am now. They came bouncing over the rocks and I remember being so impressed that I vowed to be like them, strong hikers when I was that old. Shortly after they came over the crest of the peak, the cloud we were in blew away and what I saw was breath taking, the Presidentials with a canopy of high spotty clouds. At that instant, I fell in love with big mountains. After a while, another cloud blew in and we were back to 40' of visibility. A few other things were memorable from that trip. A big rain storm blew through while we were in the Wilderness and all of the hikers piled into Hermit Lake shelter. We were packed in like sardines. Among the hikers were two sweet young gals from NYC. One of them slept next to me and was the first to get up in the morning. I felt her get out of her bag looked up and there standing next to me was a very cute buck naked young woman - oooohhhh, I love hiking in the wilderness. Lastly, when we entered the Wilderness for our hike, Richard Nixon was the President. When we left, he had resigned. Now, back to the present. At the summit it was really windy and freezing cold. I shared the summit with a family of four, mom and dad maybe 50 or so, and their two young children, a girl maybe 8 or 9 and a boy about 5. The boy was whining about being cold, so mom went down to the hut with him. Dad and his daughter ducked out of the wind behind a big rock to enjoy the view of Presidentials. I stayed for a while to soak up the view and headed down to the hut half frozen. I got to Madison Hut around 3:30 and asked for a work for stay, and was the first of four to get the privalage for the night. The AMC cru at the huts allow a small number of thru hikers to eat and sleep at the hut in exchange for an hour or so of work. You eat what is left over after the paying guests and the cru eats and you sleep on the floor in the dining galley - it's a great deal and a lot of fun. Splash, a thirty year old Sobo was one of the other 4 and was tasked with telling the guests about the life of a thru hikers. She did a great job and I was able to pitch in and add to her dialog. The work that I did for the cru was to clean out a giant pot that they used to cook a mound of oatmeal. Since the windows in the hut were open a crack all night long, it was cold in the hut and I was glad to have my 15 degree sleeping bag. Lights out at 9:30-10 and I went off to sleep almost immediately.