Date: 2007-08-12
From: Mount Washington

To: Mizpah Spring Hut
Miles today: 6.2

Got into Pinkham late last night and decided to stealth just down one of the trails. I met a guy on the bus, who was planning to hike for the week and meet his parents near Franconia Notch. The 2 of us camped under the stars and watched the meteor shower. We woke up at sunrise and hiked back to the lodge for an All You Can Eat breakfast. I was thinking of catching a hitch to the top of Washington, but Eric talked me into hiking the Tuckerman Ravine Trail to the top of Washington. So we start the 4 mile trail up, and up, and up it went. I took a break about 2 miles where there are ski signs and a warming area for the winter. Talked with one of the AMC guys about the skiing in the winter, come to find out the skiers hike their gear to the top of this cliff and then do suicidal run either down the frozen waterfall or take one of the chutes that pretty much goes straight down the face of the cliff. No thank you. About this point I'm starting to miss Beck and I'm slowly thinking that this is it for me. I press on and while climbing hand over hand keep thinking how the hell does one ski down this. My 2 weeks off the trail is starting to show, I'm taking breaks up this climb more frequently. The good news thus far is that we have a clear sunny day at the top of Tuckerman¢s. We only have about a mile to go until we get to the Summit of Washington. The whole time I'm climbing I'm thinking of the views I'm going to get at the top. We make it to the top just in time for lunch. Eric and I decide to eat first then take pictures of the views. I get my bowl of chili and start digging in, I look up to see that we have been socked by cloud cover. We take our time eating hoping the clouds will blow thru. No such luck. We push out around 1ish to temps about 20 degrees cooler then when we got there, winds blowing about 20 to 30 mph. We make our way down the A.T. headed towards the Lake of the Clouds hut. It's weird being up here seeing all these day hikers moving hut to hut and complaining their day packs weigh too much. Passing some of these folks scares me since all of them are climbing to where we just came from and most don't look as though they have the right clothing for this trip. Eric and I work our way down the ridge, getting blown around by the gusty winds. We start our decent towards the Mizpah hut and I've never been happier. We rush into the hut at about 5ish to see if there is any "work for stay" available and we're in luck, they are taking 4 for the night. There are 2 Nobos that got the first 2 slots. We are told to wait outside until 7:30 and then we could come back and get some food. Trail magic hits again. At this spot on the trail is also an AMC campsite with a caretaker, she invites us hikers down to her tent where we all pass around a bottle of Old Crow whiskey. I¢m very familiar with this brand of whiskey (Beck can tell that story for me.) Way too long of a story, but just so everyone knows¢¦..it¢s sad when you think doing shots out of antique tea cups is cool!!! LOL!! We eat our food and do the evening chores and wait for the paying guests to retire to their bunks. As a thru hiker we sleep on the dining room tables when the guests retire to their bunk. Lights out at 10, but the "croo" continues to work in the kitchen for another hour.