Date: 2014-07-20
From: Pike, NH

To: Gorham, NH
Miles today: 0.0

Bear Bags and Broken WindowsJennifer dropped me back on to the trail well rested and well fed. I had resupplies while I stAyed at their house and my poor food bag was over stuffed to the gills. I could have fed two hungry hikers for a week with the amount of food I was carrying. It was heavy, but there was a comfortable feeling to its weight. I was going to eat like a queen. I could not have planned for better weather for my remaining time in the Whites. This is the section that through hikers work their butts off to finally get to see. There are many beautiful spots along this trail, but the Franconian Ridge and the Presidential Range are the cr me de la cr me. The views, when caught on a good day, are panoramic and breathtakingly beautiful and they have the added benefit of lasting for a long time. Much of the trail is above tree line so you can walk for miles across connecting saddles and ridge peaks and be able to look down on towns, roads, train tracks, and farms that look like minute models of real life. Reality from a distance. But the climbs to get to these fantastic vantage points are difficult. This is both the most beautiful and most rugged section. Northerners apparently do not believe in switchbacks, because I have yet to find a real one. Here you go straight up. If you're faced with a wall of rock then don't worry about the trail engineer's intent. You are supposed to climb it. People's milage in this section often times goes down by a third to even a half of their usual daily average. Speed is not much of an option. You cannot scale cliffs at two and three miles an hour. Jennifer dropped me at the Franconian Notch where Geared Up, Ketchup and I had hitched into Lincoln and I began the ascent to the ridge at a steady trudge. It took an hour and a half to hit "the Christmas Zone," where you are suddenly and overwhelmingly aware that everything smells like a Christmas tree farm. The alpine layer rests between 3500-5000 feet and I always feel my spirits soar when I first inhale the smell. It usually means that I am close to my summit. I spent most of the day above tree line hiking along the Franconian Ridge, over Lafayette and finally over Garfield to end my day at Garfield shelter just on the other side of its summit. Now, camping in the Whites can be a bit tricky. You are not supposed to camp outside designates areas in the Whites, but it costs money to sleep in shelters or pitch your tents inside the designated areas. Also, the Whites are famous for their "huts." They are large mountain houses manned by crews of college students that cook, clean and haul up 60-90 lb packs of supplies several times a week to feed the hordes of guests willing to pay the 90-some-odd dollars to spend the night. They're usually packed! There are usually 2 spots per night for through hikers to be able to do work for stay, but they fill up quick. You have to be there before 5 to have a possibility of securing an opening. It's cut throat work. So, like just about anything, you have to pay for the privilege to view beauty. But the strict and expensive camping/housing policies make getting through the Whites a bit of a strategic game. I tried to avoid paying for stay as much as possible. There was a list of "stealth" campsites that was making the rounds through all the through hikers and I made sure to get my hands on it. For the most part it worked well. I slept warm and free and ran into few problems. Everything was fine until Crawford Notch. I bypassed a pay-for-shelter campsite and headed down into the notch with my sights set on a stealth spot situated between a train track and a road crossing. I got in at 6, set up camp and cooked myself dinner. It was quiet and I was satisfied with my spot until I went to throw my bear bag. I looks around my spot and went up and down the trail a bit looking for a branch I could throw my line over, but there was nothing. The only likely spot was a dead branch FAR too close to my tent for comfort, but it seemed to be my only choice. It was poorly positioned, with other thin branches in the way of my throw and it took me a good half hour to even get the line over the branch. I attached my still overfilled food and toiletry bags to the end of the line an began to hoist and, with a crack, the whole mess, branch and all, came down across my head and shoulders.I cursed loudly and with skill......just as a lady with her young son passed along the trail beside my spot. She hurried him along down towards the road, but as they descended I could hear the little boy's voice asking his mother what one of the words I had spewed meant. Whoops. I surveyed the ruins of my bear hang and tried to decide on my other options. It was too late to hike on. It was pushing 8 and light was beginning to fade. But I couldn't stay here either. Is heard from one of the site managers at one of the pay-for-stay campsites had told me that ears had been particularly active in the area recently and I was afraid of sleeping with my food on the ground close to my tent. As I stood pondering G.O.A.T (Greatest Of All Time) ambled by my spot. I've heard of G.O.A.T. for almost a thousand miles, but had yet to lay eyes on him. We know all the same people, but somehow had managed to miss each other over and over. After initial introductions and a fist bump (the trail replacement of a handshake, because you never know how long it's been since someone has washed their hands) he walked on down to the road to try to hitch a ride to the AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) Highland Center down the road. A few minutes later he came back and informed me that there were two ladies at the trailhead with a cooler full of Trail Magic. I put my food bag under my arm and headed down to meet them. They were relations of some through hikers about a day behind me and had come out to offer some trail support for a few days until they showed up. I explained my situation to the ladies and they offered to take me to the AMC center so I could figure out a different plan. I ran back to my stealth site and broke it down in less than 10 minutes. A new record. Both G.O.A.T. and I piled into their car and they dropped unsay the center. I went in to inquire about a possible room for the night and was in process of reeling from the quoted $80 per bunk price when another young woman came in with the same question. She reacted as I did at the price. She looked over at me and offered that if I was willing to split the price of a campsite she would drive me back to the trail in the morning. I pounced at my chance and we took off together. Her name was Sarah and she was a sophomore in college. She was in the area to do a day hike with a friend the following day and just needed a place to crash for a few hours before she hit her trailhead. It took a while to find a campground with any vacancy and it was well after dark when we finally pulled in front of a farmhouse with a sign advertising campsites. It was a little sketch. The place had no air of authenticity. It was pretty obvious that the guy had bought his house with a lot of property in the back and had converted it into a campground. He took our cash and pointed us down a bumpy dirt road off the side of his property and walked back into his house without a backward glance. We got back in the car and drove through the grounds. It was party central. RVs were parked everywhere and large groups of drunken people were stumbling between campfires and setting off fireworks. We found a secluded spot well away from the revelers and began to set up our tents. It was almost 10 and we were exhausted. I took my food bag out of my pack and asked her if I could leave my food in her car. She said "Of course," so I threw it in the from seat of the car and then we both climbed into a sleeping bags and fell asleep. At about 3 am I was awakened by a resounding crash. I peeped out the side of my tent and there was a hulking object standing menacingly by the side of Sarah's car. I zipped myself back into my tent, as though the tarp walls would actually offer some sort of protection against swiping claws or snapping teeth and gently called out, "Uh, Sarah?"She sighed groggily, "What?""Um, I'm no expert, but I think we've got a bear problem." "What!? Get rid of it!""How? I don't know what to do." "I think they respond to noise."So I made the most terrifying noise I could muster: I "ruffed" at it like a three-year-old who's spotted a dog on the side of the road. I guess it worked because the next time I looked out the campsite was empty. "All clear.""Good. I'm going back to sleep." I heard her roll over and soft snuffling sounds started up shortly after. I tried to do the same but every time I close my eyes I had images of massive bear paws showing themselves into my tent trying to claw out some bit of smelly trash that I had forgotten to remove from some pocket of my pants or book in my backpack. I catnapped for a half hour as the sky began to lighten, but finally I just have up and began to pack up my bag and mat. I unzipped the door of my tent and looked out to survey the world. I could have sworn my eyes were playing trucks on me. Where were the back windows to Sarah's car?You, you guessed it. They were scattered across the ground and large muddy bear prints were playfully patterned across the dark exterior paneling of her doors. There was also a nice dent on the roof of the car where the bear had decided to take a bit of a sit down when he was tired of trying to break into the windows. What a mess. I woke her up, explained what had happened as we spent the next hour cleaning up glass and debris. Nothing had been taken. Apparently, after breaking the back windows, the bear couldn't actually figure out how to get to the food in the front and was possibly in process of deciding how to do so when I so unkindly interrupted him. After that there was nothing to be done but head back to the trail. We grabbed breakfast, exchanged information do Thani could help pay for damages, and she left me at my trailhead to begin the harrowing ascent over Webster Cliffs to head into the Presidential Range. The remainder of my hike from Crawford to Gorham was uneventful but lovely. Summiting Mt. Washington a day later felt like riding victorious from battle. I had seen my second bear of the trip and survived. It was all down hill from here, right?