Date: 2008-08-14
From: Mt. Washington, NH

To: Pinkham Notch, NH
Miles today: 13.4
Weather: fog

think I was a bit nervous about today¢s hike, so I didn¢t sleep that well lastnite. We were out the door by 7:15 a.m. and headed back up the Auto Rd. by 7:30a.m. It was a sunny morning and I was feeling optimistic about the day¢s hike.We got to the top of Mt. Washington and were the very first people up there thismorning. Ok, so you have no idea what this was like now.On top of Mt. Washington, no tourists (ok¢¦except for us I suppose), no Cograilway, no families or yelling kids, nobody¢¦we even beat the employees upthere, except for 2 meteorologists who live up there. The sun was out, it was8:00 a.m., NO WIND, and once again¢¦the view of a lifetime. Can you all believethis? We had Mt. Washington to OURSELVES!!! It just HAD to be a good dayright?We snapped some more pics and then I was off by 8:30 a.m. Karen decided to hangout some more and take pictures as I hiked along the ridge, and these are theCOOLEST pics, because it finally gives you (the viewer of the pics) an idea ofjust how small 1 person is in this vastness of the rugged White Mountains.The descent down Mt. Washington was all rocky. Granite is the main type ofrock, but they are big rocks, little rocks, rocks that wobble, rocks that areslick. You have to be careful and honestly, this was what I thought all of PAwould be like. It was still amazing being here though¢¦no other hikers either.You hike down and then have to walk over the Cog railway tracks. The trail goesto the left a bit and towards Mt. Clay. The observation deck was a tiny speck,so I called Karen to see if she could still see me. Barely¢¦and then I told herthe AT actually goes around the back of the Mt. Clay, not directly over it, soshe probably wouldn¢t be able to get any pics from this point on. I passedwhat I thought was a day hiker heading sobo, and later found out that this guyis trying to break the speed record and had left Mt. Katahdin only 10 daysago!!!I was surpised again there are side trails you can take over the summit, but youactually hike around the summits on all of these mountains today but Mt.Madison. The trail remained rocky and difficult to move quickly upon, but hereI was, a tiny little human being in all of the great rocky exposed vastness ofthis incredible part of our world. It was magnificent and the views were greatagain, but there were lower clouds forming and I noticed the summit of Mt.Washington was soon to be covered again.Today I had 1 of 3 plans, and was going to play it by ear. Stay at Madison Hutfor a 6 mile day, then hike out tomorrow; hike 3 miles past Madison Hut anddown off the ridge to camp at Osgood Campstie; or go for the gold (in thespirit of the Olympics) and shoot for a semi-insane person¢s attempt to make itall the way to Pinkham Notch. It all depended upon my energy, the weather, howI was feeling, etc. I had a full pack and was fully prepared for any scenarioand Karen knew my plans too, so there would be no problems either way.I hiked around Mt. Clay, which has 2 humps, and I (optimistically) thought thesecond hump was Mt. Jefferson. What else is new huh? I was really watchingthe skies and could see a lot of moisture building up in the big puffy cloudswith lower grey clouds moving towards me too. Pretty much folks, if you¢reanywhere between Mt. Clinton to about 1.5 miles down Mt. Madison (where you¢refinally below treeline) and bad weather moves in..you¢re sort of screwed. Youronly option is to take a sidetrail and get down below treeline, and luckilythere are several sidetrails, but man are you vulnerable out here in thesemountains.   That¢s about a 10 mile stretch, but 10 very rugged and physicallydemanding miles. And for hangers, there¢s no option to hang at all in these 10miles, and your only option is also to take a sidetrail to get below treelineunless you¢re physically capable of hiking from Mizpah Hut (where you can hang)all the way down from Mt. Madison. It would be an extremely physicallydemanding day to do that in my opinion.I met 2 men who were your normal average mid-aged men who didn¢t look like theywere in particularly great shape. They were going south, and we talked aboutthe huts, AMC, etc. and then they told me they had been hiking since 3 a.m. andwere doing the entire Presidential range in 1 day! I told them I thought theywere crazy. For some reason, that sounds crazier to me than hiking the entireAT¢¦don¢t ask me why.The trail finally went around the other side of Mt. Jefferson, so I could seeMt. Washington and the Auto Rd. Mt. Washington was totally cloud covered forthe rest of the day. The trail continued to be the rocky and sometimesscree-covered trail that makes for slower hiking. It eventually curves aroundtowards the middle of the ridge and then makes a very steep descent downJefferson. It was about noon, and I was hungry. There was this spectacularrock sticking out, so my lunchtime view was from this rock, looking down intothe valley formed by Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Adams. It was as usual, stunning.But as I sat there, several vacationing hikers who were going from Madison Hutto Lakes of the Clouds Hut came struggling up Mt. Jefferson. I watched themabsolutely straining to get up a short climb and realized I¢ve sort of beentaking for granted how easy climbing is for me, compared to others who aren¢tas conditioned to this sort of thing. I¢d rather climb any day than descend.I also saw how unsure these hikers were with negotiating a small rock scramble. One woman seemed so out of her element that her friend was coaching her onwhere to put her hands and feet to get up one small boulder. I¢m not bringingthis up by the way with any sort of snobby or judgemental tone. It just reallybrought it home to me how hard these mountains are to traverse, and these peoplecome out here ¢for the fun of it¢ with way to heavy packs, no hiking physicalconditioning, and yet, they display a pretty huge amount of mental fortitude tomake it to the next hut.I tried to be encouraging to these 2 women and told them to get to a white signthat was visible, and then the trail flattens out to an easier grade. The ladygoes, ¢May the Goddess bless you.¢   I remember all too well what it feels liketo hurt so much on a small climb like that.I continued watching the clouds wisk in and away again, and finally moved onfrom my perfect lunch spot to finish the descent of Mt. Jefferson and begin theclimb up and around Mt. Adams. There was a bit of a climb before the trailwrapped back around the backside of this mountain too. I knew Madison Hut wasin between this mountain and Mt. Madison, so that was a short goal. The trailchanged a bit here, for the better. Still all rock, but trailcrews had takenthe time to place large flat rocks in an almost sidewalk style trail, which wassuper nice. I thought of calling it the Green Mile, because the rocks are allcovered in green lichen.   It seemed to take forever to get to the hut, but Ifinally saw it and had a descent down to it.This hut had a lot of people in the commons/dining area.   Hikers coming andgoing, eating soup, taking a break, one person in the bunkroom sleeping. Ifilled my water, ate a snack, and now had a decision to make. I actually wasquite mentally fatigued from having to concentrate on and choose where eachstep was going on these unstable rocks, but I just didn¢t want to deal with thehut croo either. It was 2 p.m, so ¢technically¢ it was late enough (Iguess..who knows) for me to ask about staying, but again, I just didn¢t want toask at this point. I looked at the topos and the huts have sheets that tell youthe average hiking times from point to point, but there were two times given toget to Pinkham Notch from the hut, and I wasn¢t sure which one was the AT,because nobody uses the AT for trailnames in the Whites, so I asked the onecroo member who I figured was amiable and he told me the AT was faster than thequickest route listed here, which was 4 hrs and 30 min. So my thought was thatI could definitely handle hiking for another 4:30 and be back in town tonight.So, I called Karen and told her I was shooting for Pinkham Notch, but wouldstill reserve the right to camp tonight if I felt I needed to.I left the hut at 2:45 p.m. and headed up the steep climb of Mt. Madison, whereyou do hike right to the tippy top of the summit of this mountain. It gotpretty cold up there in the wind, but oh man was the view stunning again. Itook my pack off and took a pic and then met 3 guys who were out with 3 otherbuddies. They said they¢d made reservations at 2 huts back in February, butfound out a few days ago that their reservations were lost and the AMC wouldn¢trefund their money, so now they were all headed to a side trail .4 past the hutto camp. They said 2 of the guys were way behind, and that they had neverbackpacked before. All I knew was I surely wouldn¢t want my first backpackingtrip to be in these mountains with these climbs.At 3:39 p.m. I started down Mt. Madison and off the ridge. You can see exactlywhere the trail goes until it takes a sharp drop off the ridge, but folks, Ihave never had a more challenging or exhausting descent EVER in my life outhere. It was totally exposed, jagged and sharp rocks that were unstable. Itwas hump after hump going down, like the back of some sea monster. I did meetsobo¢s Mountain Goat and Billy Goal (IL) and ran into Oreo, whom I¢d seen inthe Gorham PO a few days ago. This descent took me through a gian boulderfield that was about as close to straight down as it could have been. It wasnever ending and exhausting. I finally ran into the 3 other guys in thatgroup, all separately. Come to find out, the 3 that were way ahead had themaps, and the 3 slower ones were all hiking alone. I was worried about themout in these mountains. When I reached the last of the group who was reallystruggling, I asked if he had water, and showed him where he was going andexplained what his buddies told me about camping. I told him straight up thatthis was the hardest hiking on the AT for me up to this point and I was frankand said, ¢Look, if your gut is telling you to turn back, I highly suggest youlisten to it instead of taking the chance of getting into trouble in thesemountain.¢ He said, ¢I¢d rather go the shortest distance, and that is up andthen back down to the hut.¢ I understood, but I told him after hearing how hisgroup was split up, how others had maps and different experience levels that itmade me worry. I really hope they all made it ok. I did note in my memorythat the last time I¢d seen this guy was at 4:40 p.m. and tried to memorize hisappearance. I worry for people like this.So the sun is starting to get lower in the afternoon sky and it¢s incredible tobe up on this ridge with the colors changing. I wish I had the ability to justvideo this whole past 2 days, because they¢ve been such eye candy.So it was only 2 miles from the summit of Mt. Madison down to the bottom and toOsgood Campsite. After I finally got to treeline, it was the NEVER endingdownhill, rocky, rooty, steep. Oh my gosh people, I¢ve never experienced sucha descent like this. I can¢t believe it was only 2 miles, and do you know howlong it took me to get to Osgood Campsite? 3 FREAKIN HOURS!!! Yes, it took me3 hours to hike 2 miles down off this ridge. Not sure who told that croo memberthis was a quicker way to Pinkham Notch, but they were wrong. I¢ve always beenat or faster than those average times, so I think he got bum info.Now was checkpoint #2. It was 6:30 p.m. and I would have 4.8 miles to get toPinkham Notch, but the terrain was much easier, as I picked the brains ofseveral (crazy) sobo¢s who were heading to Madison Hut so late in the evening.I was pretty exhausted. I got more water, ate a snack, and made the decisionthat I¢d push on, but knowing at any point if I felt I needed to stop, I could,because I had all of my gear and was totally prepared.The trail was very muddy with some rocks and several stream crossings to include1 very swingy suspension bridge. Those things sort of make me uneasy. I hadpopped 3 excedrin and the caffeine in them made me fly like the wind. I waswell aware of the fact I was pushing harder than I had in a long time. I hadseveral reason for attempting this crazy long day (for me anyway).All of it was completely thought out and it was what I considered to be acalculated risk with many safety plans. First, I wanted to be down intreeline, and I was now. Second, I¢d rather have a full zero day tomorrowinstead of camping and hiking less than 5 miles, so if I felt I could push abit further, I¢d have a whole day off tomorrow. Third, I knew I¢d be nighthiking, which has been something that has been uncomfortable for me in thepast, and I really wanted to face that apprehensiveness I felt head on andovercome it to gain confidence in night hiking. Fourth, I felt safe because Iwas so prepared to camp and hike tomorrow if I had to, so there was no negativepressure to make it to Pinkham if I decided it was too much. Finally, I neverwould think about hiking to a road crossing and getting there at nite if Ididn¢t have Karen to come pick me up.I¢d already told Karen I was planning on making it to Pinkham Notch, and once Imade it, I¢d call her (there¢s a payphone there I knew). I told her if shehadn¢t heard from me by 9 p.m., she could find peace in knowing I¢d decided tojust camp.So, to me, this was a safe challenge to take on. I left Osgood campsite at 6:40p.m. with my headlamp ready to go as the sun set was supposed to be around 7:58p.m. I just got focused mentally and kept up a faster than normal pace,especially since the trail was actual hiking trail and not rock climbing/hikingtrail.My only concern was that I had originally told Karen I¢d be there earliest by 7p.m.,, based upon the info the croo member gave to me,   So, I at least wantedto call her and tell her I was going for it, but it was going to be much later. I eventually got cell service and called her. I said it would be between9-9:45 p.m. She said she¢d be there at 9, so I just kept zooming on.By 8:30 p.m., it was totally dark and I was hiking by headlamp. The moon wasalmost full, I think it will be tomorrow nite, but there was so much treecover, it didn¢t really light anything up.One of my fears nite hiking is coming upon and startling a bear or around here amoose, so all throughout this nite hike I kept making loud audible ¢Whoo Hoo!¢and tapping my hiking poles together. I also said out loud, ¢Ok..any predatorthat would like to eat me needs to move on¢¦human being coming down the trail!¢That made me laugh though.A bit before 9 p.m. I came to a sign. One sign said Madison Gulf Trail, theother said 5 min. to Lowe¢s Bald Spot. Well, now I wasn¢t sure where to go. Ilooked at my guidebook and the topos and both listed Lowe¢s Bald Spot, andusually if it lists it, you actually go over it, so I headed up that trail. Itwas a rock scramble, and honestly, I was so exhausted it took a lot out of me toget up this thing. I couldn¢t see any white blazes, but that was no surprisebecause the markings have been few and far between in the Whites, becausecairns are used or other colored blazes.I got to the top of this rocky bald and wow is all I have to say. The moon wasso bright, there was still a hint of sunlight behind me with the mountainssilhouetted by it and the moonlight silhouetted the mountains ahead of me. Icouldn¢t resist, I got my camera out and finally figured out how to take picsat nite, of the moon. Great pictures I must say.I enjoyed this a bit and then decided to head on. Well..now where do I go?It¢s really hard to see in the blackness of nite and I couldn¢t see any blazesat all. I looked all over, hiked down what could have been trail a bit, but italways ended up going into bush, which wasn¢t right. I finally hiked back tothe trail I hiked up here on, and slowly walked the perimeter of this rock baldlooking for the trail. I absolutely could not find it or figure out where I wassupposed to go.So decision checkpoint #3 now. It¢s 9 p.m., I¢m totally exhausted, I¢m startingto experience extreme mental fatigue and a lack of clarity, I couldn¢t find thetrail anywhere, and it¢s pitch dark outside. It would be stupid to expend moreenergy on trying to find the trail, at this point I knew how to get back to thatlast sign and trail junction I saw, so I decided the safest thing was to set upcamp, sleep, wait for daylight, and hike out fresh in the morning. I knew Iwas only 2 miles away from Pinkham Notch too. So, I had cell service, but knewKaren was probably already at Pinkham Notch waiting for me, so I tried callingher and she did not have service¢¦damn. I left her a message telling her I¢mfine, I¢m just too tired, and the trail was not well marked so I didn¢t want tobe stupid and get lost out here, so I was just going to camp. I also called ourmotel and asked that they leave her a message, and I called my mom totriangulate as we all agreed to do.It was no big deal, I was prepared to do this if that¢s what it came to, so Ihiked back down this rocky bald and got back to the trail sign, where I knewI¢d be able to find a place to hang. I looked at the sign again and THEN I sawsomeone had etched into the sign AT, on the Madison Gulf Trail sign. I lookeddown that trail and saw a white blaze¢¦DUH!! Well hell¢¦I knew where the AT wasagain, 2 miles¢¦ok I could do this afterall.So I started down the trail and now it was marked great, white blazes veryfrequently, and I found some energy again. My next landmark was that the trailcrosses the Auto Rd., and it was literally minutes away. Gave me myconfirmation and I headed on, knowing I had 1.9 miles to go, which usuallyamounts to 1 hour of hiking and it was 9:15 p.m. now. I just kept going,speeding through the black woods, only stopping from time to time to verifywhite blazes, and there were several stream crossings too. I¢d never done nitetime stream crossings before. One time, I stepped on this leafy vine that waslaying across the trail and it moved. It made me jump because I thought I¢dstepped on a snake! LOLI could hear cars on US 2, which was very exciting. I kept going and going andthe trail eventually becomes ¢Old Jackson Rd.¢ which was nice trail, not reallya road though. At 9:54 p.m., I saw lights and a double white blaze and then aclearing and the trail hung a sharp left and I heard, ¢Is that Certain?¢ Ianswered with a loud, ¢Whoo Hoo!!!¢ I MADE IT all the way to Pinkham Notchfrom the top of Mt. Washington today!!For those of you who have never hiked this section, I have to say I¢m extremelyproud of myself for this day. It was so hard, and yet, I felt the need to pushmyself today, and face my fear of nite hiking.Karen was sitting there with another woman, who was waiting on her husband, athru-hiker named Slow Start. Apparently, she¢d dropped him off at CrawfordNotch at 6 a.m., and he decided to do the whole Presidential Range today. Ithought what I did was crazy!! She was worried though, because he told herhe¢d be at Pinkham Notch by 6:30 p.m. and he only had a daypack, no shelter, nosleeping bag, but he did have food and a rain poncho. Oh man¢¦it was 10:00 p.m.and she still hadn¢t seen him. She asked if I saw him and I had not. I didtell her that there are TONS of people out there and that if he decided tostop, he had 3 huts as a choice, so I told her that even though it was verydifficult hiking, he had more options here than in the average section oftrail. I tried to be encouraging for her, and remind her that he had hiked allthe way here from Georgia, so he has a lot of experience too.She was still very worried though, and I couldn¢t blame her really. Karenbrought me 3 different drinks and told me to stretch immediately. She wasright, I abused my body today and needed to stretch for sure.I did, and we walked to the car with the other woman. As we walked over, thePinkham Notch Visitor¢s Center, where the trail comes out, had 1 building stillopen, but shutting down. The woman happen to glance over there and saw herhusband!!! She went over there and apparently, he¢d gotten off the AT somehowand ended up taking some side trail down Mt Madison and ended up at US 2, butnot in the right place, so he¢s walked down here and had been here for 20minutes, but she had gotten up to go to the restroom at the time he would havewalked by. Crazy huh? She was relieved, as was Karen and I that this storyended up happily. He definitely had what Fat Chap called ¢hiker brain¢ and Ihad some of it as well¢¦where your brain and body are so depleted, your braincan not procees information as quickly or clearly as normal.We got into the car, Karen drove me through the McDonald¢s drive through, wewent back to our room, I took a long shower, ate, and hit the sack. My body iskilling me, as expected. I¢ll pay for pushing this hard, but man did I havegreat weather to be up there again, and I wanted to take advantage of that too.Hopefully today will be what I consider my hardest day of hiking. I hiked for13 1/2 hrs today with a few short breaks. Time for sleep.~Certain