August 31

Once in a Blue Moon

We were all up early today.  Ate breakfast, got packed up, and were off hiking by 8am.  Unheard of.  For the first mile, the trail followed the brook down the mountain.  Lots of pretty pools and cascades, not to mention the sound of the rushing water.  At Harrington Pond, we got our first views of the Kinsmans, the next mountains we would have to climb.  The south and north peaks of Kinsman are at 4358 and 4293 feet respectively, with a saddle in between.  Upon leaving the area around the pond, we walked along several bog bridges.  Then we began the climb up to the south peak.  There was a lot of rock climbing involved, but at the summit of South Kinsman, we had great views back to Mt. Moosilauke.  After traversing the saddle, we rose up the short bump up to North Kinsman and had a close view of Franconia Ridge.  At the top, there's a small trail off to the right.  You have to hop down a few rocks to get there, but after 20 feet or so, you come out of the trees onto a boulder that offers the view.  The peaks along that ridge looked spectacular.  You could see where the trees ended, with the rocky ridge line totally exposed.  I can't wait to get there, after hearing so much about it for weeks now, and especially after seeing it in person just a few miles away.  Coming down from North Kinsman, I passed the shelter there at Kinsman Pond.  This was a fee site.  Really pretty spot.  I see why it would get a lot of traffic.  At the shelter, the trail turned at a junction down the Fishin' Jimmy Trail, leaving the Kinsman Ridge Trail.  After a little over a mile, still descending, I came to the first 'hut' in the Whites, the Lonesome Lake Hut.  This was an amazing place.  Picture perfect setting on Lonesome Lake.  Mountains rising up all around.  The hut itself was really nice.  A resort by thru-hiker standards.  People come to these huts to use like a base camp for day hikes.  It costs a lot of money to stay at these, upwards of $100, for dinner, breakfast, and sleeping in bunks.  This hut is completely 'off the grid'.  There's a wealth of information about the hut system, the trails in the area, the weather report, plants and wildlife, and environmental issues.  I spent a little bit of time talking to the 'hutmaster' there, and looking over the signs and pamphlets all around the hut.  The AMC uses these huts as an important part of their education program too.  The guests that stay there get lessons on Leave No Trace ethics and low impact use of the outdoors.  There is power at the huts, but most of them generate it on site through alternative energy sources like solar or hydro-electric.  It was pretty cool to see my first hut.  I really liked the eco-friendly message and I thought the hut was really nice, but it did seem a bit like a theme park attraction.  Leaving the hut, I was now following the Cascade Brook Trail.  A few of the birch trees in the area are starting to turn.  Yellowing leaves on tall, slender, white trunks, in a sea of otherwise green trees.  The hiking came easy down to Franconia Notch.  I started seeing more and more day hikers the closer I got to the road.  I passed under I-93 and continued back into the woods to a paved side trail that led 1 mile to a parking lot at the Flume Visitors Center.  I left the AT, headed toward the visitors center to try to get a hitch back into Lincoln.  We didn't do a full resupply the first time through town, as to not have to carry so much food through this section.  I was able to get a ride in, resupplied for 4-5 days at the grocery store, and fueled up on some McDonalds for lunch.  Rainbow and Slims had made it in and out of town quickly, eager to push on.  Apache and I stayed back for a while, charging up our cameras and phones while we took a long lunch break at the restaurant.  By the time we headed out of town, got a ride, and made it back up to Franconia Notch, it was getting late.  The forecast called for clear skies over the next several days, but overhead, the sky started to get grey.  It was about 6 o'clock, and we had 2.7 miles down the Liberty Springs Trail to make it to the campsite.  A fee campsite at that.  Great.  We ended up deciding to stealth camp there in the notch.  We headed out into the woods, down what looked like a side trail, in search of a flat spot.  I found a good tent site, and Apache strung up his hammock.  No sooner had we gotten set up did it start to rain.  I was able to cook dinner under the cover of my rain fly.  Went to sleep with the soft sound of rain bouncing off of my tent.  Unfortunately due to the weather, and being under leaf cover, I couldn't see the second full moon in the month of August.

View of Franconia Ridge from Lonesome Lake, White Mountains National Forest.

August 30

The Whites

We got up this morning and started getting everything packed up.  Tink headed out with a few other hikers we all knew to slackpack the 17 mile section to the next road crossing that led back into Lincoln.  We used some clippers at the hostel to shave Apache's head.  We got a ride back up to the trail head where we had left off yesterday.  The four of us guys headed out down the trail.  We were now on the Kinsman Ridge Trail section.  What happens up here is the AT is concurrent with other named trails.  In the book it tells you when one trail ends, and another begins.  In the woods, the signs don't always say 'AT' on them, so it's important to know what trail you are on, and what the next one you will follow is called as well.  They also use fewer blazes up here to mark the trail.  They're usually frequent around trail intersections and road crossings, but I think the assumption is once you start down the trail, you should know that you are still on the white blazes of the AT.  We had a few miles of fairly easy climbing, then a short descent down to Gordon Pond.  Apache and Slims were ahead of me, but I saw their packs at the start of the side trail that went down to the pond.  Chet had told us yesterday that this pond was a great spot.  I dropped my pack and headed down the side trail looking for the guys.  This trail was narrow in places, and very muddy.  One slip of my foot and I sank into the mud up over my socks.  Ugh.  It was only supposed to be 0.3 miles to the pond.  I started to wonder how far I had gone.  Just a little bit more.  Maybe around the next bend.  Finally, I started counting my paces.  After I reached a count that I figured was an additional tenth of mile I gave up and turned around.  After all, I saw on my map that this side trail went on for about 5 miles, eventually back down to the road.  I must have gone a mile past the pond.  Almost back to the AT again, I was about to cross over a small stream, and I saw another trail.  The first time down the trail, I should have made a sharp left after crossing the stream, instead of the right that I had taken down the bank of the stream on the way down.  After about 100 feet, I popped out onto the edge of Gordon Pond.  It was a beautiful setting.  Many places for tent sites all around.  Mt. Wolf rising up on the other side of the pond.  I headed back to the AT, passing another Dartmouth group along the way.  Slims and Apache were putting on their packs.  I had missed them when I went too far down the trail.  Rainbow had caught up by this point too.  It would have been an ideal place to camp, but with the large group headed there, we moved on.  The climb up Mt. Wolf wasn't terrible.  There was a nice view at the top.  I could look back down to where I was at the pond only a bit earlier.  We had about 3 miles of downhill to cover before arriving at the Eliza Brook Shelter.  This shelter was a brand new rebuild.  Really nice.  Well maintained tenting area.  Good water source at the brook.  Bear box for our food bags.  Technically, we've been in the White Mountains National Forest for several days now, in a thin corridor since leaving Hanover.  But now it finally began to feel like we were in the true 'Whites'.  We were starting a section under the supervision of the AMC.  The Appalachian Mountain Club, or as they are sometimes called by hikers, the Appalachian Money Club.  Although our campsite at Eliza Brook was a no fee site, there will be many campsites and shelters in the next week or so that have caretakers on site, and charge fees to stay there.  There's a lot of reasons for doing this, which I don't have the time to get into right now, but very generally speaking, it usually occurs at the most high-use sites to help with maintenance costs.  After dinner, we all perused through our guidebooks to try to plan out our day to day milages through the next sections of the Whites.  We pretty much figured that we'd have to split up a bit to better our odds at finding places to camp.  We couldn't exactly roll in to a shelter with 4 or 5 of us and all expect to get a work for stay.  Nor could we all camp in the backcountry together at some of the hidden 'stealth' sites along the way.  The more I tried to plan things out, the more complicated things got.  And up here, plans change.  The weather and the terrain can force you to adapt in an instant.  Oh well.  I knew I didn't want to spend a mint going through here, but I trusted that things would work out just fine if I just paid attention to my body's limits and paid attention to the weather, and played it smart.

View toward Mt. Wolf from Gordon Pond.

August 29

Chet's

We slept in a bit this morning.  Left the shelter around 10am.  The trail continued down the back side of the mountain, sharply and steeply, coinsiding with the Beaver Brook Trail.  The trail paralelled the cascades of the brook as we dropped further into a steep ravine.  In some places there were more of the steel bars, and in other places, wooden steps had been bolted into rocks.  Spray from the brook made much of the trail slippery.  It took well over an hour to climb down the 1.5 miles to Kinsman Notch.  We stood at the rode crossing and got a hitch into Lincoln, over 5 miles away.  The usual agenda.  Get some real food, resupply, Post Office, browse at the outfitter.  Over the past several days, we had heard from southbounders about a place called Chet's.  We asked around in town, and got directions.  He wasn't listed in my guidebook, just a word of mouth thing.  We arrived in the driveway.  A large carved wooden bear and an 'AT' logo told us we were in the right place.  Chet greeted us and asked us some questions about our hike, just to make sure we were real thru-hikers, haha.  He had converted his garage into a nice bunkhouse for hikers.  Artwork that hikers had made decorated the walls.  There were signatures all over every blank space inside, from hikers that had stayed there over the years.  I actually recognized some of the names from jounals I had read before.  The place was packed, and we pitched our tents in the backyard.  We had showers, did laundry.  Much needed showers and laundry.  There were some bicycles that we could use to make getting around town easier.  I really enjoyed meeting Chet.  He suffered an injury from some hiking equipment years ago, and isn't able to get out and hike.  Listening to him talk about the mountains that we were yet to climb, I got a real sense of how passionate he was about being in the woods.  The way he described some of his favorite moments in the mountains was truely inspiring.

Carefully coming down the Beaver Brook Trail on the AT in New Hampshire.

August 28

Moosilauke

I didn't get headed out until 10 this morning.  No motivation to pack up my wet gear.  After a couple of miles, I came to a road crossing.  After a misty, overcast, morning, the sun had started to come out.  I layed out my tent and rainfly along the side of the road, and in a few minutes, everything had dried out completely.  Huge, dark clouds seemed to follow me all morning, but it never rained.  I was hiking in sunshine for the most part, seemingly running away from the storms.  I climbed up Mt. Mist.  That was an omen of what was to come.  After a nice view just over the summit, the clouds blew in and it began to rain again.  Fortunately, it didn't last long.  I came down to another road crossing, where Apache and I met up to take a lunch break.  The other guys had moved on ahead. Tink must be somewhere behind.  We hadn't seen her in a couple of days, since leaving Smarts Mountain.  After lunch, we crossed the road and headed back into the woods on the trail.  Immediately, the trail abruptly ended with a drop off into a stream.  Hmmm.  We didn't see a blaze across the stream.  It looked like a small trail headed off to the right, so we followed that for a bit.  That led to a spot that looked like it was where you were supposed to cross the stream over some stepping stones.  The stream was running high after the rains, and the stepping stones were all under water.  I took off my shoes and socks, put on my crocs, and made my way across to the other side through the calf deep water.  Chilly.  Shortly after, we made it to the Jeffers Brook shelter.  Slims had been there earlier and pushed on ahead.  Rainbow was tired and decided to call it a day there.  It was a really nice shelter, next to a cascading brook.  There was a group of Dartmouth kids camping there too.  We've seen a ton of these orientation groups along the way in the past few days.  Apache and I decided to head on and tackle Moosilauke, since there was still a few hours of day light, and the weather seemed to be holding out.  The next 4.5 miles was nothing but climbing.  Past 1500 feet.  Past 2500 feet.  Past 3500 feet.  I stopped at a spring to fill up my water.  The book only listed a couple of spots for water, but the entire way up the mountain I saw several more springs flowing.  I noticed one flat spot right next to the trail about half way up the mountain.  If the weather turned, that could be an option.  I pressed on, the sun getting lower and lower in the sky.  The evergreens started to take on a bit of an orange glow in the fading afternoon light.  Past 4500 feet, I kept climbing.  I arrived in a bit of a saddle.  There was a side trail to a peak on the southern shoulder of the mountain, but I pressed on.  I could see the summit just ahead.  The firs along side the trail got shorter, and shorter.  They framed the view of the top of Moosilauke perfectly along the narrow ribbon of the trail that I was climbing.  The wind had started to pick up dramatically.  The summit was totally encased in grey.  Wisps of grey clouds whipped just over my head.  The winds must have been 40 or 50 mph.  I could look back behind me down the trail to a totally differnt scene.  Blue skies, fading sunlight.  Beautiful.  I climbed up through the clouds to the summit, at 4802 feet.  The wind was intense.  I didn't stay long at the summit due to the cold and wind.  There was no tree cover at all.  Just rocks, and grasses.  I hiked along, leaning into the blowing wind.  Sometimes a gust would pick up and knock me off balance and I would take several steps to the side before correcting myslef and continuing down the rocky trail.  Getting back into treeline was a welcome relief.  I hiked for a couple miles off of the summit, arriving at the Beaver Brook shelter right at sunset.  Slims and Apache were there waiting.  Usually we all prefer to not sleep in shelters, but tonight we did.  It was nice to have the walls and roof to protect us from the blowing wind.  We stayed up pretty late talking about how amazing Moosilauke was.  Slims had clear skies the whole way.  Apache got to the summit just as the grey clouds began to roll in.  I had gotten there about 15 minutues later and had gotten that crazy shift in the weather, and no views at the summit.  It was awesome anyway, view or no view.  Sore and tired after a 15 mile day, I eventually went to sleep, toasty warm in my bag.

Stopping for a quick photo at the summit of Mt. Moosilauke, NH.

August 27

Puddle

I headed out this morning at 9am.  Just as I was leaving, a guy named 'Longshot' had come up to the summit to check on any hikers up here.  He handed out some delicious homemade 7-layer bars.  Calorie packed treats that included chocolate, butterscotch chips, and coconut.  Coming down Smarts was a breeze.  It only took me an hour and a half to make the 4 mile descent.  I stopped for water at South Jacobs Brook, before heading up the climb of Mt. Cube.  It wasn't too bad, but the air was humid, so that made it taxing.  Past Eastman Ledges, past the side trail to Hexacuba shelter, three miles of climbing to the south peak of Mt. Cube.  I ate lunch up there, and took a 2hr break.  The hike this afternoon, leaving Cube, was easy.  Just a long, gradual downhill section to a road crossing, then a slight climb up to the Ore Hill campsite.  We all ended up stopping for the day here after about 13 miles.  Partly due to being worn out from yesterday, and partly due to the looks of the clouds darkening the sky.  Good decision.  Sure enough, as soon as we got our tents set up, it started to pour.  I picked a terrible place to put my tent.  The ground looked soft and flat, but I was situated in a low spot where the rain water began to pool up.  The front vestibule of my tent was a puddle.  The area in front of the door, inside the tent, began to seep a little bit of water through the tent floor.  I had a puddle of water in between the ground cloth and the floor of my tent, and the pressure of me sitting there was forcing the water through the fabric.  Not good.  I had wanted to cook a hot meal with my stove, in the vestibule, under the cover of my rainfly.  The puddle there prevented me from doing that.  I just ate a bit of my snacks for dinner instead, curled up at the other end of my tent.  I didn't sleep well at all.  The sound of the rain was nice, but I kept waking up when the wind would pick up.  At times, the rain would come down really hard.  In addition to that, I would toss and turn, trying to keep the foot of my sleeping bag out of the puddle.  Not fun.

Hiking toward Mt. Cube.

   

August 26

That Smarts!

After a few miles of easy climbing this morning I made it up to the south peak of Moose Mountain.  I stopped for a snack at the shelter.  They guys had gotten there just before me, and saw a huge porcupine.  I missed it.  I still really want to see one in the wild.  Next up was the north peak of Moose Mountain, then a long gradual downhill to a road.  The next climb was up to Holts Ledges, where I got some really nice views from the sheer cliffs.  I had been behind the others for most of the day, but I was the first to arrive at the trail crossing at Dorchester Rd.  The others had stopped just before there, at the Trapper John shelter, to take a break and get water.  A sign just north of the road crossing said 'free ice cream'.  Taking the short side trail led me to the residence of Bill Ackerly.  I met Bill, signed in on his hiker register, and he gave me an ice cream bar, while I waited on the others.  I knew once they saw that sign, they'd be up here too.  Bill was really great to meet.  Over 720 hikers had come by his place so far this year, and the season isn't quite over.  This already has exceeded his total from all of last year by over 100.  Bill had just had a birthday as well, a day after mine, turning 85!  When the others arrived, Bill took us out into the back yard where he has a croquet course set up.  He taught us the rules, and we enjoyed a game.  Rainbow Eyes won.  I came in second.  We stayed for over an hour, and could have stayed longer.  There was more miles to be done though, so we filled up our water bottles and headed out.  The hiking all day had been so nice.  Just a simple walk in the woods.  The few climbs we had this morning, and early this afternoon, weren't bad at all.  Two miles after leaving Mr. Ackerly's place, that all changed.  For the next 1.7 miles there was a grueling climb of 1200 feet of elevation gain, up to Lamberts Ridge.  There was a brief section of little bumps, then another huge assent of about 1000 feet over the next mile.  This second tier of the climb up to the top of Smarts Mountain was insanely tough.  At times, the trail went straight up a rock face, so steeply, that there were steel bars nailed into the rock like rungs of a ladder to aid you in the climb.  Drenched in sweat, and exhausted, I made it to the top in time to catch sunset from the fire tower at the summit.  It was chilly. I was wet, and totally worn out.  I didn't want to fool around with my tent, and I decided to sleep in the Fire Wardens Cabin instead.  Not a typical shelter, this one actually had four walls and a door.  With the door and windows closed, it actually stayed fairly warm in there, just from the body heat of the other hikers staying there.  After dark, I cooked my dinner.  I ate the freeze dried meal that I had bought in Hanover.  A Backpacker's Pantry meal of Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Rice and Beans.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  It was expensive, but it was definitely worth it.  And the perfect treat after a tough day like today.  Over 18 miles, with the climb up Smarts as the finale.  I got up in the night to relieve myself.  Heading outside of the cabin, the air was really chilly.  I could see my breath under the light of my headlamp.  It was a perfectly clear night.  Bright stars above, with the dark silhouettes of evergreens all around. 

Playing a game of croquet at Bill Ackerly's place.

August 25

Moving on

Well I guess we have to hike today.  Can't stay here forever.  For breakfast, Apache and I went to Umplebees Bakery.  They had free loaves of day-old bread for hikers.  I would have packed one out, but my food bag was already so heavy.  I had a sticky bun, 2 eggs, and a coffee for breakfast.  We all met up back at the library.  I headed over to the college museum.  Being an Art History major, I couldn't leave town with out checking out the exhibits.  The Hood Museum of Art had a nice, varied, collection.  I went to Lou's for lunch and got a delicious reuben sandwich and strawberry rhubarb pie.  Eventually we all met back up near the trail and reluctantly headed out of town around 4pm.  The hike out wasn't bad at all.  There was a short climb up to the Velvet Rocks area.  All the signage along the trail has been impressive.  The DOC does a great job, and gets pretty creative with their signs.  We crossed a lot of streams late in the evening, crossed a road, and headed back up into the woods.  We ended up hiking about 5 miles out of town, before making camp along a hillside amidst a grove of pine trees.

Hood Museum, Dartmouth College.

August 24

2nd day off in Hanover

Same agenda for today.  Not hiking.  We all took the bus to the nearby town of West Lebanon.  At the EMS outfitter there, I picked up a map of the Presidential Range, and a freeze dried meal as a treat.  Apache and I walked over to Chili's for lunch.  He had been craving ribs for a while, so he got his fix.  I had fajitas and a margarita.  When we got back to Hanover, we went to Moreno Gelato.  The melon flavor was incredible!  Hung out at the library until it closed.  As we were walking away from the library, a local lady got out of her car and started talking to us.  She is an avid hiker, and has done all 48 of the 4000 foot peaks in New Hampshire.  She was headed up to the gelato shop, and asked us if we wanted to come along.  She treated us all to gelato.  This time I had milk chocolate and hazelnut.  It was equally amazing.  It was so great talking with her about hiking, while enjoying our gelato.  Slims headed back to the tent sites.  Rainbow, Apache, and I went over to Ramuntos again for more free pizza.  I bought a slice in addition.  Then Rainbow headed back to the tentsite, but Apache and I walked around through the campus area.  It was pretty quiet at night.  We walked around past many academic buildings, chapel, student housing, and back to 'the green', before heading back to our tent site for the night.  Another great day, enjoying Hanover.



Some hikers throwing frisbee and relaxing at "The Green", Dartmouth College.



August 23

Pizza party

Woke up fairly early, and got all my gear packed up.  Headed over to the Richard Black Community Center and paid a few dollars for shower and laundry.  Got my electronics charged up while I was waiting.  The rest of the day was spent exploring Hanover.  What an incredible trail town!  In recent years, the city has really pushed to become more hiker friendly.  I'd say Hanover did it right.  A model for other towns to strive for.  Many restaurants in town have hiker discounts or even free give aways.  Lists of trail angels are posted at the library, outfitters, and community center, if you need a place to stay.  Free buses to take you to neighboring cities.  There's also a booklet that hiker's can pick up at many locations in town, that answers all the questions of where to stay, where to eat, where the freebies are, when the buses run and where they go, etc.  And the locals.  Oh my gosh.  I couldn't walk one block without someone saying, "welcome to Hanover", or "congratulations on your hike", or "good luck".  It's a nice, upscale, boutique kind of town, but despite my dirty, smelly, grungy apperance, I never felt unwelcome for a second.  Then there's the college.  Pretty campus.  And the Dartmouth Outing Club there maintains the trail in this section.  Over 90% of the entering freshmen, elect to do a backpacking trip with a group of their fellow first-years as a part of their orientation procedures.  So cool.  All I remember from my freshman orientation was going to lame information sessions, and having social mixers with girls' dorms.  The accessibility, and amount, of information for hikers, the services in town, and the people there, all make Hanover my favorite trail town so far.  Lunch was a free slice of pizza at Ramuntos Brick Oven.  Second lunch was the hiker special at Stensons Deli, a sandwich, chips, and a soda for $6.  I went around the corner to the Bagel Basement, and got a free bagel, 'everything' with boursin cream cheese.  I picked up some mail at the Post Office.  A bunch of us were all hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the Mountain Goat Outfitter, opening our packages.  I got several ziplock bags full of assorted cookies and a card from my grandma.  My mom had sent a package too, full of birthday treats, in addition to some of the cold weather gear I had requested.  The rest of the afternoon, I hung out at the library.  For dinner tonight, we went to EBA's for the pizza buffet.  We had a proper party there to celebrate my birthday.  In the mail drop that my mom had sent me, there were birthday themed plates, cups, napkins, and even a banner.  Tink had bought a box of donuts.  For desert, I put 33 candles in a chocolate iced donut, lit them, and blew them out.  My friends sang happy birthday to me.  At the end of the meal, I didn't have a bill either.  We walked back to the soccer fields and set up for the night.  Stayed up pretty late hanging out.

Pizza party with Slims, Rainbow Eyes, me, Apache, Tink, and Thai Dye.