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.