Sept 9

The Plague

Late start getting out of town.  Surprise, surprise.  It was around 1:30pm by the time we got back on the trail.  There was a small bit of road walking initially.  Paved at first, then turning off onto a dirt road, before veering off into the forest again.  Town, as usual, was at a low elevation, so there was only one way to go.  Up.  The trail wasn't particularly hard or steep, not by New Hampshire standards at least.  Just more of the same.  Regardless, I needed to take a breather after only a couple of miles.  No where in particular, just a heavily forested, sunny piece of trail, that climbed over some large flat rock.  Members of our group stopped here too for varying lengths of time, as did other hikers we had seen in town yesterday.  I got moving again and hiked up to the top of Mt. Hayes, where it was time for another break.  The miles aren't coming easy, even though it's a beautiful, warm, sunny day.  At the top of the mountain, I could look back down the trail and see Washington and the rest of the Presidentials off in the distance.  As spectacular as they were, it feels good to have them at my back now.  The trail dipped down for a while, and the forest began showing many more brilliant pops of all shades of yellow.  On the next climb, up Cascade Mountain, I paused for a moment to catch my breath, and take in more amazing views behind me.  Rainbow Eyes caught up at that point, and said Tink was right behind him.  The section we had just come up was pretty steep and rocky.  There was one point in particular, where you had to really pay attention to where you were going.  A game trail, or possibly just an old, worn footpath, banked to the left, just before the steep climb up the rocks.  We called down into the forest below, and heard Tink reply.  We waited for a while, but no sign of her.  We called out again, but this time our call went unanswered.  The good thing to do would be to go back and look for her.  Simultaneously, we unbuckled our packs.  Rainbow thought there was no sense in both of us going back, so we rochambeaud for it.  One, two, three, shoot.  Rainbow headed back down the trail.  While I was waiting, I noticed an unusually large amount of moose poop.  Not in one spot, but scattered, all around.  Apparently we stopped in some sort of moose privy.  I hope I see one.  Tink and Rainbow came up the trail.  She hadn't gotten lost after all, just taking her time, but she appreciated us waiting.  At the top of Cascade Mountain, Spam and Screagle had set up camp at an awesome overlook, and already had a fire going.  Screagle was already in his tent, feeling ill.  Spam said he thought it might be the flu.  Tink stayed there to cook up some tea, hoping that would make Screagle feel better.  When Rainbow and I came down off of Cascade, we reached the Trident Col campsite.  It was getting dark, and chilly.  It seemed everyone else was already set up for the night.  The four of us guys got set up in the last available site.  Three tents and one hammock, a tight squeeze.  Old Tomato was up at the first campsite, celebrating a trail birthday, along with Yogi, BooBoo, and Thai Dye.  Several other hikers from town last night were here as well.  Many of them were complaining about not feeling good either.  It seems there is a bug going around.  I'm pretty sure the close proximity to others, and the shared beverages during last night's revelry at the motel have a lot to do with that.  As night fell, I took a walk down to the spring to fill my Platypus, cooked dinner, then went to bed.  Fairly tired, after only 7 miles.

Leafless paper birches, among the firs.