08/11-08/12 The White Mountains Part I

Day 32

Wednesday August 11th

Imp Campsite

298.3 - 306.4 = 8.1

Once again, we don’t enough sleep, thanks to train visiting twice in the night. We get shuttled back to the trail at 7:10, the set time for rides to highway 2. We are tired instead of energized like we’d hoped we’d be after a day of rest. We didn’t bring tent in an effort to go light. We plan to sleep in a lean to shelter, and we are really hoping it isn’t crowded so we can get some quality sleep.

We enter the White Mountain National Forest today. It’s our first National Forest of the trip. Maine didn’t have any National forests which seems crazy. Most of the forested recreation land in California is National Forest so I thought there would be an abundance out here too.

The White Mountain National Forest is home to the famous White Mountains, which contain the largest alpine zone East of the Rockies. That sounds impressive, but there are only 13 square miles of alpine in the Eastern United States, and 4 of the 13 miles are here. The area is within a days drive of 70 million people, making it a very popular destination. We are likely to see more day hikers here than anywhere else. The area is also famous for fall colors, which usually peak the first week of October. The tallest peak in the Northeast is here too, Mt. Washington, at 6,288 feet’s. In a few days we will be on top of Mt Washington. These mountains are known for some of the fiercest weather on the entire AT. Rain, snow and fog are possible any time of the year and hurricane force winds too. Temperatures can drop 40 degrees in a few hours, even in summer. We are supposed to always be ready to turn back if the weather suddenly gets bad. We’ll be in the Whites for a little over a week. It should be an interesting week with the weather and also some of the best scenery on the trail.

This section of the AT is maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and they maintain 8 mountain huts along this route. The huts are large cabin type buildings with bunks that sleep anywhere from 30-90 people and they serve hot food. All of the food is packed in by the hut crew on side trails. We are really looking forward to staying in one!

Today the trail takes us up Mt Moriah. It’s pretty level for the first few miles as we follow the Rattle River. Eventually we begin climbing stone stairs and go up into the fog. It begins raining just below the summit. In order to save weight we left the umbrellas behind, but it’s warm out, so we don’t mind. We decide to stop and sit under a well endowed spruce tree and remain totally dry while resting and snacking for half an hour. We hope that the rain will stop and it does by the time we get going again. On our climb we see Dr Dolittle. He was one of the people in the early risers ground that we camped with through a lot of Maine. He hasn’t gotten ahead of the group because he’s meeting his wife in a couple days for their 33rd wedding anniversary. He keeps walking through the rain and beats us to camp.

Our delaying pays off and we get a patch of sunny skies for our lunch time at the top. Today we’re having trail mix and dates and an Almond butter and honey tortilla. We get really neat partial views through clouds and fog at the many rock slabs along the summit ridge. We watch the swift moving clouds reveal and swallow up views.

Just before camp we can see down to Gorham on the valley floor. We only had a short distance to go, and could have gone further but there are no more places to camp or sleep in a shelter for a long way, so we stop early at 3:30. This is probably the earliest we have ever made it to our stopping point for the night. We are in a valley between Mt Moriah and the Carters, which we will be climbing over tomorrow.

The site features a real nice stream, a 2 story shelter and several wooden platforms for tents. We don’t normally sleep on platforms but all of the official sites in this section of trail have platforms for tents. There is no one but the caretaker and Dr Dolittle around when we get there. It feels great sitting around all afternoon. We thought we’d be bored, but of course we are not. We get a nice little view down to the valley of highway 16, the one that we will ride back to town on tomorrow in a car.

Near bed time, just after sunset, only two other have shown up. They are both older section hikers and seem quiet and respectful. It’s looking good until about 8:30 when it’s almost fully dark. We are already laying down and ready to close our eyes when NOBOs start showing up. Really smelly and noisy NOBOs. They smell like mildew and cigarettes. We can’t believe how strongly they reek. They keep trickling in and cooking dinner and crinkling stuff and zippering zippers and inflating mattresses and stomping their feet on the wood platform of the shelter as they climb in and out. It’s after 11 when it finally quiets down! It was our worst nightmare come true!!

Some neat type of mushroom colony that we are often. Sometimes we see purple or orange colored ones too!

Rattle River

A cool AT symbol on a rock next to the trail

Rustic looking stone stairs, just well positioned boulders

Bog bridges and fog

Fog and lichen covered trees nearing the top of the mountain

Up on Mt Moriah, 4,049 feet

Partial views at lunch.

Partial views on the way down to the saddle where we’ll be camping, we think the mountains we can see there are the Carters.

View down to the saddle

View towards Gorham

2 story shelter at Imp Campsite. We slept on the second floor

Sunset view from camp

Day 33

Thursday August 12th

Pinkham Notch Visitor Center

306.4 - 319.4 = 13 miles

We were reclined by 7:30 last night and ready to go to sleep by about 8:30. It was looking like it would be a peaceful night with just us and the two other nice older section hikers. Then the big pack of smelly NOBOs arrived. They seemed to make no effort to be quiet! Then the alarm of our neighbors went off at 4:45 AM! We are climbing up rocks and cliffs as soon as we leave camp, on the way up the Carters. We are so tired all day and feel headachy. Adding to the misery we are in the heat wave and the clouds have cleared, so its sunny. It’s also humid and we sweat a ton. We spend a lot of time above tree line today and get a little sunburned too. We are just absolutely dragging all day. On the plus side it’s amazingly good weather for viewing the presidential range, which is just across the valley from the ridge we hike on all day.

Midway through the day we visit our first AMC hut at Carter Notch. The dining area is a small building with 4 long picnic bench style wood tables inside. This location is a little off the beaten path and is less popular than the huts in the Presidential Range. They have a relatively low capacity at 40 beds. The bunk rooms are in separate buildings behind the dining hall. There is also a composting toilet, but it is a different kind than what is in the campsite, as you can pee in them. They feel like normal public bathrooms with a men’s side and a women’s side, several stalls and even sinks to wash your hands. All of the human waste goes down into a dark hole, into which you can’t see. The finished compost is flown out by helicopter and although it is probably safe at that point it get disposed of as sewage.

We have heard from other hikers than any leftover food is packed out by the crew, so it’s in their best interest to give it away to hikers. We find out they have a little leftover oatmeal, a carafe of maple syrup with floaty pancake bits in it, and some leftover of the vegan and gluten free version of their pancakes. They also have a hiker box, from which we obtain an almost empty glass jar of raspberry jam and some Peanut Butter and Co. peanut butter. We are in heaven as we enjoy maple soaked oatmeal and PB&J pancake sandwiches. I don’t understand who would carry the heavy glass jar of jam and a big jar of premium peanut butter here only to abandon it, but I’m sure glad they did. It made our day for sure!

There’s a steep descent into and then out of Carter Notch. Then we walk past the Wildcat Ski area. From the ski area, it’s a long steep descent to Pinkham Notch and highway 16. We have to take abnormally long knee stretcher steps. It further wears us out the end of an already difficult and hot day. My feeling of exhaustion leave me thinking I’d never want to do the AT, or even this specific trail again. I wouldn’t hesitate to re do any of the PCT, but I think this is a once in a lifetime kind of hike for me. Often it’s not much of a trail and is just more of a route and today that is true as we really have to work hard to find our way down.

We have a big day making it 13 miles down to the highway, but we have to since there are no more shelters and we don’t have our tent. We miss the days on the PCT in which you could cowboy camp just about every night without worrying about getting rained on. Here it’s a chance we are scared to take! Also we have made a reservation for Madison Hut on Friday night, which is tomorrow and it’s the first hut on the way up the presidential mountains. This is why we hate to ever make plans or reservations, you never know how you will feel or how many miles you will feel like doing. If not for the reservations we may have camped in the grass at the top of the Wildcat Moutain ski lift.

Pinkham Notch is the name of the valley and also the name of the AMC lodge and visitor center located where the trail crosses the highway. We get picked up a little after 7 by Paul in his big old Mercury Grand Marquis. He had a big day driving all the way to Cape Cod and back for the funeral and getting back at 1 in the morning. He was up early today shuttling hikers again and is just as friendly as ever.

We arrive back to the hostel totally fried. We are dreading our night of restless sleep next to the train. Peter and Kae have made it to the hostel and got to go to Walmart today. They were nice enough to grab us some produce, so there is salad, tomatoes, avocados and bananas waiting for us. We have a nice dinner of salad, baked beans and toast.

After dark we walk to the ATM, figuring we aren’t in any rush to get to bed. We think the first train comes around 10 and we don’t want to be asleep before it comes! Walking to the gas station in the dark is the first time we’ve seen the stars or moon, probably since we left home. We are always in the forest and asleep before it’s dark anyway. The 10 PM train never comes past and we fall quickly and deeply to sleep right around 10.

The Presidential range in the early morning with some cloud caps. Mt Washington is the one on the left then Mt Clay, Mt Jefferson, Mt Adams and Madison.