We are officially in the Whites. It’s one of the hardest, most challenging portions of the trail due to its’ steep and sustained climbs. Some of the trail is above the tree line even. Additionally, the weather can be totally unpredictable. It’s advised to “winter up” for this section, meaning you should have your winter gear. When Warthog’s parents visited last week they brought back some of our cold weather stuff which had been either sent back to my sister or with them when they visited us in Tennessee. Despite the adversity these mountains bring, many hikers describe it as also one of the most beautiful parts of the trail. We are officially in the Whites, but just by a few miles. Tonight we have had a slow introduction, only 1,500 feet of elevation gain in our first six miles or so. Tomorrow, however, we climb Moosilauke – our first of many great climbs in this range. That’s tomorrow. First, today.
We woke up and took in the views from the fire-tower. It was a gorgeous morning. Clear and foggy just minutes apart. We met a new nobo today, “Toboggan”. He’s from the Ashville, NC area like Wonder Woman and Snow Monkey are. Today we aren’t too worried about the terrain. We are hiking more miles – eighteen total. However, in that eighteen miles we only have 4,300 or so feet of elevation gain. It’s still a descent day, just not as hard as yesterday.
We had lunch at a summit, on exposed rocks with an incredible view. We met a family of sobos; a grandma, mom, and two kids.
The hope of omelettes got us through most of the day. There is a trail angel that cooks omelettes for thru-hikers just as you enter the Whites from the south. He will also let you do an “egg challenge”. The most amount of eggs a hiker has had this season is around thirty. That’s insane. I would have stuck with the normal omelette. Unfortunately, when we arrived, he was closed. A note read something like this, “Hikers – Sorry! Shut down early today. Taking Giggles and Many Miles to West Hartford so they can jump off of the bridge. Please help yourself to the fruit, etc.”. Disappointment set in. It honestly crushed several people in our group. The last few miles up to his site were really mentally hard for me. I was in a bad place. Then… then he was gone! I understood. I was happy for his generous heart, the same generous heart that feeds us, so I can’t be too sad that he’s gone. Those are two lucky ducky hikers.
A couple of animal encounters for today. Warthog and I were hiking, after trying to dig a gnat out of my eye, and suddenly we watch these two little squirrels in a chase – one after the other. They made a huge loop around the forest, chittering the whole way. It was hilarious. I don’t know what the one was mad about, but holy cow… he was mad! Later in the day, we were stopped at a stream filtering water. Warthog heard a crashing and looked up to see two large figures coming up to the bank of the stream. He was expecting it was a moose. Instead, it was a pair of black great danes. They had collars on, but no tags. I started to walk towards them and one barked, backed up a bit, then growled at me. I kept my distance, but tried hard to get them to approach me. I was almost successful, then they turned and ran up the trail. I would have been more worried, but I expect they live in the area and probably do this often. They look so healthy that they couldn’t have been gone for long. Still, I kind of wished I had caught them. Someone asked, “What would you do with them if you get them?” Easy. Have a pair of great danes. I’m just kidding. Sort of.
It was 8p when we were arriving into camp, but we made our miles! Rain threatened for the last hour or more while we hiked. It started in the last half of a mile. We were able to set up the tent under the protection of the trees before it really started to pick up. We are camping at the edge of the lake. It is a view I would have like to appreciate more should we have arrived during light and in good weather. It was raining hard enough that sprays of rain kept coming through the rainfly. Our seams are leaking. It’s something we will have to work on when we get home. Until then, I lay my rain-jacket on the top of the screen underneath the rainfly. It helps some. It at least keeps our faces dry while we are trying to sleep. Lucky for us the hard rain didn’t last long. Later I would find out they were calling for potential tornadoes where we were. Our phones didn’t have reception to warn us. Our gps gives us minimal weather reports. But I guess, even if we had known, what would we have done at that point other than try to choose a smart camping spot – which we already did.
-ansel