It was ten minutes to six when I heard people starting to shuffle. There were probably at least twenty of us lying on the dining room floor. The night was spent trying to stay as still as possible so you wouldn’t bother your neighbors. I didn’t sleep too well, but better than I expected. As soon as someone in the room shifted, all of a sudden everyone did. No one wanted to be the one to break the silence, but once it was broken, we saw our opportunity to get comfortable again.
We had to be packed up and out of the dining room area quickly. The bunk customers were waking up. Breakfast would be served around 7a. The thru-hikers lined the benches in the hallway, using hot water to make our breakfast essentials and instant coffee. If you waited until 8a when all of the bunk customers were finished, there was a chance you could get some breakfast yourself. We wanted to get a start on the day, so we settled for our normal morning routine.
The hut was just a mile and a half from the summit of Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the northeast. Mt. Washington is known for its’ inclement weather. In fact, there was a sign posted on the trail warning hikers that others had died. If the weather was bad, we were instructed to turn around and return to the hut. It was a chilly morning, but a beautiful one, so we pressed on.
We arrived at the summit sometime around 8a. Only thru-hikers were there that early. I felt lucky. We had heard horror stories about how busy this mountain can be. There’s a famous summit sign that people have their photo taken with. Hikers who had visited during a busy time warned us that there is often a line to get that photo. Our group spent a good ten minutes taking photos, no one was there to bother us or ask us to wrap it up.
Luckily the buildings were open on the summit. We had a rare calm day on top. Usually it is very windy. However, it was still chilly. So we ducked into the visitor center for donuts, warm drinks, and to get our postcards. There’s actually a post office in the visitor center. I had to take advantage of the opportunity to send something with the Mt. Washington stamp on it. Warthog enjoyed the nachos and cheese. As with most food, some of it ended up in his mustache. I had to take a photo. Something he didn’t realize until after the fact. I’m not sure he would have smiled so large had he known what I was really doing.
Photo Above: They are on to us. Hand dryers are a wet thru-hikers best friend. Since the weather is often poor on Mt. Washington, I assume they see a lot of wet thru-hikers.
We ran into Ricky Bobby at the visitor center again. Ricky Bobby is the Grand Rapids native that hiked the Pacific Crest Trail two years ago. We sat in on a presentation he gave about his experience. It’s pretty special to run into someone from home on the trail. It makes the two worlds (trail and home) feel just a bit more connected. We would spend the rest of the day leapfrogging each other. Ricky Bobby is fast, really fast. That’s how he got his name. Sometimes he will cover forty miles in a day. I don’t think we could do that even if we wanted to. The only reason we would get ahead of him today would be because he’s summiting peaks that the AT goes around. I’ll leave those extra summits to him.
The hike away from the summit was incredibly rocky and mostly downhill. The boulders slowed us down a lot. It was late afternoon when we would hit the hut for lunch. Ricky Bobby pointed out a little boy that ran by us. He had met the boy (Carter) earlier on the trail. Carter isn’t thru-hiking. No. He was summiting forty eight peaks over four thousand feet. It sounds like it’s something he and his mom do together. The little boy is only five years old and has summited thirty four of the forty eight mountains. Not all in one sitting, but still, incredibly impressive. I told him he was like the symbol on the front of his shirt, Superman!
After a good lunch break, we pushed on. It was more boulders and more down. In total, we descended almost twice as much as we ascended. Your feet would shift to the end of your shoe. By the end of the night, my feet felt like I had been shuffling across rugs all afternoon… they burned.
After we had dropped back into the forest and were within a couple of miles where we were planning to stop for the night I hear Warthog say, “Oh! That’s creepy!” I turned around to see two ladies closing in on us. They surprised us. Mostly because they didn’t quite seem like they belonged. The first lady wasn’t wearing shoes, had a shawl-like wrap for a skirt, didn’t have a pack, used a blanket as a jacket, and was holding books to her chest. The second lady had on Dockers for shoes, was wearing a pack, and seemed to be hiking furiously to stay up with the first. They were quiet coming up. We stepped out of their way to let them pass and then they just disappeared. We jokingly theorized about who they were and what they were doing out here. Me… I saw them as an analogy for what we are doing out here. I envisioned the first woman to symbolically be Mother Nature. She floated effortlessly across the trail, as if she was totally in her element. The second woman was us, the thru-hiker, desperately running after Mother Nature. The reality is much less other-worldly and probably far less interesting, I’m sure. Although, weirdly, Ricky Bobby did say he came across an empty campsite this morning with only a few items in it, including leather-bound books, as in old timey animal skin leather bound. That tipped it back into creepy.
The sun is setting earlier and earlier. Even before it sets the forest cuts any light out. In the last remaining daylight, we came across a spot in the woods where the tree canopy opened up and light peaked into the woods. In the center of that light was a small tree with yellow leaves. Fall is officially here. I’ve watched as this season has slowly made its’ introduction. First, I started noticing more leaves on the trail – often bright red or in a recent state of change. Then a week or so ago I realized those are freshly fallen leaves. Now you can see the slightest shift in the canopy. It’s starting to blush into fall reds, but stays mostly green for the moment. I expect in a couple of weeks we will be fully experiencing fall colors – especially as we head further north. I’m excited! We watched the forest wake up to spring, fully bloom for summer, and now begin to retreat as winter approaches. That means we will have spent three seasons in the woods. How many people can say that? I think it’s a special thing to be witness to. For now, it’s just pockets of color. Soon it’ll be a full show. I can’t wait.
We had to night hike for about an hour. We were shooting for a “stealth” site that was listed in our trail app we have. We never found it. We were in the correct vicinity of the site, but couldn’t locate where exactly the spot that the person mentioned. We made due with what we found and squished our tent in a spot we probably shouldn’t have, but it was late and I was exhausted. I needed to sleep. It wasn’t a perfect spot, it wasn’t even a good spot, but it was a spot to be. Sometimes that’s all you need.
-ansel