Days 119-121: (Another) Double Zero & Mt. Washington

Day 119, 8/25/23

Crawford Notch

0 miles, mile 1,852.8

There was some rain coming through and I did not want to be above treeline in the Presidentials in bad weather. We took a zero day at home today, and celebrated my birthday with a great family dinner. My grandparents came and we had lobster, steak tips, zucchini corn fritters, and delicious vanilla cake with a strawberry rhubarb compote! My Mom went all out and it was beyond amazing. I’m so thankful to be in NH to celebrate my birthday!

I have decided (after multiple glasses of wine) that I don’t want to hike tomorrow. A double zero it is!

Day 120, 8/26/23

Crawford Notch

0 miles, mile 1,852.8

What an amazing day today was. The weather was beautiful so the whole family went to our little cabin to go fishing, paddle boarding, and kayaking. I caught a pickerel but it shook right off the hook as soon as I pulled it out of the water! Ethan and I were bummed that was all that happened, usually we catch some pretty good size bass. I guess they weren’t hungry for the rubber worm today.

I ate some of my cake, read a bit of my book, and had a couple drinks sitting in the sunshine.

The next three days will be slackpack days, and then we will be done the stretch of NH with 4,000 footers. Then we will be a bit too far from home to keep up the slackpacking. Luckily we have an awesome friend near mile 2,000 that we will be able to see and possibly sneak one or two more slackpack days in.

Day 121, 8/27/23

Crawford Notch to Mt. Washington Summit

12.5 miles, mile 1,865.3

Mom and Dad both drove us up to Crawford Notch this morning, and then they had a fun day of mini golfing, and driving up the auto road to pick us up around 3:30pm. I didn’t want to slackpack the entire 26 miles from Crawford Notch to Pinkham Notch because I think I might have died. Our parents are so amazing and want to do whatever they can to help us out on the thru hike. Tomorrow Kevin and I will drive ourselves to Pinkham Notch and get a shuttle back to the summit of Mt. Washington. Then, we will hike back to our car and head to Ethan’s Mom’s because it’s about 50 minutes closer than our house is. We truly have had a village of people supporting us since the beginning!

Today was a big elevation day with about 6,000 feet of climbing crammed into 12.5 miles. The day started with a steep and rock scrambly climb up to the Webster Cliffs, and Mt. Webster. There was a great view of Crawford Notch from here. We saw a couple other thru hikers that we had met recently. After Mt. Webster was Mt. Jackson followed by Mt. Pierce. I have been on both of these peaks, but not via the AT. The trail became a lot more populated after Mt. Pierce.

I decided not to take the blue blazes to go up Eisenhower and Monroe because I had done Eisenhower before, and will need to do Monroe with Washington next summer with Ethan. I don’t ever want to “grid” the 48 (meaning you hike every single one of the 48’s in every month of the year with no time limit) over my lifetime so I don’t see a point in adding more elevation to my day for a peak I’ve gotten already. I think it’s funny that the AT scoots around the base of some of the summits via Crawford Path. You would think it would send us up and over all the peaks but it doesn’t.

After we were around Eisenhower the clouds rolled in fast and it started to sprinkle. It wasn’t enough to get the rain coats out, but it was enough to be a tad chilly. Thankfully it stopped pretty quickly and we got some sunshine coming up near Mt. Monroe.

Lake of the Clouds hut came into view and we decided to stop for a quick snack before the last 1.5 miles and 1,300 feet of climbing up to the summit of Mt. Washington. Mom and Dad were already up there so after our short break, we got up to the summit in about 30 mins. It was completely clouded in up there, but was sunny at the hut. We had to wait in like to get our photo taken at the summit sign. I wish we had a view, but there is always hope for tomorrow morning when we are dropped back off.