My White Mountain Emotional Rollercoaster: Part Three, Franconia Ridge

Note: This post describes events that occurred on August 3-4, 2023.

In the morning, I woke up before the other campers on my platform and got going for the day. I used the privy, packed up my stuff, and prepared my usual breakfast: coffee with whole milk powder and a packet of Carnation breakfast essentials, and a honey bun. After that, I hit the trail early for me, 6:40 am.

The day’s hiking was challenging but rewarding. I enjoyed spectacular views along the ridge in perfect weather. But my destination for the night, Galehead hut, which was 10 miles from where I camped at Liberty Springs, felt so far away on the difficult terrain. Normally 10 miles is an easy day, but I was moving slowly and with much effort over all of these mountains. To make matters worse, I had hoped to arrive at Galehead close to 4 pm so I could secure work-for-stay, an arrangement available for thru hikers. During work-for-stay, hikers will help out with cleaning or other tasks at the hut for around 2 hours, and then they will be given leftovers from dinner and allowed to sleep on the floor of the dining room until 6 the next morning.

My other option was to press on an additional 2 miles to Guyot shelter, which required me to summit another mountain. As I slowly progressed toward the hut, I realized I would not make it by 4 pm. As I continued to try to keep going and minimize my downtime, I became very fatigued. By the time I arrived at Galehead hut, I realized I hadn’t eaten or hydrated nearly enough all day, and my inflexibility in my itinerary left me depleted. I wasn’t listening to my body, which wanted more frequent stops, rest, and nourishment. By the time I arrived to the hut around 5 pm, their work-for-stay slots were full, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t have the energy to do chores. I had given myself no choice but to pay for an expensive bunk (over $100), and thankfully, there was one available for me.

I ate a lovely dinner and curled up in my bunk around 7:20 pm. I fell asleep before 8 and didn’t leave the bunk until breakfast the next morning, sleeping nearly through the whole night with the exception of one early morning hour I spent awake.

Grateful for the rest, I re-evaluated my plans the next morning. It didn’t seem to be working to have strict mileage goals on this terrain. I had hoped to average around 12 miles a day to reach Katahdin by Labor Day, but I realized that it would be better for my mental and physical well-being to have more flexible mileage goals. I decided that I would look for a dispersed camping spot after about 10 miles of hiking that day. I aspired to start going for time rather than distance. I would be strict about my breaks and just do what I could before looking to set up camp between 6 and 7 pm.

I felt better that day, but my confidence was shaken by how worn out I had been after tackling the Franconia Ridge. I wondered if I could actually handle the remaining miles of the northern portion of the AT. At one point the previous day, I was going 0.6 miles an hour over Mt. Garfield, which had a very steep and challenging ascent and descent. The descent was down a waterfall which required negotiating careful steps down a steep ledge of slippery rocks. I had previously thought 1 mile an hour was exceptionally slow for me, but that seemed to be my standard pace out here in the Whites.

I met some hut-to-hut hikers at a viewpoint around 2 in the afternoon. They were staying at Zealand Falls hut and were out for a short afternoon hike before trekking to Mizpah hut the next day. I found myself feeling a bit jealous of their hut-to-hut arrangement. When you traverse the Whites in this way, you don’t have to carry a shelter or nearly as much food.

I left the hikers and proceeded to the hut for another break and hopefully some baked goods. I felt insecure, like they might catch up to me and overtake me, and that I should be faster. I hated that I was having such weird feelings. The tough terrain of the Whites was revealing all of my insecurities about hiking.

They didn’t catch up to me until I was munching on some baked goods at the hut a while later. We chatted a bit more and they wished me well on my journey. Before I left, I caught up with another hiker who was doing his second thru hike of the AT. I was bemoaning the difficulty of this section of the trail, and he told me that he had to drop his mileage from 15 to 7-9 in the Whites. I was heartened to learn that it was universally more challenging, not just for me. I told him I was scared of Southern Maine. SOBOs had warned me that it’s just as hard as the Whites. But this hiker disagreed. In his opinion, the Whites are constantly strenuous, whereas Southern Maine is occasionally strenuous. And he assured me to not give up because Maine is the most beautiful section of trail. As I set off, I felt reassured that it was normal to be feeling challenged by this terrain.

I had looked at the elevation profile for my remaining mileage and it looked flat. But I knew not to trust this from some earlier stretches of trail which had small ups and downs that were still exhausting. But I was surprised and delighted to see that the trail was ACTUALLY flat. This trail was behaving itself! In my excitement, I hiked a 2.5 mph pace, usually unthinkable for me. It was a huge morale boost to feel like I could indeed walk. I had been feeling so insecure.

I ended up feeling good enough to push to the next shelter, a 12 mile day. I was encouraged by my ability to do a “normal” mileage day. I arrived at a beautiful pond, where for the first time ever, I had the shelter to myself! It only took nearly 100 days for me to have that experience. 🙂 I was revived by the turn of events, and as I hit the trail the next day, I felt ready to tackle more of the challenging White Mountains. I was scared of what was ahead, but ready to press on and face my next task: the Presidential range, or “Prezis.”