Week 19- Franconia Ridge, Mt. Washington, and Entering Maine

After a slow morning in the hotel room avoiding some light rain, I set off uphill under cloudy but dry skies. I had a huge day ahead of me since I was starting off at 1821 ft and had to get all the way up to 5260 ft, which is a lot of gain. The steep and rocky trail was very slow going, but I watched the trees slowly change from the lowland hardwoods to the pines and birches, and finally the small high elevation firs. Eventually I made it to the Franconia ridge trail, and I started seeing really great views, but I didn’t realize just how great the sights were until I got to the top of Little Haystack Mountain, and I saw the open rolling ridge stretching for miles ahead of me.

I hiked over the rocky crests while looking down at the highways, ski slopes, and tons of other nearby mountains. On this ridge I summited Mt. Lincoln and Mt. Lafayette, before starting to head down off of the ridge. The descent was rocky and involved some tricky rock scrambles and big steps, and almost immediately once the downhill stopped, I was heading uphill again up the steep Mt. Garfield. I was starting to feel pretty wiped out going up another steep mountain, and then the descent turned out to be one of the worst so far. The trail actually merged with a stream and I had to carefully climb down the sheer rock stream bed while avoiding slippery algae, lichen, and water flowing down the trail.

It was a crazy section of trail, and I was very glad to get to the bottom and have that section behind me. At the bottom of Garfield I started looking for a stealth spot where I could set up camp for the night, but I kept passing the ones I came across because they were too close to the trail or not flat enough or covered by roots. Eventually the small flat section of trail ended and I was heading uphill again with sunset only half an hour away. Fortunately I came across Galehead hut, and asked the croo if they would let me do work for stay, which they agreed to. I swept the floor in the hut before heading outside to make some mashed potatoes, and when the lights went off at 9:30 I set up my sleeping bag in a corner of the dining room for the night.

In the hut the night owls didn’t leave the dining room until around 10 pm, and the early birds came back in and started chatting around 5 am, so I was up and moving by 5:30, already feeling sleep deprived and tired before I’d even started hiking. The trail ahead looked a little easier than the previous day, with only one big climb right at the start before a mostly downhill rest of the day. I tackled the first climb up South Twin Mountain and was the first person to the summit for the day. I sat down at the top and looked around at all the mountains surrounding me, and appreciated the supreme quiet that lay around me.

So early in the day the wind hadn’t picked up yet and besides a couple small bird calls, the mountains were completely quiet. After a few minutes I started downward, and over the next hour I went up and over Mount Guyot and Zealand Mountain. I was still feeling pretty tired throughout the morning, and after a poorly placed foot caused me to fall down, I started feeling grouchy and frustrated too. The trail had gotten increasingly crowded during the morning, likely due to the July 4th weekend, and I found it hard to get in a groove when I had to pause every couple minutes to let other hikers pass. My attitude remained, shall we say, poopy during the rest of the descent down toward Zealand hut and falls, and I was determined to stop and enjoy the waterfall once I got down to it. Once I got to the hut I headed inside to see if they had any snacks, and stuffed two free leftover pancakes in my mouth before buying cornbread, a brownie, and some coffee. With my baked goods in hand I walked over to the nearby falls, where I made myself a double decker cheese sandwich, took out my jellybeans, and then sat down to eat my big haul of food while icing my feet in the cold water going down the falls. The sun was out and warm, the falls were cool on my feet, and my lunch was delicious.

I stayed by the falls for almost an hour, really enjoying the scenery, before I packed back up and started onward. Almost immediately I somehow took another bad step and ended up falling down again, this time in front of two day hikers #embarrassing. Luckily after this the trail became surprisingly flat as it traversed an old rock slide, and I managed to keep up a good pace for a few miles despite still feeling a little tired. The descent eventually continued, and I made my way down for a while until I crossed a road right at the bottom of Crawford Notch. In the south these areas were called gaps and in the north it seems like they’re called notches, but the trail has a tendency in both places to take you all the way from the top of a ridge down as low as you can go where a river flows, before crossing to the next hill and making you go all the way back up a ridge right across from the one you just descended. I wasn’t very excited about having to regain all the elevation I’d just lost, but I bumped into another thru hiker I’d met a couple times, and we hiked together up the hills. Having someone else to hike with was super motivating, and I pushed myself harder than I normally would have to keep up a good pace on the climb, even when it turned into some rock scrambling. As a result, we reached the Webster cliffs sooner than I’d expected, and despite there being some good stealth camp sites nearby, I decided to push on a little longer. I kept heading uphill for another mile and I wanted to go further since it was only 6 pm, but I started worrying about the potential lack of campsites as I got closer to the tree line, so I stopped after a mile and set up camp in a secluded moss covered clearing on the mountainside. I was glad for the early night after my lack of sleep the night before, and I fell asleep listening to the sound of the wind in the trees above me.

The morning started off with more uphill with steep rock scrambles until I got up and over Mt. Webster, after which it meandered up and down over hills and down across small bogs spanned by planks. Slowly the trees became scrawnier and more twisted from the wind, until I crossed the treeline and entered the presidential range alpine zone, after which only a few clumps the size of bushes could be seen sheltered behind large rocks. After cresting Mt. Jackson and passing Mizpah hut, I continued climbing steadily upward over increasingly rocky and barren terrain, and I was having a great time. For once the AT, which usually endeavors to drag hikers up and over every single hill it can find, led around Mt. Eisenhower and Mt. Monroe, which provided nice breaks from the steady incline.

The lichen covered rocks and open views of the alpine zone felt new and exciting, and with the towers on the top of Mt. Washington looming ever larger, I felt like an explorer of a new planet journeying back towards my rocket on its launch towers. I crested another hill and spotted two small ponds next to the Lake of the Clouds hut, and watched many people in the distance climbing up the winding trail.

During the last push to the summit I was starting to feel pretty hungry but I knew at the summit there was a snack bar with hot dogs, so I battled the increasingly strong wind and pushed to the top. Suddenly the feeling of being out in the middle of the wilderness disappeared, as I spotted the tons of tourists milling around the summit, taking photos with the sign, and getting on and off the cog train. I quickly got in line to take a picture with the sign, before heading inside to get out of the high winds and grab some lunch.

Two chili dogs later I was feeling much better, and I hung around the summit for almost an hour before starting the climb down. All of my gumption from earlier seemed to have left, leaving me feeling like I needed a nap, but I slowly made my way off of the summit and up and down a  series of rocky hills. It started getting late in the afternoon, and I started trying to calculate if I would be able to make it below the treeline to camp for the night before the sun went down, but it wasn’t looking likely. Luckily, when I stopped at Madison Spring Hut, they were willing to let me do work for stay for the night. I hung around in the hut for a while and was given a bunch of stuffed shells and bread for dinner, and I quickly swept off the floor before laying out my sleeping pad and quilt for the night.

I blearily woke up at 5 am due to the morning light shining in from the large wall of windows right above where I was lying in the dining room, but I didn’t mind too much because the star gazing through the windows had been pretty amazing overnight. After donning my pack and doing the .5 mile climb up Mt. Madison and starting the long descent, I was very glad I hadn’t tried to push to cover the miles to the treeline the night before, because those miles were tough.

Maybe it was because my legs weren’t feeling super fresh, but the consistently uneven rocky steps downward were feeling much harder and steeper today than they had the day before. It took me another couple hours to finally reach trees that were taller than I was, and slowly roots and loose dirt were added to the sharp rocks on the trail as the forest closed in over my head. Even though the trail was all downhill, which is usually easier for me than uphill, every time I looked at the map I wouldn’t be as far along as I thought I was, and my legs were really feeling the strain. Finally I made it to the bottom the the descent, and I played some music to keep me moving as I hiked another four miles across the bottom of Pinkham notch. The trail along bottom of the notch frequently crossed streams ranging from tiny trickles I could step over to large cascades running under a bridge.

At long last I spotted a couple buildings through the trees, and I arrived at the Pinkham notch visitors center and lodge. I felt completely worn out, although I hadn’t even done eight miles, and I decided to give my body a break and stay at the lodge for the night. I spent most of the afternoon relaxing, but I made sure to grab three heaping plates of food from the dinner buffet. I sat with a table of other hikers, all of whom seemed equally as worn out as I felt. After I finished stuffing myself, I headed back to my room for an early night.

Day 130

Day 131

Day 132