It’s amazing how much work it can be to hike ten miles in the Whites.
I woke at 5. It was pouring out and very windy. I packed up then went to the kitchen where one staff member was prepping pancake batter. I was hoping to buy a couple of pastries for my breakfast but she was quite curt and sent me packing. So, granola again.
Xenia and two other SOBOs were waiting out the rain, but it had thinned out quite a bit by 6:30 so I said my farewells and left. My feet got wet pretty quickly but I had both rain pants and rain jacket on and stayed dry otherwise. I started up towards Mount Washington. The trail was pretty good by New Hampshire standards. Visibility was a couple of hundred feet.
Half an hour later I reached the top. Of course the visitors center was closed since it was only 7. There was nothing to see in the mist, so on I went.
A little later the rain stopped and the sky started to clear. I passed a tent pitched on a flatish spot on the mountainside. A little later the sun had been out long enough to warm the rocks. I stopped, took off my shoes and socks, wrung the socks out, and set them all on the warm rock to dry. I shook my feet and tried to get them to dry too.
A Nordic man came by shortly after. He was the one who had been camping in the tent. He had run out of time last night (or out of steam) before he reached his intended destination. We discussed out goal fir today. We both planned to try to get to Osgoode tentsite, which was a mere 8 miles away.
Madison Spring hut was only 7 miles from Lake of the Clouds hut, but I didn’t reach it until after 1. That means my speed wasn’t much over a mile an hour. I ordered soup and a pastry. The pastry turned out to be much smaller than at previous huts. The soup, which took 15 minutes to arrive, was a bland and watery potato soup. So I ate a full lunch of my own supplies too.
After the hut I just had to climb 500 feet to the peak of Mount Madison, and then walk three miles to the campsite. Even at one MPH I should have been there by 5. But I took a wrong turn (I think the sign said Appalachian Road and I just saw Appalachian and turned that way. I walked down rocks into brush then forest for perhaps 40 minutes. Then I came to a river I needed to cross. I checked for a blaze on the other side, since it wasn’t clear where to cross. To my horror I saw that the blaze was blue not white. I checked FarOut. I was only a half mile off course, but probably 1500 feet lower than where I needed to be. I turned around and began the slow, painful climb. I had to go almost all the way to the peak of Mount Madison again.
By the time I was heading back down to the campsite it was 5:30 and I had 2.8 miles to go. I arrived, very tired, at 8. Luckily there was a free tent platform for me. I cooked, set up my tent etc., and have been munching dinner and writing this at the same time.
A lot of hours and a lot of work to cover ten miles!
Mile 1863.4 to mile 1873.4 = 10.0 miles
