A Day in the Whites: The Presidentials

So it turns out that moving and starting a new job is a really involving process! The blog got put on the back burner for a while, but it’s been percolating back there for a while and a new post is finally done.

Today is the one-year anniversary of our first steps on the Appalachian Trail. In honor of that amazing and life-changing event….without further ado, our last full day on the Appalachian Trail.

We spent our last day of our Appalachian Trail adventure in the southern Presidentials of the White Mountains. We hiked about eleven miles that day, almost all of it above treeline.

The day got an auspicious start when we began our morning work-for-stay chores at Mizpah Spring Hut. The generous crew members informed us that there were no leftovers from breakfast, but that they would be making more just for us! After we finished sweeping, we wolfed down an amazing pan of breakfast hash, complete with potatoes, vegetables, and eggs. It gave us an extra kick as we started out in the cool morning air. There was frost on the boardwalks (above), but the day was clear and sunny.

Sign text: Welcome to the Alpine Zone. Enjoy the fragile beauty. Be a caring steward. Stay on the trail or walk on bare rocks. Camp only below timberline. Cook on a stove. Help preserve the delicate balance of the Alpine Zone. It’s a tough place to grow.

Behind us, a view of the peaks we would climb that day. Mt. Eisenhower is the closest one, while Mt. Washington rises in the distance.

Looking back–way back–to the Franconia Ridge.

Like Franconia Ridge and Bondcliff, the southern Presidentials were home to a truly fascinating and weird variety of tiny plants, fungi, and lichen. Sideways trees, purple blobs, etc. The works.

On Mt. Eisenhower, below, we were still surrounded by golden grass and patchy knee-high shrubs. However, as we got closer and closer to Mt. Washington, the vegetation faded away. The landscape became starker and starker, and we felt that we were climbing out of the known world, into some alternate reality.

Far ahead we could see the antennae of Mt. Washington’s weather observatory, rising up out of the mass of red-gray rock like the first human settlement on Mars. Between us reared more peaks of angular boulders, rock screes falling sharply to either side. Ahead of us, the rock lines marked a path that was increasingly indistinguishable from the landscape around it.

Paste some neon writing across the sky, print the whole image on cheap fast-fading paper, and you would have a cover right out of the 70’s sci-fi novels that I grew up reading. It was magnificent.

Behind us: Mt. Washington.

Looking back.

The view from the summit of Mt. Monroe (below) was breathtaking: a steep cliff dropped down to a small dip between the peaks, where a tiny, jewel-blue lake nestled in the boulders. On the other side rose Mt. Washington, its antennae and towers more and more visible. Amazingly, one of the huts of the Whites was right there too: Lake of the Clouds, closed for the season, but giving its crew the opportunity to work right on the slopes of Mt. Washington in the summer.

We stopped to check out Lake of the Clouds, which was closed for the season, and then pushed onwards…

Text from the Forest Service sign on the path from Lake of the Clouds hut to Mt. Washington:

STOP

THE AREA AHEAD HAS THE WORST WEATHER IN AMERICA.

MANY HAVE DIED THERE FROM EXPOSURE, EVEN IN THE

SUMMER. TURN BACK NOW IF THE WEATHER IS BAD.

We were warned.

It was October 6th: a clear, sunny, beautiful late-summer day. Not a trace of the dense fog that made the Forest Service decide to mark its above-treeline path with cairns. But as we climbed up the final slope of Mt. Washington, cairns and blazes were the only way to tell the path from the rest of the gray, lichen-covered boulders and occasional grass that made up the mountainside.

We rounded the final switchbacks. A couple descended towards us, dressed in city street clothes, one of them holding a Starbucks cup: the image of urban dwellers coming down an escalator, but transposed onto the highest mountain in New England. We saw a few runners who were trying to cover all the Presidential peaks in one day, dressed in skintight neon suits. We saw a few other people, but not too many. And then…

Then we got to the top and plunged into a different world. People, cars, buildings, and a parking lot were crammed onto the tip of the mountain. The colorful cog railway cars arrived and departed, the wind blew fiercely, people ambled around, and the observatory, with its bundles of antennae and extreme-weather reinforced hulls, looked even more like a space station up close.

At the very top, there was a little sign that said “Mt. Washington Summit”, and a line of forty or fifty people waiting to have their pictures taken next to it. For the most part, they looked cold, huddling against the wind—when they stepped into their cars or the cog railway, two thousand feet below, it had been considerably warmer. But they waited stoically on top of the world, with the surreal observatory tower rising in the background behind them.

It was a more democratic representation than we had seen on a mountain in a long time. People of every age milled around, people with strollers and people with walkers making their ways to the views. They carried handbags, day packs, canvas totes, fanny packs, and everything else. Some looked excited, some looked determined, some looked like their family had dragged them up there. Everyone was taking pictures. No one wanted to linger at the views; there was a constant beeline to the low buildings that housed everything from the cafeteria to the gift shop to the post office–yes, post office. It was a crowd much like you would see at any museum, except that it was also extremely windy and on top of a mountain.

We saw no other hikers who looked like they had climbed the mountain under their own power, let alone anyone carrying an overnight backpack. In fact, we didn’t see anyone whose gear was remotely as dirty as ours, which was probably good for the cafeteria sanitation. It was surreal.

We didn’t make it to the “Mt. Washington Summit” sign, although I did have a good time taking pictures of the people waiting to get their pictures taken.

By the time we left the cafeteria, fortified with clam chowder and fresh water, it was late afternoon. We set off down the northern slope of Mt. Washington, looking ahead to the high peaks of the northern Presidential Mountains: Jefferson, Adams, Madison. We wouldn’t be able to climb them on this trip, but looking out at the low sunlight slanting across their broad slopes, I was already dreaming of coming back.

Somewhere between them was our resting place for the night, although we hadn’t quite decided where.

Above, our view ahead, looking over the valley of the Great Gulf to Jefferson and Adams. Below, one of the cars of the Cog Railway coming down: the tracks passed very close to the trail, and all the tourists waved excitedly.

Soon we were walking along the saddleback ridge between two mountains, with two valleys to either side. To our right, the precipitous drop of the Great Gulf yawned open, already shadowed and dark. To our left, the sun dipped down towards the horizon.

As you can see in the next three photos: I kept looking back to Mt. Washington.

We came over the little peak of Mt. Clayton and stood on the slope of Mt. Jefferson, looking at the guidebook. We had decided to make for the Perch, a shelter below the treeline. The wind was fierce, and the slope was covered in short, stiff grass, which the setting sun turned rosy gold.

To our west, the sun slowly sank into the valley. To our east, a full moon rose over the Great Gulf. Behind us, little pink clouds were gathering around the top of Mt. Washington. The clear weather had come to an end–cold, steady rain would set in the next day, which was why this day had been our last. We took one last look around at the beauty, and then headed down into the trees.

A Day in the Whites: The Bonds to Ethan Pond

This post will describe one extraordinary day in early October. It takes place during the time that I cover in Diverse 360° Views of the Whites. Guyot Shelter, above, was a great place to spend the night. The Appalachian Mountain Club had managed to place a shelter, tent platforms, and a bear box on the steep, forested slope of Mt. Bond. It was as protected as an open, uninsulated structure can be: the fourth side, usually left open, was mostly closed in except for a large door-sized opening, and a ceiling over the porch added additional shelter and luxury. We had it to ourselves, and took advantage of the railings to dry out everything–tent, sleeping sacks, sleeping bags, sleeping mats–that had gotten vaguely damp in the two days of fog. Essentially, we had our own mountain cabin for the night. We wanted to see the sunrise from the summit of Mt. Bond, 0.7 miles from the shelter. We rose in the dark and charged up the mountain in the purple pre-dawn light, seeing shafts of orange starting to spread across the sky, hoping to get there in time. We reached the summit–an open, rocky top with unimpeded 360° view of the Pemigewasset Wilderness–just as the sun was starting to show over the horizon. It was an unusually clear morning. Even the Presidential Range, with Mt. Washington at its center, lacked its usual cap of clouds. The valleys were filled with ethereal threads of fog, but we were in the peaks rising above them.

The Presidentials. Mt. Washington is the highest peak in this photo.

Diverse 360° Views of the Whites

Early October.

When we left Jeff and Martha’s to hike up to the Franconia Ridge, we knew that we were taking some chances with the weather. Franconia Ridge is a knife-like piece of trail that is almost entirely above treeline, affording fabulous views to both sides during good weather. However, it’s quite common to have sunny weather in the valleys with some clouds sitting on the mountains. We’d heard some mixed weather reports for the day that we were planning to be on Franconia Ridge, but decided to go along with it anyway. The night before, we stayed at a campsite unlike any other we’d seen, but very typical for the Whites: tent platforms, a designated eating area away from the tent platforms, and a strong metal box for food storage, all to reduce travel impact and remedy the effects of careless hikers leaving food around, which had led to aggressive bear visits at that site. (We didn’t see any bears–it was working.) We ate dinner with a European couple about our age, Wendelin and Cécile, swapping travel stories as we watched the fog roll in.

On the way up there, we saw some more spectacular moss and lichen–New Hampshire and Vermont were taking the prize for world-class rock flora on the trail so far.

Entering the Whites

We weren’t quite in the White Mountains National Forest yet, but we were definitely in the mountains of New Hampshire.

View on the way up Smarts Mountain. I associate this photo very strongly with having an earnest conversation about how dgenna’s startup gear company is going to manufacture its first products.

After we left Bill Ackerly’s house, we started a beautiful, unexpectedly punishing late afternoon hike up Smarts Mountain. The path went up and up and up, pretty gradually, until it stopped and just went hand-over-hand straight up up for the last half mile or so. As we panted for breath, we couldn’t help but notice the gorgeous evening light on the rocks and trees, although we admired it with enjoyment and anxiety–soon it would not only be incredibly steep, but incredibly steep and also dark. We pushed, and the sun set about a minute before we reached the top.

The Whites have the most epic rock work on the trail. And there is some stiff competition.

Smarts Mountain wasn’t done with us yet, though. Come for the evening scenery, stay for…

Trail Magic and Trail Angels

When we reached the road, Mike picked us up and we all went into Rutland, VT. We were leaving the Long Trail, and also leaving the mountains, for a while: the trail would bear east across the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River, taking us from Vermont’s Green Mountains to New Hampshire’s Whites. We had no idea, but this would prove to be one of the most surprising and remarkable areas of the trail. We had heard that the Hiker Hostel and Yellow Deli was one of the most amazing hostels on the trail, but also that it was run by a religious group that no one knew much about. Inside was a bustling, cozy cafe. One of the men working behind the counter, Aysch, saw us, detached himself from the group, and greeted us warmly with a glass of peach mate tea for each of us. He showed us the hostel upstairs, which had the homiest, most welcoming little bunk rooms. Below, the women’s bunk: another Yellow Deli distinction was gender separation. Each bunk room had its own bathroom and showers, as well as a rack of clothing–hikers often like to wash every item of clothing they’re carrying, so having extra clothes at a hostel is a nice touch.

Poetry, Ski Lifts, and Cairns of Vermont

Signs of early fall: hobblebush is one of the first shrubs to change color.

The morning after our foggy experience on Stratton Mountain, it was raining, so we ate breakfast underneath our tent’s rain fly (a clever design feature allows you to take down the tent body, leaving the rain fly as an awning). Suddenly we heard a voice: “Hey, I recognize that tent!”

Seeks Chayah, or Chayah, was a thruhiker who we’d first met in North Carolina, as we both took a zero day to weather out a windstorm near Fontana Dam. We kept overlapping with each other throughout North Carolina and Tennessee, and had last seen each other at the Laughing Heart Hostel in Hot Springs, as Chayah and her companion Anita recuperated from injuries. Logistics prevented us from overlapping again after Hot Springs, although we kept hoping to catch up to her after we got back onto the trail after the Ohio visit. For most of our time in Virginia, Chayah was just a few days ahead of us, as we could tell from her entries in the trail logbooks. We were fast enough to get very close to her–on the day before the Ulrich family gathering, we saw in the logbook that she was just hours ahead of us. But then we had to get off the trail again–so frustrating!–and lost touch. Such are the vicissitudes and spontaneous meetings and partings of trail life. Here on the side of Stratton Mountain, after dgenna and I had taken two breaks from the trail and skipped three states, and Chayah had steadily kept walking north without missing a mile, we met up again. We joyfully shared news of our trail journeys, and found ourselves hiking together for the next week, more or less–staying at the same places, walking and talking together for most of the day.

Rainy day on Stratton Pond with Chayah–we admired her ultra-light poncho, and dgenna broke out the new rain hat.

Into the Mountains Again

In the middle of August, we came back to Cornwall for about a week to go to my grandfather’s memorial. We also used the plentiful time, resources, and space to do some trail-related projects, like:

dehydrating some food, like pasta and tomato sauce (below, dgenna takes a tray of dried tomato sauce out of the dehydrator);

for dgenna, making a new, very geometric rain hat;

and for me, finally buying some new Superfeet insoles to replace the ones I’d been wearing since Georgia.

Face Paint, Love, and the Whites: An update from the NH/VT border.

I am writing this update from the Dartmouth College Library. Last night we had an incredible homestay in Norwich, VT, which began with deep sharing and fabulous face paint outside the town’s general store “Dan and Whit’s,” and then became a delicious fireside meal outdoors with candles. Face paint, high spirits, delicious food, incredible hospitality and openness—what more can one ask?

And now, after a day of browsing atlases of the trail, catching up on email, reading “You Can Tell By Just Looking: And 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People” in a cafe, and exploring the land of Dartmouth hiker food specials (free pizza and bagels), we’re about to hike the 1 1/2 miles from campus to the nearest AT campsite and thereby inaugurate the last state of this year’s hike: New Hampshire. So onward to the White Mountains! Onward to a fabulous, concluding hike with Hannah’s Dad in the Presidential Range or nearby before he takes us back to Connecticut!

We’re prepared to be safe and cautious in the White’s notoriously difficult, dangerous, and capricious weather patterns, but please also send us your energies for the best, and safest conditions, especially when we’re above tree line and among the clouds. Hiking becomes a lesson in living into openness for the unexpected, as in the cases of crazy and tremendous weather or, alternately, that moment when incredible people offer you beautiful art therapy in love beside a parking lot. Sending my love to all! dg. j. u.

Expanded Home Turf

On August 14, we got back on the trail. It took a little while to reach the AT, but it was very pleasant: we started in my parents’ front yard, hiked over the hill, and down into Cornwall Bridge. The walk over the hill, which I’ve done countless times while growing up, was beautiful as always: in the photo above, a waterfall cascades through an old, impressive stone mill structure. We roadwalked across the bridge to the Breadloaf trailhead, just where Route 4 splits off from Route 7, and hiked up the steep but short Breadloaf trail to a pretty lunch view.

I have lived in Cornwall Bridge all my life, but, amazingly, I had walked almost none of the trail between Cornwall Bridge and Salisbury. (I have walked the 4 or so miles that follow the Housatonic River many times, but we started north of it this time.) I’ve driven through all the tiny towns that the Trail crosses since before I can remember: Cornwall Bridge, Sharon, Falls Village, Salisbury. Often, in crossing a road, I found out for the first time exactly where the Appalachian Trail went, instead of simply seeing the signs.

Northern Virginia and a change of plans

Hi everyone! The photos are collected and it’s time for another big post about our journey on the Appalachian Trail. Before I start though, a brief announcement.

I’m writing this from my parents’ house in Cornwall Bridge, CT (yes, I grew up about ten minutes from the trail!). While dgenna and I were at the family reunion, I got the news that my grandfather was in the hospital. As we hiked up through northern Virginia, land of the good cell service, I talked to my parents frequently to get updates on his condition and hear about their care for my three other grandparents as well. It seemed clear that dgenna and I would come home soon—the only question was how far we would hike before trying to find a bus or train up to Connecticut. Just south of Harper’s Ferry, we got the call that Grandpa had expressed the wish to die, rather than continue with less-than-effective cancer treatments. At the time, we were actually very close to my dad’s cousin Paul, Aunt Tottie, and Uncle Eric in Maryland—they kindly picked us up and hosted us the next night before dropping us off at the bus station in the morning. In the end, we arrived in Cornwall a couple hours after my grandfather’s death on August 1st. We’ve been here since then, spending much-needed time with my grandmother, my family in general, and taking part in life in Cornwall.

After this third spate of time off the trail, it’s clear that a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail is no longer feasible for us this year. Although we’re sad to not be able to get from Georgia to Maine in one season, we’re going to try to hike as much as we can with the time that we have. Rather than spend the travel time to get back to Harper’s Ferry, we’ve decided to continue hiking from Cornwall Bridge, starting tomorrow and continuing north as long as the weather holds, with a return here for my grandfather’s memorial. I spent a lot of time hiking on the Connecticut and Massachusetts sections of the trail while growing up, and am very excited to return to my favorite places as well as points north.

And now, without further ado: our ten-day hike in late July through northern Virginia!