by David Miller
The morning weather is as good as I can hope for when I leave the hut and head for Mount Washington. It is just below sixty degrees, and the wind gusts are up to thirty miles per hour. This is calm for the Presidential Range. Less than a mile from Mizpah Hut, I go above tree line again as I ascend Mount Pierce. I will stay above tree line for the next twelve miles.
The terrain is a mix of rocks and matted blue-green vegetation. Rocky pinnacles jut up along the ridge. Fortunately, the trail weaves around, rather than over, the peaks of Mounts Eisenhower, Franklin, and Monroe. As I bend around the right of Mount Monroe, the Lakes of the Clouds Hut comes into view.
Lakes of the Clouds Hut and Mount Washington.
The hut is perfectly nestled in the saddle between Monroe and Washington. Lakes of the Clouds is the largest of the huts and is a simple, solid, ranch-style structure. The architecture of the hut blends beautifully with the landscape, complementing, rather than detracting from, the picturesque austerity of the mountain. The same cannot be said of the spindly collection of weather antennae on the summit. From the northbound approach, Mount Washington rises to the right of the hut. The left shoulder forms a long, gradual slope. The cog railway, a steam-powered train that carries sightseers on a six-mile round trip ride to the top, travels along this slope.
A pair of southbound hikers, fit and young, are reading a pamphlet describing hikes on and around Mount Washington, noting the distances and time estimates for the walk from Lakes of the Clouds Hut to the summit. “Distance 1.5 miles, uphill one hour twenty-five minutes, downhill forty-five minutes,” he scoffs. “We walked that in less than fifteen minutes, didn’t we?” I note that neither has a watch. I am slow among these rocks. Even on the downhill, I lose time finding good foot placement. If I was to allow myself to speed downhill recklessly with the pull of gravity, I imagine I could manage a bit better than three miles per hour. The southbounder’s claim puts their speed at a joglike six miles per hour, which would enable them to cover forty-eight miles per day, assuming they limit themselves to eight-hour hiking days.
Northbound hikers have heard such claims often enough to make inside jokes about time estimation. If we do many miles in a day, then we are hiking in “southbound time.” To be fair, southbounders have undoubtedly heard the same exaggerations from northbounders.
The speed of the croo traveling between huts truly is amazing, and verifiable, since I have been passed by them. As I leave the hut, I see a long-legged croo member heading up Mount Washington ahead of me. I am determined to keep up, even though he’s only carrying a day pack. He has a fifty-yard lead, and I cannot close the gap. His strides are longer, so I quicken my pace. I am not winded, but simply cannot place my feet fast enough. This side of the mountain is entirely composed of rocks, so there is no beaten path. The trail is vaguely defined by cairns.35 I meander, drifting to rocks that offer the flattest foot landing surfaces. I look up at the ever more distant croo member, who moves in a direct line, never seeming to shorten or extend his stride, letting his foot take hold wherever it lands.
I’ve lost sight of the hiker ahead and wonder why the trail has veered to the west of the summit. The trail is level now, as if circling the mountain. When will it turn back uphill? The view ahead clears, and I can see that the path is headed slightly downhill toward the track of the cog railroad. I am on the wrong trail. I cannot imagine how I got off the AT. There is no point on the path where I had any indecision about where I was going. I hadn’t seen signs or noticed anything that hinted of a fork in the trail. I had taken a long look at the map last night back at Mizpah Hut. I know the AT descends from Washington near the cog railroad tracks, so I continue on, hoping to reconnect with the AT. The trail passes under the tracks, which are dripping with black soot. Shortly beyond the tracks, there is a marked trail intersection, where I learn that I have skirted the mountain on the West Side Trail. I head southbound on the AT, back to the summit of Mount Washington. I leave my pack at the intersection since I will be coming back down the same way. Getting myself lost causes me to miss four-tenths of the AT on the north side of the mountain. I walked that much extra on the West Side Trail, and I walk the north spur of the AT twice.
In addition to the cog railway, there is a road that delivers tourists to the summit of Mount Washington. For a fee, you can drive your car up the narrow, winding, car-sickness-inducing road and get a bumper sticker that says, “This car climbed Mount Washington.” You have to stop at intervals on the way down to let your brakes cool. A handful of buildings are up here, including a weather observatory, a snack bar, and a gift shop. The whole scene seems oddly tranquil for a mountain known for extreme conditions.
“Mount Washington has a well-earned reputation as the most dangerous small mountain in the world,” is just one of the warnings stated in AMC’s White Mountain Guide. The wind exceeds hurricane force (75 mph) on more than one hundred days in an average year, and the highest surface wind speed ever recorded (231 mph) was taken at the weather observatory on the summit. There may be snowfall, even in the middle of the summer.36
The weather can change suddenly, and there is an extreme difference between the weather on the mountaintop and the weather in the valley four miles below. Over one hundred people have died on the mountain, mostly from hypothermia. Mount Washington is accessible and underestimated—factors that contribute to the death toll. It is not easy to understand how people can die on a mountain with a snack bar on top. The AMC guide doesn’t mince words: “If you begin to experience difficulty from weather conditions, remember that the worst is yet to come, and turn back, without shame, before it is too late.” The book goes on to suggest inexperienced hikers would be wise to get their experience elsewhere, and that most deaths are due to “the failure of robust but incautious hikers to realize that winterlike storms of incredible violence occur frequently, even during the summer months.”37
Biscuit is in the snack bar. I left before she did this morning, but she is here first because of my diversion. When I arrived, I could see all the way down to Lakes of the Clouds. When I leave an hour later, thick clouds have blown in, and visibility is about thirty yards. The temperature has dropped fifteen degrees, and the wind is up to forty-five miles per hour, with some stronger gusts. The mountain is covered in a cold, damp fog. The howl of the wind makes it difficult to hear anyone more than an arm’s length away. Despite warnings of the volatility and severity of the weather, the sudden change is a shock. Biscuit asks if we can hike together; I gladly accept.
On the plateau between Washington and Madison, I feel suspended, like walking on the canvas of a vast tent, whose poles form the mountain peaks. The ground is a jumble of suitcase-sized rocks, leopard-spotted with green lichen. Cairns look ghostly, shrouded by fog.
There are dozens of trails in the White Mountains. The length of the Appalachian Trail is comprised of segments of other trails. Today I have been on the Crawford Path Trail, the West Side Trail (though I wasn’t supposed to be), and the Gulfside Trail. Signposts at trail intersections identify the choices, but “Appalachian Trail” is not always identified. A sign may point to the northbound Osgood Trail or westbound Gulf Trail, and we need to know which one is the AT. On some signs, hikers have helped by carving the AT symbol next to the right choice. This is the one section of the AT on which I would advise carrying maps. Unfortunately, I don’t have any with me now. I do have Biscuit with me, and I am more confident in her directional choices than my own.
Our miles pass safely, and quickly, since we sustain a running conversation about Biscuit’s time in India, books, and the Gulf War. Fog has lifted somewhat as we near the splendid sight of sanctuary, Madison Springs Hut, dwarfed by the pyramid of Mount Madison rising behind. We are doing work-for-stay again. I haven’t seen another northbound thru-hiker since leaving Greenleaf Hut. Large, heavy wood tables and benches serve as dining tables at all the huts. At bedtime they are pushed to each side of the open dining area. I lay my sleeping bag underneath a table to avoid bei
ng stepped on in the darkness.
The sound of wind slapping into the hut rouses me from sleep in the middle of the night. The cold air penetrates the hut as if the walls are perforated. I sleep on the cold wood floor of the dining room, fully clothed and buried within my sleeping bag. I am fortunate to be housed in the hut; my tarp would stop much less of this cold wind. In the morning, I wake from a deep sleep to the sounds of the croo in the kitchen. Biscuit has already put away her sleeping gear. I hustle to get myself up before they start putting food on the table above me.
The hut croo does a skit during breakfast, a takeoff on Star Wars. The costume for the young man playing Princess Leia is a pair of bagels strapped to his head like earmuffs. Darth Vader has a colander for a helmet and wears a black graduation robe. “Come to the Dark Side, Luke. You won’t have to pack out your trash.”
“Well, it is kinda heavy…”
Also, a croo member reads the weather report from the Mount Washington Observatory. It is forty-two degrees, wind gusting up to sixty-six miles per hour, wind chill twenty-eight degrees, visibility one hundred feet. Biscuit and I agree that it’s safer if we hike together, at least until we’re over Mount Madison.
The trail heads directly up the rocky summit of Mount Madison, a pile of rocks that is tough enough to negotiate without steady forty-mile-per-hour winds. The air is crisp and cold, the wind growing stronger as we climb. Sparse clouds are in the sky, white and wispy, blowing past at surreal speed, like frames of time-lapse video. I wear every bit of clothing I have, including rain gear, and I still feel cold despite the exertion of hiking uphill. Two packless guests from the hut are ahead. They approach the summit crawling on all fours, unable to stand in the wind. Their jackets fill with wind and extend above their backs like parachutes. Near the peak the gusts are so strong I can’t move safely, and so I stay put for a minute or more, bracing myself against the wind. When blown from behind, I lean into the boulders and crawl, following the example of the hikers before me.
Biscuit and Awol on the summit of Mount Madison.
After the summit, there are still a few miles of ridge above tree line. My hands are numb inside my gloves. The trail turns east and follows a long, narrow ridgeline on a gradual downhill slope. The wind, blowing strongly from our right, displaces me each time I lift a foot, yet I have to be careful to land on flat, stable rocks. It takes Biscuit and me three hours to travel three miles from Madison Hut. Biscuit’s pack cover blows off her pack, saved by a cord snagging on her shoulder strap. She looks downwind, to the north where all the land we see is below us, and asks, “Where do you think that would have come down?”
“In Maine,” I answer.
Below timberline, the weather warms quickly. Off come the jacket, long pants, and gloves. By the time we reach Pinkham Notch, I am in shorts and a T-shirt. Two hours ago the wind chill was below freezing. Pinkham Notch is a major trailhead on New Hampshire Route 16, about eleven miles from Gorham. AMC runs a resort at Pinkham Notch, and there is a large parking lot bustling with guests and day hikers. Arrow is here waiting for us; he takes me and Biscuit into Gorham.
We stay at the Barn Hostel, an inexpensive backpacker bunkroom adjacent to a bed and breakfast. The building is shaped like a barn, with real beds, not bunks. Twin beds and queen beds are lined up in the loft like a mattress showroom. There are at least a dozen thru-hikers. I recognize Spock, a thru-hiker I last saw in the Smokies. Spock and his wife had jumped up to Katahdin and started hiking south (flip-flopped). They were in the 100-Mile Wilderness when his wife took a frightening fall.38 She sustained a laceration on her head and bruises everywhere. Spock said they were very fortunate to chance upon a ranger and get a ride out of the woods. His wife had to end her thru-hike.
Completion of the Presidential Range is a significant milestone for me. I am celebrating with a day off in Gorham. Since the start of my hike, I have told people, “I am headed for Maine,” and now I am on the doorstep of the final state. I feel like I’m on the home stretch, even though I still have more than three hundred miles to go, and many of them will be difficult. Arrow is in town again today, and he treats me to a lakeside grill of sausage, chicken, and corn on the cob at Jericho Lake just outside of town. Later, we go to see Glen Ellis Falls near Pinkham Notch. From there, we can see hikers traversing rock ledges on the way up Wildcat Mountain. That’s where I go next.
Gorham reminds me of Hot Springs in that it is a town concentrated along Main Street. It is a tourist town, with more hotels and restaurants than would normally be supported by its meager resident population. Some stores and hotels have “Nous Parlons Francais” signs; we are only sixty miles from the Canadian border. There are gift shops with moose and bear sculptures on the lawns. High-peaked roofs, the six-foot-tall ice cream cone on the parlor, and the clock atop the red town hall stand out brilliantly against the vivid blue sky. Further in the distance, the White Mountains form a razor-sharp horizon. In the winter, the town fills with skiers. Now, in late August, hikers are everywhere.
On the streets I see Muktuk, a hiker I met in Erwin. He flip-flopped from Harpers Ferry and is getting off the trail after reaching Mount Washington. He is out of time and motivation and seems resigned to his decision to end it here. I recall the excited conversation Muktuk led back at Overmountain Shelter and am sad for how it contrasts with his somber mood today. Our time back then was analogous to college graduation; now we talk of retirement.
I think of what I am doing on the trail. What have I accomplished? My time on the trail has been fantastic, but there has been no epiphany. I’ve nearly used up my quota of time being Awol. I have to go back to the real world, earn a living, and support a family. I have no insight into how I can return and avoid the doldrums that brought me here.
13
Gorham to Caratunk
When my father took us hiking as kids, I was lukewarm about the trips. Yeah, the mountains looked neat and all, but couldn’t we just drive around and look at them? Why’d we have to walk for miles and camp for nights on end and eat such nasty food? My dad’s idea of good trail food was mincemeat and Vienna sausages. I couldn’t discern how my older brother Chris felt about our trips; he was the least expressive person in our family.
In 1981 Chris spent a couple of weeks hiking in Florida, and then he hitched up to Georgia and started hiking on the AT. When he reached Damascus, he decided he would continue hiking all the way to Maine. In that year, only 140 thru-hikes were recorded. Gear and the trail itself have changed since then, and Chris was an iconoclast even in his own time. He hiked with no shelter, no stove, and very little money.
I was in college when Chris thru-hiked. I was hankering to join the workforce and little attuned to his adventure. For the next twenty years, until meeting the retiree thru-hiker in the Smokies, I would think of thru-hiking as something that free-spirited young people like Chris do instead of going to college.
Chris Miller at the conclusion of his 1981 thru-hike.
When I was near thirty years old, I went for a short backpacking trip with Juli and a friend. It was even harder than I remembered from my trips as a child. I suffered from leg cramps; we got rained on and terrorized by lightning. We cut our trip short. I concluded that age had rendered me unsuitable for carrying a backpack for any significant distance.
Coincident with my inspiration by the retiree, I had been taking better care of my health, and I began to rethink my suitability for the trail. I’m tolerant of physical discomfort, I travel well, and I don’t have to shower every day. I have a strong, slow, runner’s heartbeat, even though I’ve never been a dedicated runner.
Upon deciding that I would thru-hike, I spoke with Chris. He contributed to my feeling that thru-hiking is best done alone, but he couldn’t convince me to take on his minimalist style.
“I think I’ll take a tent. They make them nowadays that only weigh three or four pounds,” I said.
“How much do they weigh when they’re wet?” Chris asked pointedly.
; I get a late start from Gorham and worry about the long slack-pack that I am planning. Only a block down the road it rains hard enough for me to stop and put on my pack cover. Looking out to the mountains, the clouds collide with the peaks and twist into swirls of gray and white. I also decide to put on rain pants. It is an annoying task because I have to take my shoes off to put them on. My pack is falling apart; again the supports fall out of place and drop all the weight on my shoulders. Also, there are curved metal rods on each side of the pack that have worn loose from their cloth stays. The rods spin out of place and poke me in the rear. The pack spurs me like I’m carrying a little jockey.
The sum of my frustrations leads me to turn around and stay in Gorham for another day. I spend the day regrouping for the remainder of my hike. I find new rain pants with zippered legs, and I rig up my pack once more.
Juli and I speak on the phone. She has had a difficult day, too. She has been working, mothering three kids, posting my journal, and sending me packages, along with all of the other household chores. “I’m ready for it to be over,” she says, referring to my hike and the situation it has put her in.
Before leaving for my hike, I needed to know that Juli was committed to staying the course at home. It would not have been wise to take on the AT if she had given only a halfhearted “if that’s what you want to do” acceptance. If that had been the case, she would be too inclined to reproach me while I was away. I could imagine a nearly tangible band stretching back home, tugging with more resistance as I headed north. Juli has been supportive, never wanting me to quit, and up until now, sparing me any guilt over making her life more challenging. She only tells me now, knowing that it cannot be construed as calling me back home.