Today's miles 14.9. AT miles 1861.2
What a day! Today was one of our most favourite days so far on the trail but also one of our hardest and most tiring days. We were up very early. We'd set our alarm for 5am aiming for a 6:30 start as we knew we had a long day ahead of us. We were awake though just after 4:30 as we heard Sox and Spiderman packing their tent up. We had breakfast and were ready and walking for 6am - our earliest start yet. It was the perfect weather day for summiting Mount Washington, a clear warm day with sunny spells and a gentle breeze. Apart from a short steep climb out from camp to Mount Pierce the first six miles of trail to the summit of mount Washington were very pleasant. Much easier walking than we've had in the last few days on a steady gradient. We were up above tree line again, the landscape was beautiful, very similar to the English Lake District just without the sheep! We really enjoy being above the tree line with the constant views.
We had great views of Mount Washington all the way, it getting closer and closer as we walked. We stopped briefly at The Lakes of the Clouds Hut then continued the last mile and a half to the summit. The path got a bit rockier and steeper but OK. There was a sign warning of the risk of attempting to climb to the summit in bad weather, Mount Washington has the highest ever recorded wind speed by man of over 200mph. Washington is similar to Mount Snowden in Wales in that it has a train, cog railway, that brings people up to the summit. We could see the black smoke coming from the steam train departing around 9am on its first morning journey down in the valley. Mt Washington also has a road up to the summit. We reached the summit at 9:45 and spent a good hour there. It was surprisingly quiet for a sunny Sunday, we knew we'd probably be ahead of the crowds being earlier in the morning but we also hit it in the right day. The road up to the summit was closed to the public as there was a car race going on, The Mount Washington Auto Road 'Climb to the Clouds' Auto Race. There were a few people sat on the summit watching the cars reach the finish line and there was a helicopter flying around filming the race. We saw the first train of the day, the steam train arrive about 10:15 and then two diesel trains followed later. We had a hot dog, chocolate brownie and coke in the cafe, very reasonably priced, we were told it would be very expensive. We were the only ones in the cafe to start. We also bought a few more snacks/chocolate bars to top up our snack supplies as we are a days supply short.
The trail got very rocky and interesting after the summit. We spent the next five and a half miles to Madison Hut descending slowly, with a couple of up hills thrown in. We were walking over rock fields along The Presidential Range, not quite going over the summits, around them thankfully, walking almost what we would call a 'Washington Horseshoe'. We called in at the Madison Hut and bought some lemonade and cake to keep us going, we had Mount Madison to get up and over. The steepest uphill climb of the day, Mount Madison was just a pile of large rocks. We enjoyed the climb up though. We passed a family who when they realised we were British thru hikers started chatting with us. They commented that we didn't smell as bad as most thru hikers which was reassuring, we think? Once on the summit, which was busy with lots of hikers coming up from the hut, we continued over and followed a rocky ridge down. The rocks seemed to go on forever. We were starting to get tired by this stage and our feet hurting from walking continuously on rocks for five/six hours. Once we hit the tree line the rocks eased slightly but the trail became very steep. We had this steep descent for just over a mile to our camp site, Osgood Tent Site, again it seemed to take forever. We were very pleased to arrive, it was 6pm when we got to camp, our feet were killing us and legs very tired.
We set up our tent on a double platform, which had chipmunks living underneath it. We had a very friendly chipmunk who kept coming and sitting on a rock next to us. Then there'd be two of them chasing each other around the platform. Sox and Spiderman arrived about 7:30 and set up tent next to us. We don't know what happened to our German friends, they'd not arrived by nine o'clock/dusk so we assume they stopped at Madison Hut or a campsite near Madison Hut instead. They were still in bed when we left at 6am so had a later start than us, they'd have ran out of time to get over Mount Madison.
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