Day 131 Osgood Tent Site to Carter Notch Hut

Today's miles 10.6.  AT miles 1871.8

Another tiring day, these rocky Mountains really 'kick your butt or ass' as the Americans would say.  We were walking for 8am.  It was another warm, sunny and very humid day, we were almost sweating just stood still.  Again, like yesterday, for the first half of the day the trail was very pleasant, four and a half miles, mainly gently downhill with one little up, to Pinkham Notch Visitors Centre where we arrived at 10:30.  We stopped here for an hours brunch break and bought a sandwich and drink.  We got served huge doorstopper sandwiches with a bag of crisps, they were great and just what we needed.

Next on the trail was the six mile Wildcat Ridge walk over Wildcat Mountain.  We didn't think these mountains could get any tougher!  Initially walking alongside a lovely river the trail then became a very steep uphill rock climb again.  2500ft of steep rocks to climb up past Wildcat Mountain peaks E, D, C and A each peak higher than the other (we don't know where peak B was?).  Peak D had a ski gondola on it and a viewing platform with views back over to Mount Washington.  We weren't above tree line today, we were back in forest again, but there were a few open rock spots on the way up with good views.  The last mile downhill wasn't too bad, not as steep as we expected.

We arrived just after 4pm at Carter Notch Hut where we are staying the night.  We decided to treat ourselves and experience a hut stay.  It also meant we could continue walking a couple more days without needing to food resupply.  Carter Notch hut is the last AMC hut in the Whites and slightly cheaper than the other huts.  A really nice small hut, it sleeps forty but there were only eleven of us staying as its a Monday night. The main hut with kitchen and common room is 100 years old.  There are two newer buildings containing the bunkrooms.  It has small four bed bunkrooms rather than large twenty bed rooms some of the other larger huts have, so we have a bunk room all to ourselves.  Very well designed rooms and clean.  Dinner was served at 6pm.  We had soup, homemade bread, salad, chicken pot pie and chocolate chip cookies all very nice.  We shared our table with a lovely French Canadian family. The hut 'croo' introduced themselves and read out a few hut rules.  One of the croo guys was giving a naturalist talk on soil? after dinner but we didn't stay for that we were very tired.  A south bounder thru hiker and Sox and Spiderman did 'work for stay'.  The huts usually offer two thru hikers a night the chance to be fed for free in exchange for a couple of hours work and then they usually sleep in the dining room area.  We didn't fancy that, we're too tired to work as well as hike, well let the youngsters do that!