Today's miles 15.3. AT miles 1887
We were woken up this morning at 6:30am by the hut 'croo' singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' as the hut alarm call - like something from the film 'Dirty Dancing' - very American holiday camp style! Breakfast was at 7am. We were served oatmeal, bacon, scrambled eggs and chocolate chip bread, all very nice. During breakfast the hut croo put on a little comedy stage performance incorporating a message about litter, folding our blankets correctly and tipping. We enjoyed our stay at the hut. The AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) huts are extremely well run and maintained and the staff work really hard to ensure everyone has a great stay. The AMC are non profit making and rely on getting most of their income from the huts, we still think they are highly overpriced though compared to similar hut systems in Europe. Carter Notch Hut was cheaper than the others but still $113pp for non members and $93pp for members per night.
It was another very warm humid day with sunny spells. Apart from the wet day over Franconia Ridge we've been very lucky with the weather in the White Mountains. We started walking at 7:50 straight into another steep rocky uphill climb to Carter Dome summit. The trail did improve slightly after Carter Dome. There were a couple of very steep downhill sections though to Zeta Pass and to Imp Campsite with a climb over Carter Mountain in between. Nigel saw a mother Moose with two babies on the trail today. He was shouting 'moose moose'! Of course with Nigel's loud approach they had ran into the forest by the time I got around the corner so I missed them. He'll never make a good wildlife spotter. We had views of Mount Washington for most of the day. It didn't seem to get much further away the last two days, we'd just walked a huge horseshoe around it so felt we'd not progressed very far north. Eventually by this afternoon though it started disappearing.
We had one last mountain to get over, Mount Moriah, a bit easier climbing up over rocky slabs rather than steps. From there it was a six miles downhill to Gorham road, route 2. The first half of the downhill quite steep and rocky still the last three miles were nice and easy and flat to finish the day. Another tiring day. Its been a very enjoyable but very tiring six days getting through the Whites so we're going to have another zero/rest day tomorrow in Gorham, about three and a half miles away from the trail. We checked into the Hikers Paradise motel, the owner kindly picked us up from the trailhead. It was great to get a shower after six sweaty days on the trail. We got our laundry done in the evening and had a pizza/lasagna delivery for dinner.
Our German friends are staying here too. Poor Wall-E has a sore bacterial infection on her feet and has been advised to rest a few days by a doctor so sadly is missing out a few days section of the trail. Pillow and Milk Monsta are carrying on hiking. They are on a tightish schedule to finish by 25 July at the very latest so unfortunately don't have time to wait for Wall-E's feet to recover first then continue hiking. Wall-E was just happy the doctor said she could carry on hiking in a few days and not have to stop altogether.
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