Day 129 Ethan Pond Campsite to Nauman Camosite

Today's miles 9.3.  AT miles 1846.3

Another warm sunny day, we left camp just before 8am.  The first three miles of the trail down to Crawford Notch were fairly easy going compared to what we've been over the last few days.  That soon changed, we had another steep four and a half mile climb up to get to Mount Jackson.  Steep and not too rocky to start but then the White Mountains lived up to their rugged reputation again.  The rocky climbing started up to Webster Cliffs where there were fantastic views again. The trail got harder with some scrambling sections from the cliffs up to Mount Webster where we had good views over to Mount Washington which we'll be going over tomorrow.   The trail levelled for a bit but then more rocks and scrambling up to Mount Jackson. 

It being a Saturday there were lots of people on top of Mount Jackson.  We were only a couple of miles away from Mizpah Hut/Nauman Campsite which we could see in the distance and our destination for the day.  We had originally planned on continuing another five miles to the Lakes of the Clouds Hut where thru hikers can stay in 'the Dungeon', a bunk room in the basement for $10pp on a first come first served basis.  It only holds six thru hikers though.  We didn't want to risk getting there and there being no space left it was too much of a gamble. We knew of a least two thru hikers ahead of us, plus there are southbounders coming through from the opposite direction.  The hut would have been fully booked on a Saturday night so no chance of checking in there either to stay.  It would have meant continuing hiking another 7+ miles up and over Mount Washington to the next campsite.

Two more miles later we arrived at Mizpah Hut/Nauman Campsite about 2pm.  We paid our $8pp fee and set up our tent on a platform.   We visited the hut and bought some lemonade and brownies, there were very friendly volunteers in there, then came back to our tent for an afternoon snooze.  We have a big 15 mile day tomorrow going up and over Mount Washington, 6288ft the second highest mountain on the AT, so will have to be up early in the morning so took advantage of the extra rest.  We're half way up, the ascent to Mount Washington is 12.5 miles in total, we have 6 miles left to do tomorrow. In the evening our German friends Wall-E, Milk Monsta and Pillow turned up on the tent platform next to us, it was great to see them again.  From keeping in contact by text we knew they were catching us up and were only about half a day behind us.  We've not seen them for such a long time so had a good old chat catching up.  Hopefully these last few weeks we'll see more of each other, maybe even finish on the same day which would be fantastic.  Their target finish date is 20 July also.  We're on a large double tent platform. The campsite wasn't very busy when we arrived but filled up a lit later.  In the evening two thru hiking brothers who we'd not met before, Sox and Spiderman, pitched next to us, very friendly guys.  Later still, the caretaker squeezed another single man tent between the two of us.  It's like being in an outdoor bunk room. Tents being tents you can hear every sound and the large wooden platform vibrates or bounces every time someone else moves, we much prefer the single pitch platforms.

There were lots of annoying bugs today too, black flies, but we'd bought some 'White Mountain' insect repellant for midges, black flies and noseeums whilst in North Woodstock that seemed to keep them at bay for a while.

I've been trying to think of a way to describe how tiring these uphill rock climbs are.  This is the best I can come up with and you'll need to use your imagination. 
For those old enough, remember the steps used in step aerobics classes.  Imagine a step set on its highest setting, around 12 inches/1 foot. Then imagine continually just doing the stepping up action onto the step, slowly we don't go very fast.  Imagine that the step is not always equal in height though either, sometimes it's shorter sometimes maybe double the height or more, plus your step is rarely just flat, most of the time it's uneven, on a steep angle or even wet and slippery.  Sometimes your arms get exercised too, pushing up on rocks or pulling on trees to pull yourself up.  Every now and then just walk on the spot briefly to mimic an occasional smoother section. Then imagine doing these various height step ups continuously for two hours or longer with a 28/30lb backpack on your back.   Imagine this in reverse, stepping down off the step continuously for the rocky downhill/descents.  It's tiring!

Day 128 Garfield Ridge Campsite to Ethan Pond Campsite

Today's miles 14.5.  AT miles 1837.

We woke up to blue sky's and sunshine this morning thankfully after yesterday.  Nothing had dried overnight though, we had to put our damp shorts and tops back on, not very nice but the first time we've had to do that.  They soon dried.  We left camp at eight and met straight away with our first obstacle of the day, descending down a small but very steep rocky waterfall, thankfully the water level had subsided after the rain.  The trail remained very rocky all morning.  Once down from Mount Garfield and our campsite we had a few ups and downs before a tiring steep rocky climb up to South Twin Mountain, great views from the top again though.  We stopped just before the summit on a large rock for a rest and to dry out our tent fly and the last bits of damp clothing in the sun. 

The descent from South Twin Mountain wasn't too bad, fairly gradual and the trail got less rocky, less big rocks anyway until we crossed a small rock field near mount Guyot.  The trail from the rock field had no white blazes for about a mile and a half which left us wondering if we had took a wrong turn at the last junction.  Everything seemed right, we were on the right track according to Nigel's map and the trail followed the same profile as in our guide but with no white blaze in sight we did doubt ourselves, finally though we spotted one to our relief. The last mile and a half down got a bit steeper but not as bad as we expected, we did have a huge wooden step ladder to climb down at one point. 

Once at the bottom, past Zealand Falls, we could see from our guide profile we had a 4.7 mile flat section but expected it to remain rocky. To our surprise the trail was totally clear of rocks and flat as a pancake, we didn't expect that in the White Mountainous.  It remained flat for about three miles passing some fabulous rock fields.  The last mile and a half got a bit rockier and had lots of boardwalks over boggy ground on a very gradual ascent.  We reached our campsite for the night at Ethan Pond at 5pm, another caretaker operated campsite where we had to pay $8 each again.  The pond looked beautiful in the sun. There were no tent platforms left as there were two big groups in for the weekend, but Em the caretaker, who was lovely, had a secret overflow camp spot.   So rather than being crammed onto a tent platform with two or three other tents we have a lovely spot at the other end of the camp in the peace and quiet all to ourselves.  One of the groups were very friendly and chatted a lot when I went to fetch water and put our food in the bear box, the other group kept to themselves.

It took us nine hours to get from A to B today.  The first 9.8 miles took us seven  hours fifteen minutes (including our half hour break) our pace approx. 1.4 mph over the steep rocky ascents and descents. The the last 4.7 miles took us one hour forty five minutes, back to a reasonable 2.7 mph pace.

Day 127 Franconia Notch to Garfield Ridge Campsite

Today's miles 10.3.  AT miles 1822.5

It rained heavily all through the night last night but had stopped by this morning.  We were breakfasted, packed and called for a shuttle back to the trail just before 9am.  The lady who shuttled us said she was glad we said we wanted to go to the Liberty Springs trailhead and not Kinsman Knotch trailhead (where we went the other day) as part of the road had been washed away in flash floods.  From the trailhead we had the mile side trail to walk again to get back to Franconia Notch, our last AT position where we arrived at 9:30.  The river here was running so fast after all the rain.  We were glad we had completed the previous section because we had to stone hop across that river as the bridge was down, it would have been impassable today.

We had a lot of uphill today, 4000ft of ascent up to Mount Lafayette 5291ft.  Not long after we started climbing we hit the mountain mist.  It was warm and humid but remained damp.  The morning wasn't too bad just cloud and mist but in the afternoon we had drizzle and rain.   The trail going up had turned into streams again in places.  We passed Liberty Springs campsite where we met a youngish lad, 'Mr Moody' the campsite caretaker.  All the campsites/shelters in the Whites have caretakers to maintain them as they are so well used.  He was a mobile caretaker moving from campsite to campsite and was heading for Garfield campsite where we were heading. 

It was another tiring rocky trail day but not as difficult as Moosilauke or Kinsman.  The wetness underfoot though made for slow progress especially on the downhill sections, some of the rocks were very slippy.  The last few days on the trail have definitely been the most tiring/challenging so far.  Franconia Ridge on the way to Mount Lafayette summit though was very atmospheric in the mist, it was a shame we didn't have any views today it would have been beautiful.  From the summit it was a steep rocky downhill then steep rocky up again to Mount Garfield.  It started raining on this section, we had dried off at one point then got soaked again.  Another steep down after the summit and we reached the side trail to Garfield Ridge Campsite and shelter.  It said it was 0.2 miles to the campsite.  It was a very long 0.2 down a very steep rocky path.  Then we came to another sign to the campsite which took us back uphill again, not quite so far, we got there eventually.  There were a few people already in the shelter so we decided to pitch our tent, there were lots of tent platforms, we were the only ones camping to start then a couple more people turned up later.  The rain had just about stopped as we arrived and the sun made a brief appearance in the evening before it disappeared behind the mountain.  The forecast for the next few days is sun so I hope it's right, it was definitely wetter today than forecast.

In the evening Mr Moody came to collect our campsite fee, we have to pay $8 per person to camp at caretaker campsites.  A nice lad we had a good chat with him.  Early on today we saw a lovely red squirrel.  It was so busy eating a nut or acorn it took a while until it even noticed we were there. 

Day 132 Carter Notch Hut to Gorham US2

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.