"Being unemployed has its advantages." GB, 3/18/2011, Peter's Mt. Shelter
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| Windscreen on Mt. Moosilauke (June 27, 2011) |
were the most challenging, the most beautiful.
Navigating the Whites gave us some incredible fodder in our adventure--a vertical climb up Wildcat Mountain, high winds above tree line on Franconia Ridge and a treacherous descent down Mt. Madison that permanently crippled (fucked) our knees for the remainder of the trip. And my favorite shelter: breaking into the Wildcat Mountain gondola service building to sleep.
The trail in New Hampshire is nothing like the trail south of it. We had to grab onto branches and saplings to descend the steep, wet slabs of slate that seems to be everywhere elevation changes substantially. In some spots rebar handles have been cemented into the rock to aid in ascending/descending. What makes the whole operation difficult is the constant engagement it requires out of the hiker--I couldn't just put my headphones and zone out like I prefer to do. Hiking here demands that you tend to every step.
We also added our first female member--Yikes. It only took us 4+ months to find a female who was willing to walk with us. She's from Virginia and seems mostly unconcerned with our group's dysfunction: alcoholism, expletive laced dialogue, bitterness, sexual frustration and perversion. Actually those are all mine. But a group is only as strong as it's weakest member.
In the Whites there is something known as the hut system. The huts are run by a group of mostly college kids, mostly from New England. We'd heard horror stories about them from other hikers but it was all apocryphal cry-babying and lies. I've made it my new mantra that every person I talk to is a lying retard. But I believe they are lying involuntarily. The lies are derived from stupidity, which in turn prevents a person from adequately assessing what occurs around them.
The knock on the huts was that the kids that ran them were heartless and they made the hikers do demeaning things if they wanted to bunk there. The demeaning part: a hiker has to ask permission to stay, only a certain number of hikers are allowed to stay, the hiker must perform chores and eat after all the paying customers. Notice the key word, paying. These people are paying 100 bucks to stay and they don't want to look at smelly hippies who have an inflated sense of entitlement. If you are kind, understand that you must eat last (hikers really are peasants so this shouldn't be too hard to handle) and remove the stinking pile of poo-poo from your drawers that makes you feel like you can act like a petulant child to these people who are doing their jobs, you'll do fine. If not, let the paying customers enjoy their time without you.
So we had a blast in the huts and everything went really well. The first hut we went to took us in during a rainstorm even though they normally wouldn't take 5 people. So off the bat they were very cool. Our chores were super easy. Sensei was asked to play guitar and sing for the campers, which he did with more enthusiasm than could be understood. He started making up verses to a song about hiking. Then he looked at the terrified hut guests, Who wants to sing the next verse?
The whole room froze and looked down at their plates. Come on, who's next?
It's my belief that Sensei was born to work on a cruise ship. I've never seen anyone relish in such outright corny behavior. Don't be shy. Who wants to sing the next verse? You can just make it up!
It was great. The only thing people want to do less is dance for strangers. I don't even remember the song but it was a fantastic display by Sensei.
Right before Mt. Washington (the tallest and most famous peak in the Whites), we stayed in Lakes of the Clouds hut. It's the biggest hut in the system. It was 4th of July weekend and the place was packed. Spam, Yikes, Windscreen and I just paid $10 to stay in what is known as the dungeon. This is unique to the huts. It basically allows hikers to not have to pay the full price to stay in the huts and not have to work for stay. It also keeps the disgusting thru-hikers far away from the well dressed elites paying to stay in the hut upstairs.
I think Sensei was hoping to sing more. Don't know if he did.
Our summit of Mt. Washington was fantastic because the weather was perfect--clear and cool. Spam and I ended up pushing past the rest of the group who were too tired to climb Wildcat Mountain that evening. Wildcat was the toughest climb of the whole trip. That evening Spam and I were going to sleep under the gondola. It was supposed to rain. But Spam climbed up the ladder to the service station and found it was open. So we climbed up and slept in luxury, not having to worry about rain or wildlife.
Spam and I arrived in Gorham (a town in NH after the Whites and right before Maine) a day before the rest of the group. My favorite hostel was in Gorham, a place run by a family. They were hilarious and the place was immaculate. The father, Greg, was a tall gentleman with a mustache and prepared himself a tumbler of spirits around 2:00pm and went around laughing and looking like Bill Murray from a Wes Anderson movie. The mother was super sweet and the daughter, Tess, drove us around town. They went way out of their way and didn't have to.
On the 4th we all went into town to participate in the holiday carnival, a carnival that Tess described as a place to go to if we missed "obesity and vomit" on the trail. She was a gem mint 10. I was a big fan. Then we all went on the zipper and spun around. Actually, most of the ride was me screaming in fright like I was on a burning plane that was nosediving into the Pacific.
Too much fun right now and we've only got 297.9 miles sitting in between us and Katahdin.
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