The Notches of the Whites lived up well to their reputation as a major difficulty spike, but the ridges in particular slowed me down a lot. Not due to their being difficult but rather they’re rather striking, and fairly unique within the context of the AT. Franconia Ridge in particular struck me, with the trail laid out with lines of stones at either side like parapets giving you the impression that you’re a sentry on patrol of an ancient border, looking for invaders from the fog below. Maybe I’ve just been reading too much Lord of the Rings, you decide:

I had surprisingly good weather through the whites, only a couple of rainstorms. One of thee storms seemed to be lower than the ridge-line, and as I ascended to the pass it was obvious the rain droplets getting smaller and smaller, until they disappeared entirely and broke through the cloud tops to find clear skies above. Descending the other side yielded the opposite effect confirming to my mind that I was not in the midst of a sort of waking dream.

The huts treated me well, I was able to get work for stay at both Greenleaf, (Which is far enough off trail that they seldom get thru-hikers, and even more seldom do they turn them away.) and Mizpah. Got turned away to minor disaster at Madison, they’d taken double their daily allotment of thru-hikers on work for stay so you can hardly blame them. (Although it seems plenty of thru-hikers harbor a bit of angst towards the AMC huts, despite there being plenty of stealth sites that they’re happy to point you to.) After I got turned at Madison I kept going, planning to push my luck a bit and cowboy camp just below treeline on the other side of Mount Madison, so I could get up for a summit sunrise. As things go when you push your luck; clouds roll in, rain starts a’falling, and I wonder how I could be so foolish as to not see this coming, as I frantically pack up. Not content with one series of bad decisions, I took it upon myself to hike through the night, rather than simply move to the campsite a ways down the hill. Part fury, part sleepwalking, I found myself stumbling thru the Great Gulf Wilderness at night, one of few places on the AT that is totally un-blazed. I don’t know how long I spent there, but it seemed to swallow the hours whole as if I was unable to wake from a dream. Then the sunrise came, early as it does near the beginning of July, dispelling the illusions in which I seemed to tread, and just in time for me to find my way out to the road at Pinkham notch. I recovered and dried my gear atop Wildcat Mountain’s observation platform, the aid of the warm sun and a strong dry wind made quick work of even my damp sleeping bag. Of minor note, I broke the tip off one of my trekking poles coming down from Mt. Jefferson, but it was a quick fix at the hostel a couple days later.

The difficulty wasn’t quite over, the Whites seems to get the press on the trail as the hardest section, but immediately following them is the dark horse candidate, the Mahoosucs. Maybe it was just that they were unexpected, but coming into ME was much more of an ordeal than anticipated. They feature easily the hardest (but also the most fun) single mile on the AT, the Mahoosuc Notch, a deep boulder field where the trail disappears under over and around the many large rocks, into and around small caves still filled with the snow of winters previous.

Coming into NH I experienced a density of trail magic heretofore unseen as of yet on trail. I was called off the roadwalk for a second breakfast, found coolers and snacks along the roadwalk into NH. This burst of trail magic culminated in a homestay that was far more luxurious than I had any right to expect. Hanover has a veritable army of trail angels operating, and many of the business in town have deals or freebies for hikers, easily making it one of the most comfortable points on the trail. Met Biscuit on my way out of Hanover, He’s a thru hiker and attending Dartmouth in the coming fall, (at time of publication he should’ve just finished his freshman year) he’d be one of a few  leapfrogging cohorts I would keep till Katahdin.

Between Smarts Mountain and Mount Cube I found the first of the worst kind of “trail improvement,” bog boards floating atop muddy puddles. I’ll let that one sink in, bog boards, floating on water. One moment you’re on solid ground, trucking along at a fast clip the next you’ll be thigh deep in thin mud, with no idea where you went wrong and all trust in bog boards forever shattered. That night I met up with Ox, and quite a few others at the Hexacube Shelter, a hexagonal shelter on Mount Cube, (and also the home of the Pentaprivy) where we got word that Scott Jurek would pass us that night. Someone had gotten a text from a hiker staying on Smarts Mountain that he’d just passed. We guessed he’d be passing soon so a few of us headed out to the trail crossing to wait, (The shelter is up a spur trail a ways) and wait we did, about 3 or 4 (I think it was Biscuit, and Smasher.) of us out at the crossing for about 2 hours, he never made it though. My guess is he got thrown for a bit of a loop by those floating bog boards, later we got word that he didn’t make it to his sag wagon until 2am the following morning.

For those unaware, Scott Jurek is the current holder of the fastest known time on the Appalachian Trail, and was on his record making run at this point. (His time ended up being 46 days, 8 hours, 7 minutes, narrowly beating Jennifer Pharr Davis by about 3 hours) While I was disappointed that I didn’t get to meet him, I couldn’t feel too bad, at the next road crossing he’d left a big box full of cliff bar stuff as trail magic and I grabbed a fair amount of high value food.

A few miles past that box I made it to another ration, and the Hiker’s Welcome Hostel. I zero’d there a couple days, both waiting to spend the 4th of July there, doing logistics planning for the remaining AT rations and routing how I would get from Katahdin to Crown Point and the North Country Trail. It was a good respite before arguably the hardest section of the AT, met the Odie and Neema of Hiker Yearbook fame, swam, and watched a lot of movies. (Hiker’s Welcome has an extensive collection of dvds.)