Day 34, Mt. Washington

August 16

334.3 down, 1851.7 to go 

Beautiful day. We started over Madison, a steep climb. We kept asking around if anyone had seen Floss, they hadn't, we wondered if he was behind us, if we passed him stealthing last night.

We made our way over The Presidentials, which were quite easier than we've heard them talked up to be. We expected to be going down more before going back up, but we more so just hopped along ridge lines all day, climbing a bit. Seeing Mt. Washington get closer all day was awesome.

There is a story thru hikers know about the train on Mt. Washington. The man who was building the train was told that he might as well try building a train to the moon. He did indeed build a train on Mt. Washington. Hiker tradition is to moon the conductor. All afternoon we'd seen trains going up and down and after a while assumed they were done for the day. Right as we got to the tracks a train was coming down. Remembering Orrin, the 2000 SoBo we met at Baldpate Shelter Day saying that one of his regrets on his thru hike was not mooning the conductor... I will leave the rest to your imagination.

Shortly after the train went by, we were near the summit. Instead of climbing, we were going around the summit. It was quiet. NotYet was in front of me. He sat on a rock and pulled out the guide. The inevitable....wrong turn. Another great moment using Awol's guide. His direction for the trail said the trail was just north of the train track...wrong. We backtracked, adding two miles on to our day, and looked at the sign, we were on a trail directly to Lakes of the Clouds Hut, that skipped the summit of Mt. Washington. We to back on the trail and made it to the summit. The entire day, the skies were clear and not a single cloud covered Mt. Washington, very rare for the place known for the world's worst weather. When we got to the top, clouds rolled in. We took our summit picture and kept trekking, realizing it was already 7, just an hour left of daylight and an almost 2-mile downhill to the hut. We were hoping to get work for stay, but seeing as it was so late, realized our chances were slim.

We got in to the hut, barely missing the amazing sunset that turned into the amazing downpour. They already had six hikers in the dungeon (creepy, dark, cold and wet storm shelter) and seven doing work for stay (the usual is four at a big hut). The girl at the front counter looked at her list of hikers working, as if she was contemplating whether she should sent us out into the stormy weather near the summit of Mt. Washington, or take pity and let us stay. Yay! She took pity and told us she would find work for us. She was very sweet, because our "work" was to inventory what was in the freezer and carry up four frozen turkeys. It took no more than ten minutes. A warm meal and a dry place to stay after a 15 mile day. Life's good!

Guess who was at the hut? Floss! He was behind us stealthing the night before and passed us when we stopped for lunch at Madison Hut.

Cool bridge before climbing Madison. NotYet thought it was funny to shake it while I was walking on it. Guess our sense of humor differs sometimes!

Bird on the trail near the top of Madison.

We saw a family of them on another summit a few weeks back with Unitic. We are guessing pheasants, does anybody know?

View of Presidentials and Mt. Washington from Madison. It's hard to get a picture of us together with a good background behind us since it's mostly just us

Mt. Washington, the second highest peak on the AT. Gotta love that bulldozer in the background!