Into the Clouds, Part II

My last entry on my saga through the white (or cloudy) mountains of New Hampshire ended with me, Shadow and Rocko at Zealand Falls Hut for the night. From there we went on to Mizpah Hut. Rocko did not make it that night since she needed to pick up a mail drop and ended up staying at the campgrounds. That day ended with one of the two climbs that I will absolutely never go down, and definitely not in the rain. The Webster-Jackson Trail was hard enough ascending in the rain, do not go the other way. Mizpah is a great hut for a thru hiker. They have a library. So Shadow, Dartman and myself hung out up there during dinner, out of sight and out of mind. We then had a lovely ham dinner with the croo before retiring to the library for bed. By sleeping up there we were also able to sleep through breakfast. That extra hour and a half of rest was well appreciated.
Our next day was the Presidential tranverse. This is the one day that we had been hoping for good weather on. At least we did not get rained on. We hiked in a cloud across all the southern Persidentials and to the top of Mt. Washington. We took lunch up there with all the people who drove and took the railway up the mountain. We even wrote postcards and mailed them. From there we went on to the Northern Presidentials. As we got into the cols between the peaks we finally dropped out of the clouds and were able to enjoy some of the lovely scenery. Suprisingly enough the AT does not go over the summits, except for Washington. But there are short side trails or loops to all of them. We chose to skip all of the optional peaks since they were in the clouds. As we approached Adams, I really wanted to go up, but I was hearing thunder, so we pressed on on Madison Spring Hut. This is the hut with the friendliest crew. I even went to Carleton with one of them. Although he was a freshman when I was a senior so I did not know him, but we had friends in common. There were four other southbounders at the hut that night, but our work for stay was a thru hiker program. So for about an hour we talked witht the guests and answered their questions. Then we went back to the kitchen and had a beer with the croo.
The next day from Madison to Carter Huts was another rainy miserable day. We had debated not staying at Cartern Notch Hut since we had been hearing that they were very unfriendly to hikers. However we were able to get a note of introduction from the Madison Croo, so we decided to chance it. First we had to go over the Wildcats. The Wildcat Ridge trail is the other trail I will never go down. Especially not in the rain. There is a gondola, if you have the choice this is a much better option. When we got to the hut we handed our letter to the hut master and we were let in. Although the hutmaster did live up to her reputation of not being friendly (the ice queen), and it was the worst food of all the huts. It is amazing how far a little salt can go in making food edible.
Now we were out of the whites and had a relatively smooth ride into Gorham. We did not go all the way at once since we needed to pick up mail and we wanted to avoid two nights in town. We stopped short and the next day strolled into town and a day of watching the Olympics and drinking beer.