A Brief Encounter with Civilization

View from Avalon of Carter Notch

We woke up all refreshed for the second half of the week.  Of course maybe the most motivating factor was that the sooner we got on the trail, the sooner we would get to Highland Center where our bag of clean clothes had been dropped.  The thought of a clean shirt had never been so appealing in my life.  It was a gorgeous sunny morning and I drank my quart of water sitting on the rocks of the waterfall.  Our hiking group today was stopping at Mount Fields and Mount Avalon-- the scenic route.  The trail was relatively easy with fewer rocks.  It was a pleasant walk through the woods.  This section of the trail was along the floor of the valley and we walked by a few ponds with glassy surfaces.  After we had been hiking for awhile we came across a gentleman on the trail waiting to give us high fives.  He had been the organizer and leader of NH AMC Presidential Range Hike for several years and makes a point to find the group along the trail during the week of the hike.  After a short visit with him we headed up the trail to Mt Fields.  Fields is another 4000 foot peak with a little bit of a view on one side.

Our next stop was Mount Avalon.  While this peak isn't as tall the view was breath-taking.  It looks down over the Crawford Notch (Notch is the term for gap or a mountain pass.  They also use brook instead of stream or creek. Aren't regional terminology differences fun.)  We had a nice break up here and enjoyed the splendor of the morning.  Next was the descent down the to the notch.  I took my time because going downhill is not my favorite and we weren't in a hurry.  Arthur was feeling like a mountain goat so he would scamper off until he couldn't see the person behind him.  When they came back into view he would try to take off and catch the person in the lead.  The closer we got to Highland Center the more people we saw.  For several days we had seen people but mostly avid hikers.  Now we began to see families and day hikers taking a short hike to see some of the falls.  We flew past the falls without stopping because clean clothes and a lunch in the cafeteria were waiting for us. 

A civilized lunch at Highland Center

At Highland Center we ditched our packs grabbed new, fresh smelling clothes, and also threw away all the trash we had been packing around for several days.  Next we called our parents to let them know we were alive and well-- I guess this is a big deal with parents concerning their children.  Lunch was paninis and Arthur was also very excited to indulge in a pop.  After resting and relaxing in "civilization" for an hour (is it sad when a hiking lodge is civilization) we crossed a paved highway and the second half of our adventure began as we left the Pemigewasset Wilderness and entered the actual Presidential Range.  It was a pleasant 3 mile hike up to Mizpah Spring Hut.

Along the trail we had the opportunity to meet lots of different people both in our group and along the way.  While we enjoyed the hiking we both really enjoyed getting to know the other people in our group.  Two of our guides are brothers and have hike together for years.  One of the brothers is a high school history teacher so we had a few history lessons along the way.  Another leader is a management consultant and since he works for himself he spends several days a week hiking in the White Mountains.  His degree is in electrical engineering from MIT so he and Arthur "talked shop" some.  His knowledge of the trails was impressive.  He could tell you elevation changes and distances to the next trail from memory.  He also knew a few of the plants and bird calls.  He leads trail hikes several times a month.  He is also capable of hiking much faster than anyone else on the hike.  In the next few months he is going to do the Hut-to-Hut Traverse (basically the same hike we are doing over a week) in 24 hours.  One of our fellow hikers was doing the trip to celebrate his retirement.  He worked as a curator at a museum and was on the faculty for a Masters program for museum curators.  His expertise was art, furniture, metal, stone, and woodwork.  Two other "retirees" or actually semi-retired gals that we hiked with met each other since they married cousins (or something like that).  They do adventure travel trips together frequently.  It was amazing how much you can learn about a group of 20 strangers after a week hiking together.

Thru-hiker Wolverine giving a trail talk

The thru-hikers on the AT were the most interesting crowd.  As a few of our leaders put it, "You have to be
just a little crazy to attempt the trail, normal people aren't out here."  A few of the evenings at the huts thru-hikers would share as part of the educational program in return for the hut's leftovers and a spot to sleep on the floor.  The first thru-hiker's trail name was Wolverine.  Hikers on the trail don't use really names but each as an alias that they use on the trail.  Our group kind of did this.  Arthur was dubbed Big Country and I became the Jackalope.  Wolverine started the trail in March and was expecting to finish in early August.  He's been in the PeaceCorp and will go back to work on his Masters this year.  He was very organized with his pack and gear and had done quite a bit of research to prepare.  He said he wasn't on a shoestring budget so he went into towns as often as possible and stayed the night in town too when he could.  A few nights later we heard about Cliffhanger's hike.  He started about the same time of year.  He said isn't parents weren't crazy about this idea but he had finished one year of college and he promised he would go back.  Cliffhanger was more of a free spirit that Wolverine.  He would take "zero days" often if needed. (Zero days mean that a hiker didn't log any miles.) He was also more about having fun and "creating mischief" along the way.  We met another thru-hiker by the name of Ghost.  He was a middle aged gentleman from Northern California taking the year to do the trail.  We had dinner with him at Zealand Hut.  One of the most prominent thru-hikers this year was ultra-marathoner Scott Jurik.  He set the record for the fastest completion of the AT the Sunday we started our hike.  He completed the trail in 46 days and averaged 48 miles per day.  He had blazed through the White Mountains several days before us and stopped for water at a few of the huts.
Several other hikers in our group have section hiked the AT.  Section hiking means to complete the entire trail but in pieces over time instead of all at once like a thru-hike.  For three of four days there was a couple from North Carolina that was hiking hut-to-hut like our group.  We enjoyed getting to know them at dinner or

sitting on the porch.  They have been section hiking the AT for 16 years.  They have 300 miles to go.  On this trip they are trying to finish up New Hampshire's portion of the trail.  They said that the past 8 years on Memorial Day weekend they have worked their way through Pennsylvania and finally finished the state this past year.  Hiking the AT was the wife's idea and her husband has been dragged along.  Arthur thought that sounded familiar to another couple we know.  Omnia Vincit Amor.