A Day of Rest

Zealand Hut

We woke up nestled in our bunks to the sound of rain on the roof.  This might have been rather disheartening if we had to hike miles in the rain over wet rocks that day but we didn't.  It was our rest day so we didn't have to hike anywhere.  After a leisurely breakfast we said farewell to the Boy Scout group that we had been hiking with us for several days and a couple from North Carlina that we had gotten to know as they ventured on through the rain.  The "loft" bunks in our area opened up so we decided to move into the semi-private honeymoon suite-- two 3rd tier bunk beds next to each other.  We also had a window and could sit up straight without hitting our heads. This was the jackpot as far as bunk beds go.  Arthur found a textbook on astronomy to keep him busy all morning while I wrote our skit for skit night and read a book about moose.  Occasionally we would wander down from our perch to the dinning area to play some board games.

Kicking back in our bunks

Summit of Mount Hale

By the end of the morning we were a little stir crazy so a group decided to hike up to Mount Hale since it was still cloudy but had stopped raining.  The hike was fairly easy.  A portion of it crossed some boggy terrain which is probably my favorite type of terrain in the area.  Part of the reason for that could be the trails are wood plank bridges and therefore not steep or littered with rocks.  On the top of Mount Hale there wasn't much of a view since trees have grown up in the area.  Two points of interest include the foundation remains of a fire watch tower and the fact that compasses go crazy on the summit because some of the rocks have magnetic properties.  We hiked the few miles back to the hut and the sun came out.  Most of our group decided it was a good time to clean a little bit of the trail dirt off so we put on swim suits and slipped into the Zealand Falls just a few steps from the hut for a refreshing dip.  The water in the falls was chilly.  The sun felt amazing lying out on the rocks to dry afterwards.

Afternoon by the falls

Dinner that evening was also a special treat-- turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes, and all the fixings.  Following dinner our group had skit night on the front porch.  It was nice to have the rest day to prepare for skits and all the skits were excellent.  It might have been the highest quality skit night I have attended (or we were so exhausted by this point that everything seemed funny).  I was also impressed by the amount of talent in our group.  One group rewrote snippets of Broadway show tunes to spoof the hike.  The 12 Days of Christmas was also remade into The 8 Days of Hiking.  Another musical number was the "snorchestra" since there tended to be plenty of melodious snoring in the bunkrooms each night.  Our skit was a family favorite from Horn Creek that I re-wrote to fit hiking in the White Mountains.  It was a big hit since they weren't excepting much from the quiet Midwestern couple.  Probably the bigger surprise was Arthur's portrayal as the hero in the skit, Dr. Waterknee, the famous Austrian mountain climber.  He got rave reviews and it was the main topic of discussion in the women's bathroom the next day.

One of my favorite things about staying two nights at Zealand Hut was the gal who did the educational/naturalist programs was wonderful.  One program was on the women of the White Mountains-- a Native woman who lived in the area and helped the settlers, another gal who spent her summers hiking the area and was very near-sighted so she had to take pictures of the scenery and could only see what she hiked by when the pictures were developed later, and a few rock climbers who were the first women in their sport.  I also read a story about several women who worked in the fire watch towers during WWII.  The second program was on the forces that shaped the Zealand Valley- glaciers, logging, and beaver.  About 100 years ago the whole area was logged and also sustained massive forest fires.  You could still see where some of the logging roads were since the trees that grew up in the roads are different than the surrounding forest.  Most of the valley is a primary forest-- quick growing trees, more shrubs, bushes, and deciduous trees.  Eventually it will transition into secondary forest with more firs and pines and fewer plants growing in the undercover.  After the fires there was some question to whether anything would ever grow back since the soil is so thin and was burned.  In 1911 the Weeks Act brought about the process of making the area into a National Forest.
It was also interesting to learn that most of the mountains in the Presidential Range weren't named for presidents even though they share the same name as many former presidents.  To bore our readers with historical facts (we put this section at the end so go ahead and stop reading if you're not interested, you won't miss anything):  When the original party went out to name the peaks it was 1820 and there has only been 5 presidents.  Actually Mount Washington was named after George Washington when he was a general even before becoming president.  The other mountains in the direct Presidential Range are Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.  There were still a few peaks left so they named them Clay (Henry Clay), Franklin (Benjamin Franklin) and Pleasant (I think because of the view).  There were several subpeaks around Adams so these became John Quincy Adams and Abigail Adams.  In the 1970s after President Eisenhower's death Mount Pleasant was renamed to Mt. Eisenhower.  The state has tried to rename Clay for President Reagan but the US Government isn't making the change. The name of Mount Clinton (named actually for DeWitt Clinton, governor of New York) was changed to Mount Pierce in honor of Franklin Pierce, the only president born in New Hampshire.  Other presidents not directly in the Presidential Range are Mount Lincoln and Mount Garfield.  I am assuming these presidents were honored since they were assassinated.  Mt. Jackson is named for a past state geologist in New Hampshire.  The origin of Carter Dome's name is unknown but possibly a local hunter or a local doctor in the area who used mountain herbs. A few of the peaks aren't presidents at all.  Galehead Mountian is named for being the source the headwaters of the Gale River. Mount Bond and Mount Guyot are named for two professors; George Bond, a Harvard astronomer, and Arnold Guyot, a geologist and geographer from Princeton.  If it isn't cool enough to have a mountain named after you, Guyot has 3 mountains and a glacier named for him.  However, George Bond takes the cake-- he has three mountains in the Whites (Bond, West Bond, and Bondcliff) as well as as crater on the Moon and another crater on Mars, an asteroid, a region of Saturn's moon, and a portion of Saturn's rings that bear his name.  Faithful reader, if you made it to then end of this post, congratulations you have a high tolerance for boredom and stick-to-it-ness, hiking long distances may be just for you after all.  Omnia Vincit Amor.