Life on the Trail

Anxious to hit the trail

The morning of day 2 we woke up with anticipation towards the day ahead.  It had been drilled over and over that the second day was the toughest day of the entire hike.  Never before had the entire group completed it before dinner.  People usually succomb to dehydration and exhaustion (don't we pick fun vacations?).  We were going to need to eat our Wheaties-- actually a double portion of the daily oatmeal with bacon, pancakes, and eggs.  Arthur and I chose to hike in the "Aggressive" group-- this was the fast group that would have a stronger pace.  This was done primary because Arthur insists on being done in time for dinner.  We rolled out of bed and downed the mandatory quart of water we were to drink each morning to hydrate.  Then we each stopped at the bathroom 3-4 times in the next hour before taking off on the hike, repacked our bags, and folded the blankets and fluffed the pillows for the hikers that would be in our bunks the next night.

Making sure to eat and drink often

We started out with a 1000 foot climb back up to Mount Layfette.  Arthur was in the lead position and took off at a blinding pace-- about 10 minutes in we took a quick break and our leader had Arthur slow down a few notches.  We were climbing through patchy clouds up to the summit.  Once we hit the summit we crossed along the ridge for a while with the views into the Pemi Wilderness blocked by lower clouds.  We were told every time the group stopped we had to put something in our mouths-- drinking water or eating a snack.  We also had frequent "bio breaks" since everyone was so well hydrated that morning.  Unlike my dad's response when you have to ask to stopped the vehicle for a pit stop, our group leaders encouraged this as much as possible since they didn't want anyone dehydrated and having to crawl the last miles on hands and knees.

View from Garfield with Franconia Ridge in the distance

The trail was rocky with a lot of ups and downs-- this is par for the course in the White Mountains.  The Aggressive group fell into a groove and it felt like the morning was going well- lots of hiking and some bantering back and forth.  Near noon we came out of the woods to the summit of Mt. Garfield with some great views of the area.  We looked back across the ridges and valleys we had crossed to the mountains we were on early that morning and were amazed by the distance we had covered.  It was time for a rest break and some lunch on the summit.  Our daily lunches included spreading some peanut butter on a bagel, some string cheese, a few strips of beef jerky, and a handful of gorp (trail mix) for dessert.  Side note: here is a quick etymology study on gorp. It may stand for "good ole raisins and peanuts", "granola, oats, raisins, peanuts," or, according to the 1913 Oxford English Dictionary, gorp means to eat greedily.
We hit the trail again and were anxious to finish the day and get to the hut -- although we were only halfway there.  The downside to standing on the mountain tops means you have to go back down-- my least favorite part of hiking.  While miles of the trail looked alike I remember one stretch from that afternoon's hike.  The trail literally went down a waterfall.  Nothing like going down wet slippery rocks with piles of rocks twenty

The View from Galehead

feet below to break the fall.  We came to realize very quickly that what is defined as a trail in New Hampshire is a pretty lose definition.  After much trudging which we will save you from having to read about we reached the trail sign .6 miles from the hut.  Of course this last section of the trail was all uphill and .6 miles in the mountains really feels like 6 miles at the end of a long day.  Alex was leading the group at this point and motored up the rocks just to have the day behind her.  Arthur was running low on water and energy and effectively "hit the wall" somewhere in this last stretch.  He pushed through and was greeted by his wife who wanted to climb the local 4000ft peak, Galehead Mountain.  After getting some water we trudged on to the peak with a few others in our group that were peak bagging.  Let's just say that all the mountains in
New Hampshire don't provide impressive scenic views and this one was just a pile of rocks in a bunch of trees.  However there was a scenic overlook on the way that provided an impressive view of the ledge that was worth the hike.

The bunk rooms

Each evening after reaching the huts we changed into our camp clothes-- the clean clothes that we wore all week when we weren't hiking.  We would clean up with a wet wipe or two and then take all of our clothes and boots outside to dry on the rocks.  This didn't help much with the stink but a drier shirt feels better in the morning.  We then had to drink another quart of water (which meant climbing down from our bunks to use the bathrooms all night).  Evening activities included sitting on the porch chatting with other hikers, reading or playing games, eating dinner which was the highlight (on this day we had espresso beef tips which were marvelous), and going to bed at about 8:30pm after dosing up on ibuprofen or Advil PM to knock us out.





Our group considered day 2 a success.  Everyone made it in before dinner, even with 15 minutes to spare which was a huge triumph.  No one keeled over and most people finished with a smile on their face.  It felt good to have the "worst" day behind us.  Omnia Vincit Amor. 

Galehead Hut