The Slog

The Presidential Range, and specifically Mt. Washington, is known for having "the world's worst weather".  How this is determined, I'm not sure.  Mount Washington is the location of the largest recorded wind gust in the country, and until about 5 years for the world, at 231mph on the summit.  Several storm paths meet at the peak and the jet stream goes directly over the top.  Hurricane force winds are measured on the summit an average of 110 days each year.  The wind, mixed with very cold temperatures and large amounts of precipitation make the weather very erratic.  This has led to 150 hiker/climber deaths throughout the history of the mountain (The Lake of the Clouds hut was actually built after two people died climbing the mountain and couldn't reach shelter).  The Mount Washington Observatory is based on the mountain and meteorologist and researchers live here throughout the year.  In one of the huts I found a book about what daily life is like for those who work at the observatory-- snowcat rides up the mountain for the weekly shift, having to brave extreme cold and winds of up to 100mph to keep the ice off of the equipment, and providing search and rescue for stranded hikers.  Weather is a big deal up here.

This leads us to the title of this particular post.  Webster defines slog as the following:

 to keep doing something even though it is difficult or boring; to work at something in a steady, determined way; to walk slowly usually with heavy steps

The Lake of the Clouds

For two or three days leading up to Saturday's hike, we warned it was going to be "a slog".  And it was.  With that being said, we woke up Saturday morning and understood how Lakes of the Clouds hut got its name-- the beautiful view from the day before was completely obscured in white.  During the morning weather report everyone was on the edge of the bench to see how their plans for the day would be tossed about by Mother Nature.  The forecast was for clouds, rain all day, winds of 40-50mph, and thunderstorms throughout the day, especially in the afternoon.  It was determined that we would continue on to the next hut across the 7 miles of exposed ridge to our destination for the evening.  We would travel in two larger groups so each group could have two leaders and we wouldn't summit any of the peaks.  It ended up that the Boy Scout troop that was traveling the same hut-to-hut hike with us all week decided to drop out and go down to the valley.  We always knew our group would out-tough the Boy Scouts.  We got our gear ready to go-- pack covers on, plenty of water, snacks accessible in our pockets so we didn't have to stop, rain jackets and rain pants as well as moisture barriers for our shoes.  We struck out prepared for a miserable and grueling hike.
The day before visibility across the ridge was 100 miles, now it was a mere 50 feet.  We also had the challenge of wet rocks-- with each step there was a large chance that you would end up on your backside-- and we did several times.  Other challenges included following the trail.  Above tree line trails are marked with cairns, large stacks of rocks, along the trail about every 30-50 feet.  With low visibility you just look for the next cairn ahead to keep from veering off into the misty wilderness.

 Our group had about 10 people and as a hiker in the middle of the pack there were several times I couldn't see the leader or our sweep (the person that makes sure no one is left behind).  We had to yell to the group to stop if we lost sight of the hikers directly in front of behind us.  Truthfully it is hard to report anything specific about the hike.  For 6 hours our surroundings were the same-- a limitless view of piles and piles of rock disappearing into the clouds.  At one point we smelled smoke, which seems odd when walking through a cloud, and a few minutes later the cog railroad up Mount Washington came into view.  Rarely do  I smell something before seeing it.  I wonder if that's what being a dog is like.  The nice thing about the low visibility was that bio breaks were easier above ridge line.  With no trees to provide some privacy just stepping off into the clouds was fairly handy.  For the first two hours we had quite a bit of wind since we were on the exposed west side of the range.  I could understand how hypothermia can be a problem even if the temperature is 40-50F.  Anytime we stopped for more than a few minutes the wind and moisture noticeably cooled our bodies so we didn't stop much but kept moving.  Once we crossed over to the opposite side of the ridge out of the wind the conditions were a little better.  Later in the hike the rocks had dried some and weren't as dangerous.  We even took off rain gear since it does create a sauna-- it doesn't let moisture in and doesn't let moisture out.

At this point in the hike Arthur began to experience what he refers to as "the Tribulation"  Over the previous two days Arthur had developed blisters on his feet-- both heels, instep, big toe, and both pinky toes.  After grueling miles on slick rocks was pretty miserable, just trying to put one foot in front of the next was agony.  Not even speaking for Arthur, this was the one day of the hike when I thought, "Well, the first 3 hours of mist and rocks wasn't too bad, but this has stopped being enjoyable and I would not be disappointed at all if the hut, a warm bowl of soup, and a mug of hot cocoa appeared out of the mist right now."  The only things we saw was more rocks to carefully maneuver across.  In all actuality the weather on this hike could have been so much worse-- it could have rained, (it never did we were just wet from the mist), it could have sleeted, the wind could have been stronger, and we could have had storms; so it was a relatively "nice" day for the Presidential Range.  The upside to the less than desirable weather was we only saw about 10 other people out on the trails-- on a nice day it would have been a zoo.  Finally, at about 2pm we descended over a rocky ledge and Madison Hut appeared out of the mist and our "slog" was over.  We grabbed bunks, changed clothes, hung up things to dry, and settled down for our bowl of potato dill soup and bread.  The rest of the afternoon we lounged around playing bananagrams, reading, and napping.  Our second group rolled into the hut about 4:30pm.

The leaders had told us all week to look forward to Madison since it was the nicest hut.  Madison is the oldest hut in the system but has been renovated, expanded, and rebuilt after fires.  The bunkrooms were remodeled a few years ago and were pretty nice.  The dinning area had large windows with a view of the surrounding peaks.  Dinner was a southern feast-- chili, corn bread, pulled pork, green beans, and homemade donuts for dessert.  The rest of the evening we played our groups' favorite games-- Bananagrams and Apples to Apples.  We even stayed up late, until 9pm, since we didn't have to hit the trail early the next day.