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Post Washington...5

Climb up Madison, away from the hut-o-teenage girls.

The second photo has Mt Washington in the background, on the left side. About 6 or 7 miles between Washington and the hut. Kind of cool to be able to SEE how far you've gone and the path you took to get there (while at the same time cursing the fact that the mileage wasnt more).

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Post Washington...3

Cog railway.....kind of cool, but also weird. We took bets on how much it cost and everyone was incredibly off (and low). Round trip to get up the mountain? $62. One way? $45. Hiking? Free. But not really. Just ask my knees.

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The Whites: after Mt Washington...

Oh Mt. Washington.....

So. After our amazing morning to the summit of Mt Washington, and after spending way too long at the snack bar, we got ourselves together and started the rest of the hike. The top of Mt Washington experiences some of the worst weather in the US, and though it was a gorgeous day, we still needed jackets, coats and gloves for the first part of the descent. Kind of funny to walk past the shivering tourists in shorts and flip flops in our winter hats.

So down the hill we start... the path follows the cog railroad tracks for a bit but we resisted the urge to moon them. The view of the rest of the range laid out in front of us looked incredible....Mt Clay, Mt. Jefferson, and Mt. Madison. We knew it was going be a day of ridge walking and hoped it would as amazing as the Franconian Ridge.

The day turned out a little differently....ridgewalking we were, but on a never ending boulder field. One that we literally had to move cairn by cairn (rock piles to mark the trail) or else you'd have no idea where the trail was. At first it was fun (for me anyway). But after miles and miles of it, your body is exhausted and feels like you've done twice the distance. But you havent. In fact, you come to a sign that informs you that you've done a mere 3.4 miles and you cant help but yell "are you kidding me???????" because that surely must be a typo. They must have meant 7 miles. Right? No. They didnt. Oh, the views are still epic, but you start to care less, since you almost fall every other step and the wind is attempting to throw you off the ridge. In fact, we had a horrible realization....

This was PA! IN DISGUISE! Definitely the same terrain, only this was with a view. Blah.

Finally get to Madison Spring Hut - beautiful new hut. Couldnt wait to get there to rest, eat and most importantly, pee. Except there was a camp or something, of 14 year old girls, and they had taken over the entire bathroom and stalls to wash their hair and sponge/wipe showers(!! Are you kidding me?). My mood was, at this point, at risk of boiling over to the point of meltdown.

Onward we go...we were attempting to make it to Pinkham Notch, another 7 or 8 miles away. We trudge on to Madison and the rocks and ridge are as hard as we've seen. The top is just ridiculous. Steep, narrow, sharp boulders, and windy. Its getting harder to appreciate the view (ha).

We finally make it below the treeline and the terrain gets steep. Still rocky, still going downhill, and it continues, for what feels like, forever.

And then i fell. Was thinking to myself as i made my way down the hill, literally seconds before, that i was probably due for a head-first fall, since all of my falls had been minor, butt first ones. Awesome. Misplaced my feet stepping down and around a tree and just lost my balance, while leaning forward, on a rocky hill. As i saw rocks heading my way mid fall i thought "huh. Thats ironic", all the while yelling a series of "F********CK" s. Luckily, i fell, or managed to turn, on my side and my bag took the brunt of it, with my tricep taking a bit too. Heard adam racing up the hill before i could remember to yell "im ok!". Pretty amazed i was.

Somehow though, falling broke my bad mood and i joked (this is amazingly cheesy) that i got "rockpunched" and that finally a rock punched back....hhhhhaaaaa.

Anyway, it wasnt long before we got to Osgood campsite, where we decided to call it quits for the night. Pinkham notch would have to wait till the next day.

Made pretty good time to the notch the next day and then headed up Wildcat, the last big mountains of the Whites on the AT. Rough climb but fun. If you like rock climbing and backpacking, and want to combine the two, i recommend climbing Wildcat :)

Camped that night at a great stealth site by crawford notch, and managed to score some amazing leftover soup (we have no shame asking for leftovers) from our last hut - Crawford Notch Hut. Got up super early the next day - our eye was on the prize....White Mountain hostel in Gorham. Had been hearing since Hanover about how amazing it was and we were determined to get there in time for dinner, 16 miles away. Made it by 4 pm, and now we've been here 2 (amazing) days.

And now Team Not-Getting-To-Maine (self named, on a double zero) is almost to Maine. Only 15 miles from the milestone....after tomorrow, we'll have to change the name to Team-How-The-Hell-Did-They-Make-It-To-Maine....

The end.

Ps. Come to the Whites at some point in your life. Madison wasnt that fun but damn this area is gorgeous.

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Missing photos: Franconian Ridge

Ahhhh...smart phones. Sorry these posts are out of order, the phone posting sometimes doesnt work.

Going to post some photos from Franconian Ridge - the day we hiked Mt Liberty, Little Haystack mt, Mt Lincoln, Mt Lafayette, and Mt Garfield. This was 3 days before Mt Washington, which you can see far in the distance in the last photo. Probably my favorite day, just gorgeous!

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Whites cont....out of order & out of whack

So i just realized a post i wrote two days ago never went through....is about July 16th, 3 days before Mt washington, and slightly repeats some of what Adam recently wrote, but oh well:) is about the franconian ridge, which was, i think, the best part of trail in the Whites.  More photos in the next post!

Missing blog:

Ahhh the Whites. Turning out to be everything everyone said they would be:

hard climbs, slow miles, straight up climbs, crazy views. And EPIC. Not sure anything else ive seen can compare to the Whites. Maybe the Alps, but when you take a gondola up to the top, vs climbing, the climbed view is gonna win out.

Yesterday didnt have amazing views, but the day before we had some spectacular ones from a ridge walk. We had camped at Liberty Spring campsite the night before, after a resupply in North Woodstock. The climb to the campsite was 2.7 miles, with an elevation change of 2458 ft. Straight up.

New Hampshire isnt fond of switchbacks.

The next day we finished the climb to the top of Liberty mountain (though the trail skipped the final summit) and we had an epic walk on the ridgeline over four mountains - Little  Haystack Mt, Mt Lincoln, Mt Lafayette, & Mt Garfield. We felt very Lord of the Rings-esque...in fact, we may have hummed some of the theme songs as we walked...dont judge, was awesome.

Enjoy the photos!

Ps - the last shot (i think its last, cant see the photos as i post), Mt Washington is way in the distance, the highest peak in the sky. We are
summiting that mountain tomorrow.

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The Whites: Zealand Falls

Adam being nice and posing for me when he didnt want to. Zealand Falls. You cant tell much from the photo, but it was awesome. Tons of little pools you could wade into and ice your knees :)

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The Whites: the Presidential Range

At Crawford Notch, we eye the ascent climb up to the Presidential range....the next day (today) Adam eyes the parking lot where we were previously standing. Andddddd..we were nowhere close to being done climbing for the day!

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