Overview:
Mileage-
Total: 1892.7 Miles
This Section: 132.8 Miles
Daily Averages-
Total: 12.2 Miles
This Section: 14.8 Miles
July 15, 2018 - Day 147 (17.5 Miles):
July 16, 2018 - Day 148 (15. 9 Miles):
July 17, 2018 - Day 149 (0 Miles):
July 18, 2018 - Day 150 (19.7 Miles):
July 19, 2018 - Day 151 (18.7 Miles):
July 20, 2018 - Day 152 (15.7 Miles):
July 21, 2018 - Day 153 (19.3 Miles):
July 22, 2018 - Day 154 (4.8 Miles):
I woke up even more starved than I was the previous night, having had run out of everything but snack size Mr. Good bars for the past couple days. I packed everything up, hoping to have my dry tent in my pack before the ominous clouds in the sky turned to rain, and then I hiked on. The terrain was to be pretty easy for the first part of the day. I had hiked the section before right out of high school and recalled it being easy even then. It was 5 miles to Pinkham Notch Visitor's Center where I knew I could buy enough granola bars to last me to a full resupply in Gorham and also that they sold sodas and ice cream there.
My hunger made those 5 miles seem to take forever despite their being far flatter and less rocky than what I'd been hiking the past few weeks. At a river crossing I passed by Lost Boy who was stopped for a smoke break. He had apparently done a work for stay at Madison hut the previous night.
When I got to the visitor's center I threw my pack down and went inside, too hungry to make good choices, and I anxiously looked at their meager resupply options, which were all incredibly expensive. As I was looking at food options, Early Bird appeared. I was super excited to see her as we had parted ways a few days prior after she decided to slack pack Mt. Moosilauke and stay with her boyfriend who was visiting rather than keep up with us to try and beat the rain over the Whites. She had apparently pulled huge mileage to try and catch us including that morning, where she had gone over Washington and Madison. We were both hungry and exhausted, and so we toyed with the idea of neroing in Gorham instead of hiking on. We didn't want to get caught in the forecasted downpour the next day, but also we were just so tired. As we considered this, Quesadilla and Overdrive approached us, and when we suggested the idea to them, they were very excited to go into town too, so we decided we would split a hotel 4 ways and then slack pack the 21 in the rain the next day. As it began to drizzle, we went into the parking lot to try and get hitches to town. We split into pairs because four person hitches are harder. Luckily, being all women, a hitch was much more likely for us. A couple trail angels pulled up in a pickup truck to offer us beer, but we asked for a ride instead. They agreed, but 3 of us would have to ride in the back. Early Bird got the front seat because she had no rain gear at all, and I sat in the back of the truck even though I only had an umbrella because it sounded like more fun. Quesadilla and Overdrive each opened a beer and we laughed as the cold rain hit our faces. We knew soon we would be warm and dry in a hotel. We had them drop us off at a McDonalds so we could eat (mind you I was still starving at this point) and formulate a plan.
At McDonalds it was 10:58am, so breakfast was just ending. I waited with the crowd because I hated breakfast, but luckily the others got the pancakes and hash browns they wanted. I got a large sweet tea, a four cheeseburgers, a large fry, and 10 nuggets. We sat in a booth near the bathrooms (real flush toilets!) with our packs against the wall. Normally I leave my disgusting pack outside, but it was raining, and as Early Bird pointed out, McDonalds is a trashy restaurant anyway. We all ate and ate and were still not as full as we could be, so I went up and got us 40 more nuggets. We ate most of them, and the rest I put into my pockets. We then walked to the closest hotel to get a room, as it was late enough that we would likely be able to check in.
The lobby of the hotel was full of hikers with a similar idea. But luckily as Gorham is not much of a tourist destination there were rooms for all of us. We went to our room, laid out all our things to dry and went to the gas station to buy snacks. For dinner we got subway sandwiches and I ate my pocket chicken nuggets while lounging on the bed and watching TV. We arranged for a shuttle driver to take us to the trailhead the next morning at 7am since a hitch wasn't likely that early and because we knew we needed an early start if we were going to get 21 miles in.
July 23, 2018 - Day 155 (21.2 Miles):
We got up early so we'd be ready when our shuttle driver came to pick us up. We had found a couple guys who needed to get to the Visitor's Center for another shuttle up to the top of Washington, so the ride cost us each less than 10 dollars. By the time we got back to Pinkham Notch it was already raining. It continued to rain as we climbed the Carters and the Wildcats. Not just rain, pouring rain. I was soaked through, but luckily my waterproof case was holding strong and so my music was still playing. I slipped right before the last hut and landed on my wrist. It felt as though my hand had broken again like it had when I was playing rugby and I couldn't grip my trekking pole. I considered going into the hut for help, but realized I'd have to hike out anyway and I didn't want to go and get dry only to have to go back into the rain. Luckily after a few more miles of walking my hand started to regain motion and stopped hurting. Getting wet when you are already wet is fine, its just getting wet when you are dry that I hate. It was very difficult terrain all day, rocky and steep, plus all the rocks were made slippery by the rain. The plan we had for ourselves that day was the equivalent of 2.5 days of hiking from the last time I had done the whites so I was conscious of the need for speed and was thinking about how the sooner we finished the sooner I could go back to the hotel and eat and get dry.
I remained ahead of Quesadilla and Overdrive all day, and I was ahead of Early Bird for most of the hike, though she overtook me towards the end. At one point the rain got into one of my earbuds, so then I could only hear my music out of one ear, so I was very careful not to let the other side get wet too, for fear of losing my music and therefore my motivation. I didn't want to check guthook as my hands were wet so opening my phone would have been hard, so all day it was unclear how much further there was. Finally I got to Mt. Moriah, the last mountain, which I knew because of my previous hike where we had started in Gorham. As I walked down the other side, there was a waterfall that was partially flooding the trail and tall steps covered in slimy moss. As I stepped on one of the rocks, my shoes and trekking poles gave out and I fell off the side of the trail rolling 6 to 8 feet down and landing on my side on a large rock. My body was instantly in pain. The first thing I felt was my knee, which had slammed down onto a rock and which I could barely bend without crying. As I tried to right myself I felt a horrible pain in my side which continued every time I twisted my torso at all, I instantly feared I had broken a rib and my hike would be done. I hobbled down trail and luckily the terrain evened out and I was only a few miles from the road. I was also comforted to know the others would find me if I couldn't make it as they were still behind. Early Bird passed me and I told her about my fall. She went ahead and said she would see if there was anyone in the parking lot who could give us a ride. There didn't end up being anyone, which was not surprising given the weather. We tried to contact Daisy and Quesadilla to see how far back they were but that weren't answering. Early Bird agreed to wait for them, while I tried to hitch back since I was in so much pain. There weren't many cars out that evening nor did they want to stop for a very wet hiker, so I hitched for 45 minutes with no luck before being joined by the others. We tried to hitch for another 15 minutes before going into the hostel across the street and asking for a shuttle. At first they were gruff and didn't want to help us out since we weren't guests and just gave us a locals number who did shuttles, but then later the owner gave us a ride into town for only a few dollars.
From my fall, my phone had somehow gotten messed up even though it was in a life proof case and the problems only got worse once we got back to the hotel. We all laid our gear out and showered and then the others got McDonalds. I was sick of McDonalds from the other day and got pizza instead, but it turned out to be too much food and mediocre at best, but I still saved it for breakfast and lunch for the next day. When I finally got into bed that night at around 9pm, my side and knee hurt so bad I could only sleep in certain positions and I thought I might need to go to the ER the next day, I also tried to contact my family to tell them about my phone and my injuries, but only my brother was home an he was no help, so I figured I'd just have to figure it out myself.