It never rained last night, just a few sprinkles and a lot of wind, but our tent was dry. We got started around 8:30am under cloudy skies we headed down to Crawford Notch. It wasn’t really too difficult, and before we knew it we were heading up the other side of the notch, into the presidential range.
As we ascended the steep trail in the late morning/early afternoon the clouds started to dissipate and we actually got some really nice views. It was a nice change from the previous two days where we were surrounded by clouds and fog. We reached the Mizpah hut a bit after 2 in the afternoon and we hung out there a bit. One of the “Croo” offered us some leftovers which we gladly accepted for lunch. We decided to push on to the Lakes of the Clouds hut, just under 5 miles away, but all uphill.
It turned out to be a good decision. Most of that 5 miles was above treeline, and the clouds had mostly lifted, giving us great views into and across the valley. Hiking above the treeline is just a completely different experience than hiking deep in the woods. You feel like you’re mountaineering or something. You’re just on top of everything. The summit of Mount Washington kept peeking out from behind clouds as we made our way along the ridge. We’ll be summiting in the morning.
We’re doing a work-for-stay at the hut tonight. This means we’ll do about 2 hours of work in the morning, and in exchange we get to sleep on the floor in the dining room of the hut, and we got fed dinner tonight and we’ll get breakfast in the morning. Considering people pay almost $200 per person to stay here, it’s not a bad deal, but I belive it’s only open to thru-hikers, and they only take a few each day. We luckily got here early enough to be accepted.
