New Hampshire
The fist stop in New Hampshire was Hanover. Dartmouth college is there and that place will swallow up hikers for a long time. We were no different! I even got a video membership there! We hung out for a week and watched movies and stuff. finally, we pulled ourselves out of there and headed for the White Mountains. I was looking forward to seeing them, but I wasn't looking forward to the climbs...
Mt Moosilauke was one of the first big climbs and it was just a taste of what was in store for us. The first stop out of town, we stayed at a shelter with Chico-man, professor Booty, Sure-paw and others. We needed some wood for a fire and Sure-paw found an axe and went ape shit. Sure-paw was nuts. I had met him in Tennessee when he was staying at the Kincora hostel. he tried to bake a cake, melted our vegetables that were sitting on the stove and left the oven on all night. Whatever he was on, he had a lot of it. Chico man is an actor and he can do a killer M.C. Hammer impression... STOP! Hammer time! I think I hurt myself laughing so hard that night.
This is a picture of Velvet and Drifter playing hacky sack on MT Lafayette. There was an AMC run hut 1.1 miles away that we could see, so we yelled obscenities at it for a while for fun. It's the little things that make you happy. Then we sat around picking out satellites in the sky... it was that clear. I had heard later that some moron died near there and that T-max (part of team F.Y.) had to help carry the body out.
This was a killer campsite right by Zealand Falls hut. We just rolled out our bags next to the river and slept out. It was so clear were picking out the satellites again. The next day we experienced a short cut gone wrong. The plan was to go about 14 or so miles to the next hut. We argued about the way to go, but eventually we settled on a series of side trails that would cut off some time. As soon as we start out, we were climbing. (we found out later if we stayed on the A.T. the first 7 miles were completely FLAT!) To make matters worse we took a wrong turn and went over TWO (yes TWO) mountains in the wrong direction. After we realized out mistake, we got ourselves straightened out and we finally made it. What does all that mean? We did an 18 mile day in the White Mountains, we made it in 9 hours and we were playing hacky sack when we got there! Hardcore!
We Stayed at the Lakes of the crowds hut and the people running it were real cool. Our resupply plan went bad on MT Washington (Velvets poor mother drove for hours to get there in real bad weather) and we had to go back to Lakes of the clouds. The guy in charge, Jason was cool so he let us stay again. (after he made us wash the walls.) That night someone was running around in a florescent green alien mask (or there were real aliens) and it looked real freaky in the pitch black. Also, drifter was hitting on Lindsey, one of the girls that worked there. She was giving a lecture on the mountain wildlife and he wanted her to help him look for the rare and elusive Alpine Meat Weasel!
The Climb down off of MT Washington was real steep. Notice the crate full of first aid gear near Drifter. The next shortcut disaster came at Wildcat mountain. We had heard that it was one of the steepest climbs on the entire trail, so we figured.... screw it! We went 2 miles out of our way so we could sky blaze (take a gondola up) So we get there and they tell us it was shut down due to the threat of bad weather. So now we're stuck. it was late and it would be dark before we could get back to the trail. What do we do? We climb up right under the gondola! No trail, just a sick climb. I made it in 1 hour and 10 minutes... and when I got to the top? That's right... we played HACKY SACK! That's when I fully realized I was a hiking god! Icky broke into one of the buildings that was on top so we had a place to stay with out pitching our tents, which was good because the weather was real bad. We opted not to stay in the giant metal building that housed the gondola, due to threat of lightning.
We hung out in Gorham for a couple of days to resupply and rest. I was feeling a little tired and depressed when we got there. Lori was starting to get upset again because I was taking so long (yeah, we rented some movies there too) and I had a firm date to met her in Maine. I really had to move from this point on.
One other funny thing... we had to rent bikes to get around town and I wish I had a picture of Icky on the wicked witch of the west bike he was riding around!