My Mizpah

In a post before I entered the Whites, I explained the deal with the shelters and huts. I also said I'd maybe try to work-for-stay at one hut. That's turned into three successful work-for-stays, and I think I've actually gained weight from all the home cookin' :)

I still have one last hut to go. If I get out of Gorham in time, that will be tonight. Only a steep 2,000-ft climb up Wildcat Mountain stands in my way.

The day after Zealand Falls hut I hiked with the goal of making it to the biggest hut, Lakes of the Clouds, but only managed to reach Mizpah Spring hut in time for dinner, which is went you want to arrive if you're going to ask the croo to stay there.

A group of three hikers put on an hour-long, overcooked presentation as part of their work-for-stay. The gist of it was that they started in May, two months later than most northbounders, wake up at 5 a.m. and average more than 20 miles a day while fighting off hordes of bears. They have a Web site, too.

Hikers of that sort - the before-sunrise wakers who write in trail journals about feeling guilty for only doing 15 miles, or for not being able to get out of a town before 9 a.m. - and they're uncommon, have their own category. They're not in it to experience the culture of the trail, or to find something while letting the adventure take shape under their feet. They're in it for the math. The miles hiked, the packs' weight, the pounds lost. All that stuff I've come to think is inessential.

Anyway, mornings at the huts start before 6 a.m. when the croo - the six or so young people doing summer jobs in the mountains - starts cooking breakfast. Hikers sleep on the dining room tables or on the floor. At Mizpah, I killed time until breakfast and then I swept the hell out of the six bunk rooms and the main room for my work-for-stay.

Before that, though, the croo put on a performance about what guests should do...














[Two croo members do a "Hanz and Franz" skit that teaches guests at Mizpah Spring hut to pack out their trash, make their beds and exercise their heart muscles by leaving generous tips, Aug. 21, 2009]

I hiked out, got about half a mile before I realized I'd left my Thermarest at the hut, dropped my pack, turned around, hiked back, got it, turned around, hiked back and then hiked on towards a date with Mt. Washington, the biggest mountain [though not the biggest climb] of the entire northern half of the AT. The advertisements about the summit having "the world's worst weather" would prove accurate...