Saturday June 15, 19.2mi/30.9km
Pinkham Notch/Hwy 16 (1872.6) to Rattle River Shelter (1891.8) (NH)
We started the day with a big breakfast, and Bill and Jill had made homemade bread too. They even had a huge (3kg) peanut butter jar… Ruben would be jealous. 🙂
They dropped us off at the Pinkham Notch visitors center, and we started hiking at 9am. The trail went by Lost pond, then started the steep climb up to Wildcat mountain.
Steep rocks!
An hour later, we had covered the 2 mi/3km to the top. There is a ski lift here for Wildcat resort.
And the views back to the Presidentials and Mt Washington were pretty spectacular too.
After an hour of ridge walking, we started the steep descent into Carter Notch. You can see down to the hut, and across to our next mountain, Carter Dome.
After 1000ft/300m of descent, we were at Carter Lakes and then stopped at the hut for lunch.
I had one of the best trail lunches ever… a huge sandwich on homemade bread with tons of veggies.
I was pretty full, so the next climb went very slowly. The top of Carter Dome was nice, with a cairn to mark the otherwise unremarkable summit.
As we were descending the north face of the mountain, snow patches started appearing. It was quite surprising to see so much snow in mid June.
The next summit was Mt Hight, and it felt more summit-y, with views and a prominent rock to mark the top. And Bob!
Going downhill…
Between the summits it is often wet and boggy. The section between Mt Haight and Mt Moriah was no exception.
On the way up the climb to Moriah, I took a break at a junction to a campsite with a hilarious name. Imp!
The climb up Mt Moriah was really fun, withlots of smooth slabby rock, so I could just walk right up like a ramp. It would be terrifying when wet though.
Good views from the top!
I had tried to hike this section back in 2015, with PCT friend Cheshire Cat. We ran out of daylight in that attempt, so it was nice to finally tag Mt. Moriah.The “descent” down from Moriah to the shelter was slow and steep, I would call it “controlled falling”. I arrived to the shelter quite late at 7pm.
There was a large group there, they were AMC youth program instructors doing a group training trip. I actually knew a couple of them! Small world. I’m looking forward to my super-nero tomorrow… only 2 miles to town!
Bob and I waited in the parking lot for a few minutes, and Amanda drove up. We had hiked most of the Te Araroa together, and had planned a day to hike together here in New Hampshire. Old trail family reunion, awesome!
We were talking the whole way up the climb to Franconia ridge, so I didn’t even notice the climb until it was over! We got some summit photos on Mt Lincoln, and continued on.
Mt Lafayette is the highest on the ridge, 5259ft/1603m. We had a nice lunch break there, then Amanda took a side trail back down to her car.
The descent from Mt Lafayette, which I have done probably a dozen times over the years, was expectedly steep. But I didn’t expect any snow! It was just little patches, so it was easy to walk around.
We did the steep climb up to Mt Garfield, and had another nice break on the summit firetower foundation.
We hiked/downclimbed the really steep descent, and stopped at Galehead hut for a drink and snack. The AMC operates eight huts in the White mountains, which are staffed in the summer. They serve breakfast and dinner, and snacks all day. The lodging is quite expensive, so most thru-hikers don’t stay the night.
The final climb of the day was up the steep one mile climb up to the summit of South Twin mountain. We knocked it out quickly, and had one last summit photo for the day.
When the trail wasn’t on an exposed ridge, it was in a nice pine forest all day. Perfect!
We didn’t have the time to continue down to the next official campsite, so we opted to camp on the summit of Zealand mountain. It was a tree’d summit, so it’s protected from the wind and perfect for camping.
We made dinner and watched the sun set over the mountains. It was a long day, even though we only covered 17 miles! This terrain is rougher and slower, so it’s to be expected. I had a great view from my tent…
We stopped by the Hikers Welcome hostel, Bob had a package there.
I found some snacks in the hiker box, and then we were back on the trail.
The climb up to Moosilauke summit is a long, gradual uphill. I’ve done this section of trail before, so there were no surprises today.
Just as the trail had gotten up on the ridge, we walked over the melting remains of an old snow drift!
The final mile up to Moosilauke summit is on an old carriage road, and is a beautiful flat, wide trail.
I spent 30 minutes on the summit enjoying the views, as it was a rare windlesd warm day.
I hiked down to Kinsman notch, stopping by a shelter and privy along the way. The privies in this DOC-maintained section all have interesting names…
The descent down the Beaver Brook trail was Steep, with mostly large rocks and stairs to walk on.
At the trailhead parking lot, I ran into some trail magic, and two other thru-hikers! Togs and Lucky started in Geein February.
The trail magic was from Fresh Grounds, who runs the “Leapfrog Cafe” as he calls it. I ran into him back in a North Carolina forest, and it was great to see him again!
The climb up out of Kinsman notch was hot and steep, and the rest of the afternoon was on rocky PUDs.
But at least it was in a nice pine forest.
At 6pm, I arrived at the shelter, and Bob (who I hadn’t seen all day) arrived 30 minutes later. There is some rain expected tonight, hopefully it stops by morning!
It was an immediate change to dark and shady forest, which was perfect for hiking uphill. It was quite warm in the sun, around 80F/27C, so any shade was nice. Once in awhile the trail would emerge at a swamp, and it felt hot.
The trail in this section is maintained by the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC), and they have all these cool orange signs.
Around lunchtime, we climbed Moose mountain. And since I love moose, I had to get a photo of this sign too.
And the summit of the mountain actually had a view!
A short ways down from the summit is a shelter, and I stopped for lunch there. Again, these signs are amazing pieces of artwork.
Later in the afternoon, I caught up to Bob as we were climbing up to Holts Ledge, which had nice views to the east.
Apparently this area is also a ski hill for the Dartmouth ski team. I haven’t sat on a ski lift in way too long, so I took a rest, haha.
Ski runs have the funniest names sometimes.
We continued on another three miles, and setup camp in a gravel area near a road, since there aren’t any shelters nearby, and the woods in this area are full of ticks.
A couple of other hikers joined us later, and I’m enjoying this quiet spot next to a creek.
