Friday June 21, 19.5mi/31.4km
Bemis Mountain shelter (1953.9) to Piazza Rock shelter (1973.4)
Happy Solstice day! The SOBO hikers in the shelter got up early, before 6am. They were quiet packing up, but since the sun rises so early, I was awake shortly after 6am. We got slowly packed up, and noticed that the rain had stopped, so we left the shelter at 7am. The first peak was the Lower Bemis Mountain, and it was completely foggy up there.
At the bottom of the descent, we had our first river Ford!
Maine is supposedly known for not having bridges, so I expect this will be the first of many. Then after a short but steep climb, we had our first real view of the day. I think these are the Rangely Lakes.
We had a road crossing, and there were dozens of stickers on the guiderail, this one was my favorite.
Maine was also living up to its reputation as a wet state, we had many sections of the boardwalks today. We also saw two SOBO (southbound) hikers, but since they weren’t wearing clothing, I didn’t take a photo.
And some of the boards weren’t in very good repair.
Today was a shift from summits to flat valleys, and we walked by many ponds and small lakes. A few even had rowboats or canoes left on the shore for anyone to use!
At the end of the day, we got a good view, and a preview into tomorrow’s climb, Saddleback mountain.
We saw 3 more SOBO thru-hikers, and again most of them were hiking in birthday suits, haha! Gotta love Solstice day hiking.
The last couple of miles were easy, and crossed a couple of streams.
Just before I got to the shelter, I passed two more SOBO hikers. So many today, I think eight total! And of course they weren’t wearing anything except backpacks and smiles. I guess SOBO thru-hikers take the Solstice day tradition seriously!
We stopped at Piazza Rock shelter for the night. I went to check out the namesake rock feature. It was huge!
It was fun to walk around inside the jumble of boulders too.
There was also an area nearby called “the caves”, so of course I explored that as well.
The privy at the shelter was ridiculous. The name..
And it was a dual-seater! Do people hold hands? Or play cribbage, using the board installed between the seats?
The caretaker, Sleepy Pete, came over and we chatted for an hour about trail, gear, life, and of course food. Tomorrow, we get to climb some 4000-footers!
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.
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…