Zukland

I woke up early, around seven am or so, after a pretty lousy night’s sleep. I spent most of the night tossing and turning trying to get comfortable on the wooden tent platforms. Turns out I don’t like tent platforms. After packing up our gear and filling our water bottles with the remaining filtered water, Dan and I had a quick breakfast of poptarts.

The big question mark at this point was where we’d be staying that night. The next closest free camp site was almost 20 miles away (Osgood campsite). In between Imp and Osgood are two AMC huts, Carter Notch and Pinkham Notch. Both of those were full service huts and reservations were strongly recommended (according to the guide book, at least).

That decision could wait for a while, though. First we had to climb 1500 feet up to the Carter line of mountains — North Carter, Middle Carter, South Carter, and Carter Dome. Mount HIght is also in this range, but we decided to take a side trail and bypass the summit; by the time we had reached Mt Hight we were both getting a little beat and Dan’s knees were starting to act up.

We stopped for lunch at Carter Dome, which was only a short distance past Mt. Hight. Carter Dome was pretty cool — a large rocky area with nice views.

Lunch there was mini bagels, pepperoni, and cheese and tasted great. As we were packing up the food I saw what I later confirmed was a spruce grouse.

After lunch we began the descent of almost 1500 feet in a mile to Carter Notch Hut. This was a pretty tough descent and we got to the Hut around 3:30pm.

At this point we had to decide where we wanted to stay. The next closest shelter was Pinkham Notch Hut another six miles away. Since Carter Notch Hut had some open bunks we decided to bite the bullet and stay there the night (at 90 bucks a person). While pricey, that did get us a hot dinner (salad, soup, stuffed shells, and dessert), breakfast in the morning, and a bed with a mattress.

After paying and ditching our gear in the room, Dan and I sat down to play chess in the common room. While we were playing, I noticed a kid (probably 12 or so) come rushing in and start filling up a glass of lemonade. The kid ran back outside. A minute or two later the kid returned, this time with what I figured was his father. The kid went to fill the glass again while the father slumped down on the bench; the father was carrying a huge pack that must have weighed fifty or sixty pounds. His son (I assume) kept giving him glasses of lemonade and helped his father get his pack off. Clearly, wherever they’d come in from, the father had been having a hard time with all that weight.

After a few more games of chess, we sat down to dinner. This was served “family” style; clearly, other families are much more polite at dinner then mine — there was a distinct lack of fighting and arguing. We were joined by six other people — a father and daughter, a mother and son, an older woman hiking alone (I think) and a older man, who also appeared to be on his own. Conversation was very interesting — the mother and son (the mother was seated to my right, the son across the table from her on Dan’s left) were very impressed by Dan’s whistling skills and decide that his trail name would definitely be “The Whistler”. I quipped (I’m quite good at quipping, having practiced for years) that as long as I didn’t become “Whistler’s Mother” I was fine with it. After talking a little more about music, it turned out they had also stayed at Imp the night before, in the shelter, and had also heard the Indian Flute player. The father and daughter were both reading Ann Rand’s “The Fountainhead”, which I thought was interesting. The solitary woman was someone Dan and I had passed during the day (and would pass again the next day).

Dinner was soup (Moroccan Lentil, which was pretty spicy), salad, stuffed shells, “almost sourdough” bread, and for dessert carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Everything was very good, even the carrot cake. After dinner Dan and I headed back to our bunk room where we were joined by the overpacked father son team that had arrived during our chess games. I took the bottom bunk and Dan took the top.

I had a fairly rough night’s sleep, again. Just couldn’t get comfortable. Around 10pm I went out to use the bathroom and stayed out there for a few minutes star gazing. The night’s sky was amazing; no light pollution and being 3000 feet up helped, I’m sure. Eventually I got to sleep, although I woke up several times during the night.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 17:41 and is filed under Backpacking, Trip Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.