For some reason I woke up Wednesday with a slight
hangover. I guess the Rangeley locals
know how to treat a guest. With my gear
dried out and myself clean after a shower (that’s showers in back to back
days!), I hit the road to New Hampshire and the White Mountain National Forest. Matt had directed me to take Hwy 16 because
he sees moose on that road often and I wanted to see a moose! I looked at the map and saw it took me past Mooselookmeguntic Lake, which is now my favorite lake name.
The scenery was beautiful as the evergreens shook off the snow from the
previous night. Sadly, I did not see a
moose.
Entering New Hampshire, I came across the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge and stopped into the visitor center. I got a late start that morning, pushing my arrival
in the White’s ‘til mid-afternoon, so I thought I’d see if there was any
camping in the refuge. “No,” was the
answer so I dallied around the center, learning a little about the area and
collecting a few brochures for my archives.
I got back on the road with the compass pointed toward the White
Mountains.
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| Umbagog |
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| Umbagog |
The weather report for the evening and following morning
called for rain, heavy at times.
Awesome. As I looked at the maps,
trying to discern a good spot to camp, I thought about the motels I had passed
a few miles back in Berlin and Gorham.
Boy, it would be easy to take refuge in a motel for the night, staying
dry and getting caught up some writing.
Countering the thoughts of the easy way out was the thought of staying
in one of the shelters up in the mountains.
This idea was planted in my head by a guy back in Millinocket who said
one of his favorite places to stay was Crag Camp in the White’s. The camp was perched high on the mountainside
looking east, granting visitors a spectacular sunrise he said. I had looked up the shelter and found that it
was managed and maintained by the Randolph Mountain Club. They operated a few other shelters in the
area, including Gray Knob, which had a caretaker year round. So do I stay in a motel or push it up the
mountain in the waning afternoon light, not knowing how the trail is or if I
can even make it? Screw it. Up the mountain it is!
I parked at the Appalachia Trailhead off of US 2 and got my
pack in order. I decided to leave my
tent behind so I could move lighter and faster.
This meant I had to make it one of the shelters or somehow make it down
in the darkness. If I ran into trouble
and was unable to make it to safety, I’d be screwed. It was about 3 by the time I started my hike,
not sure which shelter I wanted to go to.
With the skies cloudy that left me maybe an hour of solid light with
darkness quickly falling after that. The
trail was 3.5 miles to either camp, so it would be a game-time decision on
which one to go to. As I got going, I thought
to myself, “this may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” Did I mention that I didn’t have a map?
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| Ahhh, I'm going to call their bluff on this one |
I quickly heated up as the trail began its gentle
ascent. The landscape was stunning in
the early winter snow cover. The trail
followed a brook that fell over rocks and waterfalls from its origin higher up
the mountain. It was immensely peaceful
and serene. John Muir described a
waterfall as “singing Nature’s old love song with solemn enthusiasm,” and the
song this waterfall was singing was pure and sweet.
Onward I pushed as the trail began to ascend quicker. The
temp was in the 30’s when I started but I was down to my Mobile Skills Crew
Crew Leader shirt before too long. The
higher I went, the more snow and ice I encountered, trying to slow me
down. I didn’t have crampons or even
hiking poles to help keep me upright. I
found a good stick to use in the hiking poles stead, but after a few close
calls with falling, it broke into a chunk about two feet in length. Even in its diminutive state the stick came
in useful as the trail became steeper and steeper and I was resorting to a
partial crawl to make it up the mountain.
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| This idiot has no idea what he's doing |
A fog rolled in as I climbed in elevation (I guess they call
that a cloud), obscuring any view of the valley in the little light that
remained. I had put my knee-high gaiters
on earlier to keep the snow and slush out of my shoes and was pleased at how
well they were working - my feet were relatively dry! I came to an intersection where I had to
decide which camp to head for. Crag Camp
and the cold solitude it would bring, or Gray Knob and the promise of someone
to talk to and a wood stove that was lit for an hour or two a day? Gray Knob it was.
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| The trail crossing a small stream |
The trail crossed a stream or two, which were treacherous to
cross safely in the falling light on ice-covered rocks. I nearly lost it and took a plunge, but
somehow managed to stay upright and dry.
Darkness was closing in around me as I made the final push to the
shelter. The trail was somehow even
steeper, probably at a 60 or 70% grade.
The trees became shorter and more rigid and the snow deeper as I moved
ever closer to the tree line. Finally I
rounded a corner and saw the most beautiful sight, a small Christmas tree,
adorned with a string of lights, gazing out from the window of the Gray Knob
shelter. I made it!
I stumbled in, not knowing what or whom to expect. A guy about my age with a scruffy beard
greeted me. The caretaker I
presume. He had just lit the fire and I
simultaneously tried to stop sweating and dry off while trying to stay warm and
not get the chills. I got talking to the
caretaker (I don’t think I ever got his name) and it turned out I’m the only
idiot up there that night. It was
in-between seasons and with the weather crappy, not a lot of folks made it up
there during the week.
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| Gray Knob |
I changed into dry clothes and went about making
dinner. After settling in, I was glad I
chose Gray Knob over Crag Camp. Crag
Camp had shelter from the wind, but no heat or conversation. Granted they only lit the stove for an hour
or two a day at Gray Knob, never warming the cabin over 50, but it didn’t get
below freezing while I was there. The
Gray Knob cabin had been recently rebuilt because the original cabin had began
to rot from the humidity, so that’s why they lit the stove everyday, to suck
out the moisture.
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| My accommodations at Gray Knob |
The caretaker and I talked into the night on a wide range of
topics, from trail construction standards, to how to deal with human waste in
the woods, to local beer, and to Rhode Island basketball with Tyson Wheeler and
Lamar Odom. He switches off with another
caretaker each week and when he’s off the mountain, the folks who employ him
have a place for him to stay. He
collects the $13 fee that is required at the shelter and goes around to the
other two shelters in the area each day to see if anyone is staying there to
collect their fees too. That sounds like
an awesome job.
It was a great evening in the White Mountains. I had climbed over 3000 feet in 3.5 miles,
the most I had ever climbed by far, through snow and ice to a destination I
wasn’t sure of, but I made it and enjoyed every minute of it. It was another memorable day in a trip
littered with them. My trip was slowly
coming to a close, but more memories and stories were waiting for me before my return
to Wisconsin.
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