Not Worth It

Okay. In this post, I’m going to cover August 25th and 26th, because I took a zero on the 26th, and I'm just going to combine it with the 25th, which turned out to be a somewhat short hiking day.

On the 25th, I woke up at the Osgood tent site. And the day before had been an absolutely brutal day that finished with one of the most punishing descents on the AT. When I got to the campsite, I basically ate a few pieces of salami for dinner and passed out. And when I woke up, it felt as though my legs were full of concrete. I had to get myself 5 miles down to Pinkham Notch, which under normal conditions, would be a fairly easy hike, but after going up and over Washington and Madison, it was especially rough.

So I sort of hobbled my way down to Pinkham Notch. And when I got there, I saw that a bunch of hikers had camped there overnight, because the Osgood site had been very full. I hadn't even realized how full it was, because by the time I got there, it was getting dark, and I’d just picked the first tent site I saw that was acceptable. But apparently, there were 15 or 20 other hikers there.

A very nice lady named Mrs. B was at the bottom of Pinkham Notch with a bag of egg and cheese bagels that she was handing out to hikers. She was waiting for her husband to come down from the Madison Springs hut and had decided to bring some Trail Magic with her, which was very, very welcome, because I’d had a pretty paltry breakfast.

And at that point, I didn't really have a plan. I was just going to get myself to Pinkham Notch and figure things out from there. And as I was talking with a bunch of people while we were enjoying our Trail Magic, I learned that most of them were considering going into Gorham.

Gorham is a town that’s relatively close to Pinkham Notch, which is at the base of Mount Washington. It’s also at the intersection of the road that goes by Mount Washington, which is Route 16, and Route 2. So the trail goes between Route 16 and Route 2, which means that a good number of hikers will go into Gorham multiple times while they’re in this area. You can get to it from Pinkham, and you can also get to it from the other side of Wildcat and the Carters.

So I was thinking — and I'm really glad that I did not go through with it — that I could get through the Carters and then go into Gorham, but I was just so tired. I’d just done a really tough hike, and I’d lucked out, because the weather had been great. I really don't know how anyone does that section in bad weather. It was crazy enough as it was.

I texted S. to say that I was thinking about going into town but didn’t know if there was anything available that wasn’t a million dollars a night, and before I knew it, she’d gone ahead and booked something for me. [Wife note: I found a perfect place — affordable, good ratings, and basically across the street from a laundromat, Dollar General, and a beer store — and there was only one room left, so I pulled the trigger!]

So that kind of finalized my decision for me, and I just needed to figure out how to get into town. There was a guy named Rob who was walking his dog around at Pinkham, and he told me he likes to go there sometimes and say hi to the hikers passing through and see whether he can help anyone out. He asked me whether I needed a ride to Gorham, and I gladly accepted. So Aaron, I would definitely count that as double Trail Magic at Pinkham Notch.

Once we’d all finished socializing, I got in the car with Rob and his dog, who I think was named Milton. Great dog — sorry, I didn't take a picture. Anyway, I got dropped off at the laundromat and did my wash. And next door was a Dollar General, so I did a little bit of resupply there. The hotel was about a five-minute walk from there, but I did my laundry and resupply first, because it was too early to check in.

As I was making my way over to the hotel, I bumped into Turbo, who I've mentioned several times before. He just assumed that I would be taking a zero the next day, so when I told him I wasn't planning on it, he basically chastised me. He always keeps a very close eye on the weather forecast up in the mountains, and he said there was a pretty grim forecast for the next day — thunderstorms with high winds and hail. To quote him directly: “Not worth it, Dude.”

You definitely don't want to be going over Wildcat, which is the next mountain after Pinkham Notch, in those conditions. So I went ahead and booked a second night at the Quality Inn while I was checking in. And my first order of business after that was taking a shower. Boy, is that such a wonderful feeling. And then naturally, what do I do whenever I go into town? I find the nearest brew pub.

I was maybe a 20-minute walk from Big Day Brewing. And apparently, it was a very popular place. Understandably so. I wanted to get a spot at the bar, but there weren’t any open seats, so I just got a table and ordered a beer. A few minutes later, Pathfinder walked in. I was happy to see him and invited him over to sit down and have dinner with me. We had a couple beers and just talked about hiking and all that fun stuff. It was great.

Back at the hotel, I talked to S. for a little while and then went to sleep. Today, I took a zero, and one of the things I've been meaning to do is fix my hiking pole. I had broken the tip off of it in Virginia. And the first time I came home, I was able to rig up a system where I took a tip from a different manufacturer and kind of squeezed it onto the broken end of my pole. I used a bunch of crazy glue and stuck a chopstick in there to add some stability.

Over the next thousand miles, though, my little fixes had gradually worn out. I was worried that I would be putting pressure on the pole at some point and it would just snap again. So I took the opportunity to fix it. I don't need to go into a bunch of detail about that, though. I doubt anyone cares. But anyway, I fixed my trekking pole and did some route planning and organized my gear and took a nap and all that fun stuff. And while I was organizing my gear, I realized that I’d left my hat at Big Day Brewing. So I figured I’d head over there, maybe have a beer, and get my hat back. But then I found out that the brewery is closed on Mondays, which made my heart sink.

I went over there anyway, because there's always someone working at a brewery. And lo and behold, there was someone in the kitchen. I banged on the window until I got their attention, and they kindly checked the lost and found for me and brought me my hat. So that was a big win for me for the day. And I know, people lose hats all the time, but S. gave me this one, so it has extra meaning to me, and I've also had it from the very beginning of my hike. So I was really happy to get it back.

After that, I grabbed sandwiches and some Gatorade and a couple beers — a Heineken and a Lagunitas —from Cumberland Farms and headed back to the hotel for more chill time. In the afternoon, a huge storm rolled through. At that point, I was really glad to have taken the day off trail, because I would not have wanted to be up in the mountains for that. I texted S. to tell her that once I’m done hiking, she’s going to have a hard time getting me to move.

Gorham’s kind of a one-horse town, so there's not a lot going on, but it does have a McDonald's. So I have to admit that for dinner, I went to McDonald's again. And S., you can just go ahead and reuse that disturbing AI McDonald's image, because I didn't take a picture this time either. [Wife note: I’ll just use a different one…]

But that reminds me of something. Some hikers try what’s called the McDonald's Resupply Challenge. I don't think I've talked about this before. I know I mentioned a long time ago that a guy named Giggles bought ten McDonald's cheeseburgers to bring with him on the trail, but apparently, there's an actual challenge to do a three-day resupply solely with food from McDonald's. And a few days ago, I met a guy named Hot Rod, and he stayed at the Galehead hut the same night I did, along with Bumble.

And they and three other hikers went to McDonald’s and ordered 75 cheeseburgers and something like 15 apple pies and a bunch of other stuff, and they managed to pull off a three-day resupply with it. I wasn't about to try that. I was tempted to take a few burgers with me, but I decided against it. I’ll just work with what I already have here in the hotel room.

I have to hike up Wildcat in the morning, and Wildcat is on the list of hikes that I've been nervous about. I think I've listed some of them before. The first one was going up Franconia Notch, and the next one was going up Webster Cliff. And those two didn't turn out to be too bad.

The next one was coming down Madison, and that was probably worse than I’d been fearing. And the fourth one on my list is going up Wildcat. I think Wildcat has some notoriety, because it's basically 3 miles up, and you gain over a thousand feet per mile. It's just an incredibly steep and difficult and technical section. So I hope it isn't actually as scary as the other two climbs were. Either way, I guess I’m going to find out.