Day 134
We planned to get up early today, but mother nature had other plans! At 6 a.m. another wicked thunderstorm blew through with lightening so close it made your hair stand up. It continued raining until 7:30 and we had our breakfast and waited for the skies to clear. We didn’t leave until 9:30, when we thought the skies were clear enough, for Mt. Moosilauke. I was nervous as we began the climb as the Whites have always been so intimidating to me. We began initially too fast and immediately slowed our pace so we didn’t burn out. We took a 5-minute break twice on the way up, the trail never getting any less steep, and the rocks being slick the entire time. We made it to the top at noon on the dot and took our photos of th sign. We had no view due to the storms and cloud cover. As soon as we started “down” it began raining - a mist at first followed by heavier rain. We had to walk 1.9 miles to the shelter and in the rain on the rocks it took an entire hour. The trail was muddy and slick. We noticed a sign telling us to seek an alternate route in the rain, but we are experienced thru hikers and ignored it. We got to the shelter in time for the rain to stop. We put on dry clothes as it was about 50 degrees. I cooked a hot lunch and we sat until 2:45 before we decided to go down and go to Chet’s Place in Lincoln for warm showers and dry sleeping conditions. The next 1.6 miles were NO JOKE! We literally came straight down the side of the mountain next to a roaring cascade on wet wooden steps drilled into the side of the rocks. It took us two hours to traverse the trail, which at this point was a river in the downpour. Several people were actually still going up the mountain in the rain and told us we were insane for coming down. We had to cross two raging brooks, both of which were knee-deep, near the bottom. When we finally reached the bottom at 5 pm, we saw a sign warning us of the dangerous nature of the trail and we laughed as that’s all you can do. We finally hitched a ride in after about 40 minutes of waiting in the men’s room as to avoid hypothermia! We got to Chet’s with hot coffee in hand and immediately took showers. We got to see Secrets, Shenanigans, and Dirty Girl along with Trekking Pole when we showed up. We ran down to the laundromat and resupplied before getting back at 8:45 and crashing on the floor as there was no more bunk space. The photo today is me in the pouring rain at the ‘dangerous trail’ sign at the bottom of Moosilauke.