Day 135 & 136
We decided that slackpacking sounded like a good idea since we wanted to make up miles from yesterday. We got up early and were on the trail at 8 am to hike up Kinsman Notch. The beginning of the trail wasn’t to hard and we immediately started our hike with Kindle Ninja. We had an uphill, but it seemed more gentle than yesterday so we were feeling good. Turns out we were making not as good of time as we felt like we were! It felt like we did 3 mph and it was really just under 2. We made it to Wolf Peak and saw only one partial view on the way up. We crossed through a lot of mud an boggy areas, which was surprising given the elevation. We passed a pond and the climbed up another mountain - South Kinsman. The mountain was incredible steep and there was quite a bit of hand-over-hand climbing and it went on a little too long for me! We got to the top and had no view, climbed the North peak, and then had to come down steeply. After getting down, we had to cross a brook that was raging! It was thigh-high, but our feet were already wet so it was no big deal. From here, it was a longer walk than I needed to the trailhead. We then had a 1-mile walk on a bike path that was paved. We got a shuttle back to Lincoln and devoured entire pizzas after a long 17-mile day in The Whites.

We zeroed the next day after a long, hot night at the hostel. Nearly 30 people were crammed into this place and there were bodies everywhere. I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a car so we grabbed breakfast with Lighthouse and then made the call to stay another night. We did some work-for-stay at the hostel and got some amazing trail magic - a man let us go to his condo and use the hot tub and saunas. It was a relaxing thing to do and really helped our sore muscles. The photo on the blog is from the lake by Lonesome Lake Hut.