I completed my 4 day-3 night hut-to-hut Presidential Traverse yesterday! 22 miles, 7-4000 footers, about 10 blisters on my feet, an amazing and exhausting journey. One that I am very impressed with myself for doing, and plan to never do again :)
I stayed Sunday night at the Highland Center which is an AMC hostel. I didn't want to have to wake up at 5:30 am to catch the 9 am hiker's shuttle to the start of my hike. Really glad I did that, it made it so much easier on the first day and it was a super cute place. They have shared rooms, but I was really lucky to be paired with a super chill woman who was exhausted from her hike and was out like a light. Monday morning I caught the AMC hiker's shuttle from the Highland Center to the trailhead for Madison Spring hut. I decided to do my best to make things easy on myself, so I hiked the "easiest" hike up, the Valley Way (3.8 miles, 3550 feet elevation gain). It was a tough one!
The weather was pretty bad on the first day, the mountains were covered in clouds and it was windy. Below the treelike it wasn't too bad, but it was still wet on all the rocks, so I didn't really want to sit and rest. There were three other "groups" on the shuttle with me - this one guy from Europe who was planning to trail run all the way back to the Highland Center that day, three girls who had tents and were doing a two day traverse, and an older couple from Kalamazoo Michigan who were doing the same hike as me. Trail culture is so interesting! The guy was off once we got there, never to be seen again. The girls and I were passing each other off and on during the day. And the couple from Kzoo and I got to know each other some during the few days.
I started out feeling pretty good, breathing hard but moving steady. As I got closer to tree line I got more and more tired. I stopped to have something to eat, but was still moving pretty slow. After a while, I was just talking myself into moving to the next blaze and then the next, etc. Once I got above tree line the wind really picked up. There's a sign as you get to tree line that says something about how unpredictable the weather is, how people have died as a result of bad weather, and how you should turn around now if weather doesn't look good. I was like "it doesn't look good, but I'm still going to the hut." I later heard it was 78 mph gusts at Mt. Washington (hurricane force is 74 mph). I don't think it was quite that strong where I was, but it was pretty powerful. Visibility was also awful, due to the cloud cover - I was so glad when I got to the hut!
Inside there were a bunch of people, fresh baked bread, hot chocolate, and no wind! I chose a bunk that seemed nice, which I later changed when I realized that the window didn't close all the way and it would be freezing.
After resting for a while, I tried to summit Madison, which proved to be a crazy idea! From Madison Springs Hut to the summit of Madison is .5 mile and 550 feet of elevation gain. A lot of the summit is a pile of rocks dumped by a glacier. The trail is marked well with huge cairns, so I decided I would try it, and see how it went. I decided if I couldn't see 2 cairns back I would turn back (it was so foggy). I think I made it about half way up. The wind was so bad that a couple times it almost knocked me over. I can't imagine what it was like on top, I thought I would have to crawl if I wanted to get up there. I've never turned around on a hike due to weather, but it was clearly the smart thing to do. I spent the rest of the day hanging in the hut, reading, eating a delicious dinner prepared by the Hut Croo, and then going to bed at like 8:30.
Huts are an interesting place - it was really expensive to stay there - like $110 per night. So, I guess that limits who's going to be there. At Madison there was a group of boy scouts and their dads. At first I was nervous that they would be really loud and bratty, but they were actually really good. I accidentally sat at a dinner table with all the dads (and a couple moms) for dinner, and they were pretty funny. At the end of dinner this one family came in - they had hiked over from Lake of the Clouds with mom, dad, and a girl who looked like she was like 8 in the wind. Really impressive! Mom said it took them 11 hours.
Anyhow, even though it's August and I felt funny packing my ninja hoody, patagonia long underwear, down puff, wool hat and gloves, I was so glad I had them that night! Because, I wore all of that, plus my two shirts, a pair of Athleta pants, wool socks, buff around my neck. I slept in my sleeping bag liner and had three wool blankets on top of me. And it still took about a half hour to get warm in bed! It was cold. Once I fell asleep, I slept like a log until they woke us up at 6:30 with guitar music and singing for breakfast.
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