Day 140: White Mountain Hostel

Hiked 4.1 miles, staying at the White Mountain Hostel in Gorham, NH.

I was expecting to wake to rain this morning but instead woke to sun and relatively clear skies.  I figured I had better take advantage and get on the trail, maybe I could beat the weather.  The hike started by entering the Great Gulf Wilderness.  This is a section of the trail that has no white blazes at all due to an interpretation of the Wilderness Act.  A number of thru hikers have gotten lost in this section but I thought the signs at trail intersections were reasonably clear on which way to go and I was fine.

Crossing the Peabody River

For most of the rest of the trail they do not believe in footbridges so I've been doing a lot of rock hopping recently.  Luckily the rivers haven't been so high that I had to ford any yet.  The hike went over a small unnamed peak before dropping down to Pinkham Notch.  On the way I took a side trail to check out Lowe's Bald Spot and was able to look back up at Madison and Washington.  The weather was definitely starting to sour and I picked up my pace.

View of Madison from Lowes Bald Spot

I arrived at the Visitor's Center in the notch and got inside literally minutes before the rain began.  Why Not had already arrived and as we relaxed the unfortunate others who did not beat the rain started to arrive until we had quite the northbound crew hanging out.  This included Hammer, Nova, Humen, Sparkplug, Soulslosher and Nuge.  Why Not, Nova and I decided to head into Gorham to get lunch at Subway.  Sparkplug kindly gave us a ride in via her Mustang.

Looking at Washington from Lowes Bald Spot

We hung out there for a while avoiding the rain and Hammer shortly joined us.  He is staying along with a bunch of others at the White Birch hostel but the three of us ended up at the White Mountain Hostel instead.  We got picked up and spent the rest of the day here.  The hostel is very similar to the Green Mountain House.  It is a really amazing place.  Marni, the current owner bought it only two weeks ago and is still figuring things out a bit but is incredibly nice.

Leaving the woods next to Pinkham Notch Visitors Center

The excitement for the day happened when we took a trip to Wal-Mart for resupply.  While waiting for everyone to finish me and another hiker watched an arrest go down right in front of us.  I'm not sure if the guy was shoplifting or what but it took two cops to subdue him.  It could been in part due to the fact that one of the cops was like four feet tall, not a very imposing figure.

We spent the evening hanging in the living room watching movies and eating ordered pizza.  The hostel is completely full due to the weather.  One of the movies we watched was called The Way and was a drama about hiking the El Camino.  It was a really good movie and I'd recommend it.  Go figure, a bunch of hikers watching a movie about hiking.