[at-l] Jan Day 16

[kahley@ptd.net (kahley)]

My god, what a day, what a day. And we are still alive
at the end of it.
After Clyde's 5am wake up call, we stowed our packs
under the Subaru, ate a light breakfast including wild
raspberries, and huffed and puffed up to Batell Shelter.
Branch and Stick were still abed, and Clyde gleefully
rousted them. We got the last water of the day, as the
ridge was dry.
We chat with an Audubon leader, with 6 boys up here.
They are making faces at their reconstituted eggs, until
their leader suggests the hot pepper sauce. They run off
in glee to out hot-sauce each other.
As we continued up, I played the "little rock cairn game,
" in which an intrepid and curious hiker sees if s/he can
balance the next rock, or tiny pebble, on top of the existing
pile. These cairns are everywhere. Everyone must play.
Thank god, the day is windy, cloudy and cool.
Do I have enough clothes on to slack? I have the Provent
rain jacket tied around my waist, also my 15-cent rain skirt,
made out of a tres chic Hefty cinch sack. Good to go.
About 19 am, we finish the rest of the truck over Abraham
Peak. When the glaciers retreated from New England 10,000
years ago, they left behind arctic vegetation that has disappeared
from all of Vermont except for three peaks:this is the first one.
One of the protected plant is a simple clumpy sedge, which
looks like plain old fescue to me, but I take their word for the
rarity and keep to the stony paths.
Cloudier now, we see cloud smoke blowing thru the balsam
and spruce. The plain old rock is shot thru with seams of white
quartz, but one large boulder stands apart, a pure white quartz
chunk in the middle of grey rock. Like a giant snowball.
"Makes you wonder, doesn't it," said Clyde. "Maybe took a hell
of a volcano download to blow it there. Hope it doesn't roll down on me."
He snaps a picture of me pretending to hold the snowball rock
off of him, straining to roll it upward like Sisyphus.
We reach the rocky, bald summit of Mt Abraham. There are a
few knee-high spruce scattered about, but its mostly rock.
We rest in a stone circle that acts as a windbreak. Another is
here, a friendly 56-year-old former dairyman (who now delivers
fuel man). He takes our picture in the rough rock ring.
Views are hard-won up here, but every once in a while the thick
of the clouds part and proffer a glimpse of the slopes before us.
This truly feels like the top of the world.
Started down to Little Abe Peak, only 3,900 feet, the wee babe
( Abe was 4006.) Half an hour later, we are on Lincoln peak, on
the windy observation platform, at 3,975 feet. We look back at
Abe in wonder - we walked that far in 30 minutes? The clouds
offer a spit of rain, a portent of things to come.
We eat on the gondola platform at Sugar Bush - if it was clear,
what magnificent views there would be. Sometimes we can
glimpse the farmland far below.
At 4,080, the highest we will get this day, at the Mt. Ellen
gondola platform, we stop in for a little snackerooni.
We can't stay off fire towers or gondola platforms, it seems.
Clyde is alot more fun today. He's thinking that going to Canada
is alright now. He hangs on a gondola so I can snap his picture.
He really wants to ride one.
We are truly in the grip of Kingdom of Weather up here,
there is nowhere else to go. Wind is our constant companion
in the uplands, and the clouds darken as the morning progresses.
Distant thunder growls, and we hustle off the tops. There are alot
of tops.
It is a fantastic day of hiking, cool tho humid, the rocks sweating,
low stunted spruce, rocky outcrops and shelves galore, views
to make a stone man weep.
Among the spruce,the mossy forest floor carpet is over-grown
in this uniform height, shamrock-type plant springing up from
the moss base. On the ski runs, summer phlox and goldenrod
vie, the seasons overlapping in this special August cusp.
It's been one long week for the Trail Princess without a proper
shower, a new persona record. I can hear that hot water heater
calling my name. But Mother Nature has other plans.
It begins to rain. Then downpour. you want WATER, Sugar Plum?
Here it comes.
The trail becomes a torrent of rushing brown liquid, an
ankle-deep river that makes rock climbing a dicey business.
The wind blows and the thunder crashes closer, one one
thousand, two one thousand... damn, less than two miles...
then less than a mile... then...
We are on a ridge from which there is no escape, so we
keep on hiking. What else to do? It's downright unnerving -
and Something Else too.
The thunder is crashing close above us now. It is intense.
I start to whoop.
YEEEHA-A-A!!!!
Why not? I feel ALIVE! Even if vaporized in the next second,
the rush RIGHT NOW is intense. Clyde looks back to see
what I am hollerin about. Right then, a blinding flash and
simultaneous BOOM! RIGHT OVERHEAD.
Instinctively I drop to my knees is the icy water. I don't
think I am praying, it just seemed to be the thing to do.
Clyde, Da Man, doesn't even flinch. Upon realizing life
still continues, at least this one, I whoop again.
The Weather is definitely in control up here, not us. It is
GREAT to be alive up here, soaked to the bone, hiking,
in the thick of it.
We slog through the torrents and puddles, descending and
ascending hairy rocks covered in running water. Our shoes
and socks are soaked thru, blisters rubbing afresh as our
toes and heels prune.
I swear, the sky water in Vermont is barely a degree-and-a-half
shy of a Slushee. Just when I think I can get no wetter feet,
I step of a rock into black, ankle-deep ice water.
Still, the rocks are spectacular, the thunder is moving east,
and we have lived to tell the tale - so far. By the time we
reach the shelter of Mad River Glen warming hut, we no
longer need it. We sit anyway, and wring our socks out
multiple times.
While we are there, the sun comes out. We've had it all
today, except snow.
The descent to App Gap is a jaw-sagger. What kind of people build
"trail" like this? In a city park, it would be roped off and topped with
concertina wire, guarded by Dobermans against liability but here
in northern Vermont it's the damn trail! We have ladders and
roots-holds and butt-slides, complicated by the lack of traction
due to wetness. In sleet, it would be near to impossible.
We actually felt sorry for the guy we saw going up it...
At the Hyde Away, the shower turns to ice water when the
toilet below is flushed. It is a mark of my growing tougness
that I hardly flinch. A real shampoo. Groan of pleasure...
A former AT hiker, Smoothie tells us he is having trouble
pulling big miles on the Long Trail. He also told us that what
we did today was harder than the Whites, which were more
rolling and ridge-walking than steep-UP AND steep-DOWN.
This is good news, very good news indeed, because I have a
thru-hiker friend who will say (anytime I think something is hard)
"Just you wait till the Whites".