Hiking Trail Journals

Appalachian Trail 2003 - Chelsea's Journals

Entry #129 - August 31, 2003

9:50 PM - What a fabulous day - a once in a lifetime day! We left our site by 8:00. It was still freezing, but the sky was clear & blue with hardly any wind. Started out hiking in our shorts, rain pants, t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, jackets, hats & mittens! By the time we were a mile or so down the trail, the sun was really starting to shine & we had stripped down to shorts & t-shirt. About 2 miles down the Franconia Ridge Trail, we came around a bend onto Little Haystack Mtn and were greeted by a view that erased every bad memory of the boring 1,800 miles of Trail behind us. It was Mt. Lincoln against a blue sky. We were above any clouds that we could see - they were quiet white wisps lying down in the valleys. The trail was a ridgewalk along rocky open slopes for the next couple miles, over Lincoln & Lafayette. We saw Carolina Cruiser (the documentary guy) yet again and he told us there was 120-mile visibility from Mt. Washington today. Picture perfect.

We moved on and are staying at Galehead Hut tonight! We got work for stay again and had to sift compost. A smelly job, but worth the hour's work to stay here. It's a beautiful new hut with a great crew. We had a huge dinner of leftovers - turkey soup, salad, veggies, bread, baked rotini, & carrot cake for dessert! The perks of being a thru-hiker! We might not eat with the regular folk, and have to sift through garbage, but we have a dry, warm place to stay & full bellies just like them, only we're $120 richer, ha, Ha! I'd prefer to sleep out in the main room by ourselves instead of in the bunk room anyway.

15 easy miles to Crawford Notch tomorrow. We're headed for a campground with showers & laundry. Yippeeee!

Oh - two SoBo's that are here did a presentation for all the people staying RE: Thru-Hiking. I guess only having done 350 miles, they're still excited about talking about the Trail, ha, Ha! We added our input, too. It was fun talking to the people & answering all their questions, I guess.

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