Look! An article about KCL & SD

[worldwidemike]

Hikers’ havens
Huts in New Hampshire’s mountains offer food, shelter and a place to linger
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Tim Rowland
FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

GORHAM, N.H. — ‘‘Peakbaggers" — hikers who scale summits and return in one day just to say they have — draw the disdain of true outdoorsmen.
Purists suggest that to truly appreciate the outdoors, one must sleep under the stars, swim in mountain streams and wait quietly for the approach of wildlife at dusk. Peak-baggers, the purists say, take the interstate highway instead of back roads.
As a peak-bagger myself, many times I have wanted to linger on a magnificent summit. But peakbaggers have to keep one eye on the clock to travel up and down a mountain in a single day.
Peak-baggers do, however, live their philosophy that one need not eat freeze-dried food and schlep a heavy pack to experience the outdoors.
The Appalachian Mountain Club hut system of New Hampshire satisfies these sometimes conflicting desires; hikers who stay in the hut have both comfort and time to linger.
Once a loose confederation of shelters, the huts were organized into a network in the early 1900s. Nestled high in the crooks and crannies of the rugged White Mountains and staffed mostly by energetic college students, the huts offer home-cooked meals; full bathrooms; warm blankets and pillows; and sundries such as T-shirts and camera batteries. They even accept credit cards.
Not everyone approves of the huts, particularly those hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. The huts can be crowded and noisy; 15 people sleep to a room on bunk beds stacked three deep. Those seeking solitude will want to look elsewhere.
But for those who disdain pitching tents in a high wind or waiting two hours for water to boil on a tiny camp stove, the huts are just the ticket.
The Appalachian Mountain Club operates eight huts with picturesque names such as Lonesome Lake and Zealand Falls, which strategically dot the White Mountains about a day’s hike from each other.
They are individually accessible from trail heads (the Lonesome Lake hut is only an hour’s hike from the road).
Hikers wishing to depart from one trail head and hit a couple of huts before exiting at a different trail head are accommodated by a shuttle-bus system that will return them to their cars.
The hut system came into play for me when I penciled in a climb to the top of Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest mountain and home to some of the world’s most vicious weather.
Helpfully, the Lakes of the Clouds hut is nestled in the shadow of the mighty summit, ready and willing to turn a strenuous day hike into a more relaxed two-day affair.
The natural starting point for a newcomer is the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, which has a wealth of information, maps, supplies and even an adjoining lodge. An indispensable piece of literature sold at the visitor center is the $23 White Mountain Guide, which includes comprehensive trail descriptions, a good map and stern lectures about the dangers of the extreme terrain. Above the treeline, in particular, the crisscrossing trails can be confusing without a map.
Instead of making a beeline to the Mount Washington summit along the main drag, the extra time afforded the chance to split off onto the more circuitous and less-used Boott Spur trail, which began as a moderately but persistently steep sortie into deep, ferny woods populated by soaring hawks and scolding squirrels.
Somewhere a moose bellowed — a long editorial on mountain existence that can best be described as aggressively depressed.
After 2 miles of climbing, the trail broke out above the treeline onto the southern ridge of the awe-inspiring Tuckerman Ravine, a magnificently deep and wide semicircular divot out of Mount Washington’s eastern flank.
Making good time on these strenuous trails is out of the question, even when the steep trail levels somewhat along the ravine’s rim. But hiking above the trees is an entirely different sport — the views are so grand that the climb ceases to be a chore.
Along the high and relatively level alpine ridgeline that serves as a platform for the range’s soaring massifs, the Boott Spur Trail merged into the Davis Path, which traces its lineage to 1845, when it was originally built as a carriage road to the top of Mount Washington.
By this time it was midafternoon, and, without a specified turnaround time, my trek slowed to half-hiking, half-gazing.
In the distance, a black plume of smoke belched from Mount Washington’s eastern flank where the cog-railway train doggedly inched its way up the mountain from the valley.
The Lakes of the Clouds hut and the two small lakes that give it its name eventually came into view, nestled snugly in the col between Mount Washington and Mount Monroe. A half-hour descent had me at the doorstep, shouldering my light pack and chatting with a pleasant staff member who ran my credit card.
The unobtrusive lodge — sheathed in gray, weather-beaten shingles — is almost indistinguishable from the surroundings until you’re all but on top of it.
A half-dozen hikers were lounging outside; a half-dozen more sat in the community dining hall basking in the afternoon sunlight, reading, chatting or studying maps. The hut has the feel of a woodsy hunting cabin without the firepower.
The interior is clad in warm, varnished pine, with plenty of glass to highlight the stunning views of the valley to the west.
This particular lodge, the most popular in the hut system, accommodates 90 hikers in co-ed bunkrooms.
Settled at my destination with the sun still fairly high, I was struck by a question: "Now what?"
I wasn’t used to free time during a hike. The "what" was right outside the door in the form of stubby Mount Monroe, so I plunged into the olive scrub and gray granite for a short if strenuous jaunt to the summit.
I was rewarded by wave after wave of blue mountains undulating into the distance.
I relaxed in the summit experience for a full hour, even pulling out a book for a little elevated reading in the sun.
I returned to the hut in late afternoon to find it a beehive of activity as the young staff, now in full force, set the lumberjack tables with crockery and directed 50 hikers or so into place. Hot minestrone began the meal, followed by salad and a hearty lasagna served with fresh-baked bread and tubs of butter. Dessert was a rich and delicious chocolate-chip pie, free of guilt — not for its lack of calories but for the knowledge that it could be burned in about 45 minutes of climbing.
The staff members live in the huts most of the week, dispensing information, studying the rare and fragile alpine plant life and monitoring scientific instruments. They also serve as pack mules, lugging in food and supplies and hauling loads of garbage up the brutal final ascent of Mount Washington, where it’s trucked out by way of the peak’s auto road.
The White Mountains have more than a century’s history of elevated accommodations, and the huts evolved mostly out of the need for hasty shelter from the peaks’ severe and mercurial climate.
Lakes of the Clouds, which draws its energy from the sun and wind, was built as a simple emergency shelter in 1901 after two hikers died of exposure and was improved upon several times during the century.
Later that night I talked with the chef, 23-year-old Nathaniel Blauss, a math and physics major at Colgate University, who did his best to explain how his schooling jibed with cooking at 5,000 feet for a small army of Gore-Tex-clad troops.
When I asked him about his life after hut and his future career in the real world, he said, "Frankly, I’m terrified of that prospect."
It’s that way for a lot of the staff — mostly students, artists and future scientists. They all echoed the sentiment that working at a hut was one last chance to delay real life in an ideal setting.
Most ideal, perhaps, was the setting sun at altitude, a sight traditional day-hiking peak-baggers rarely see.
Everyone congregated outside the hut as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, silhouetting mountains visible all the way to Vermont’s western border.
The sky became a marvel of lavender and pink; a sliver of a moon appeared at the summit of Mount Monroe and slowly slid down its western flank.
With nightfall, stars began to burst like popcorn until the whole sky was a shimmering box of jewels.
Fatigue from exertion steers everyone to their bunks by 10 p.m. There’s no need for a sleeping bag as the huts provide pillows and warm wool blankets.
Light sleepers used to silence might have some difficulty in the huts that, about 30 seconds after the last light is extinguished, become a museum of snores, some of which could penetrated concrete.
A big breakfast of oatmeal and eggs had me raring to go the next morning on a short but brutal final ascent of Mount Washington. The highest wind speed on Earth (231 mph) has been recorded here, but on this day there wasn’t so much as a breath. A road for cars winds to the summit complex, but thanks to the early start I was on the peak by 8:30 a.m. and thus spared the indignity of sharing the summit of the mightiest mountain in the Northeast with a bunch of tourists in a van.
The descent down a lesser-used trail clung to a rocky spine for one-half mile before plunging mercilessly to the valley floor. The trail was rough, steep and demanding, even on the way down. Along the way, I passed a couple of peak-baggers laboring under a steep grade and a timetable. As we chatted, one checked his watch.
They were fine; there was plenty of time to make it up and back in one day.
But why?

[ScarlotteDorian]

cool article mike, thanks for posting. it's always nice to know that people out there are thinking about you.

although, they act like all high peaks are a "walk in the park" and that you don't have to endure some serious wolley wilderness enroute. before i even realized that i was a high pointer, i'd climbed mt. marcy in new york and wheeler peak (13,161 ft) in new mexico. both sandwiched in a week of hiking/camping & backpacking. yet, i've also done many high points that you drive right up which are never very outdoorsman friendly (mainly because of the crowds) but still really interesting. i love the hobbey because of all the unusual places it takes me and different adventures encountered. from corn fields, the backyards of people's homes to ruggade hikes with amazing things to experience on the way up and at the top. there's always an interesting story.

anyways, good article. it's always interesting to hear other people's point of view.

[kingcrazylegs]

It strange that they don't think about how many people do some of both... we do peak bagging, but we also love to stay out in the backcountry for as long as possible.

Good article

[futboller]

That sounds like a lot of fun, spending a few days up in the mountains hiking and coming back to a bustling cabin.