Tuesday, September 8 7:01 pm 7.9 mi
AT 1873.6 Pinkham Notch/Hummingbird Palace → AT 1881.5 Mt Hight Stealth Site
Weather: Warm and overcast
Trail Conditions: Tough climbs galore, but totally worth it. Finally got my clear view of Carter Notch and Carter Dome!
My Condition: Happy :)
Great views of the Presidentials as I climbed Wildcat. Carter Notch Hut was a totally different experience – last time it felt so isolated and mysterious shrouded in fog. I saw it unknowingly from the top of the descent, and wandered up to find the caretakers actively closing it down for the season, drilling boards onto windows and packing out final supplies. The climb to Carter Dome was unrelenting but so much less difficult than I remember – I felt like I was climbing down boulders descending that path during my college trip. Some big rocks, but mostly par for the course. Carter Dome was fogged over last time I was there as we listened to Dave recite “The Call of the Wild” from memory. I read the poem as I looked out over the incredible view, soaking it all in.
Post Trail Analysis
Unfortunately, didn't get much of a sunset at Mt. Hight with a fine mist rolling over the mountain. Nights like this made me truly regret going stoveless - Hummingbird cooked Flamin' Hot Cheetos Mac and Cheese.
This section is some of the very trail that I fell in love with during Kines 001: Backpacking in the Whites. Since that experience, hiking the AT had been in the back of my mind. During my college hike here, we slogged up Carter Dome, post-holing up to our knees whenever we’d veer even inches off the dense snow-pack in the middle of the trail. It was cold, it was rainy/misty, and clouds had obstructed every viewpoint we had made our way to thus far. Professor Ricketts, and his co-trip leader Dave, would tell us “they had never seen a group hike so hard to see so little.” Dave turned it around for us atop Carter Dome, however, reciting the poem below from memory. It awoke something primal within me and I felt a second wind as I made the arduous descent through the fog to Carter Notch.
“The Call of the Wild” by Robert William Service
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon, Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar? Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it, Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost? Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it; Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost. Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation, The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze? Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation, And learned to know the desert's little ways? Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o'er the ranges, Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through? Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes? Then listen to the wild–it's calling you. Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver? (Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.) Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river, Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize? Have you marked the map's void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races, Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew? And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses? Then hearken to the wild–it's wanting you. Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, grovelled down, yet grasped at glory, Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole? 'Done things' just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story, Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul? Have you seen God in His splendours, heard the text that nature renders? (You'll never hear it in the family pew.) The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things– Then listen to the wild–it's calling you. They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching, They have soaked you in convention through and through; They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching– But can't you hear the wild?–it's calling you. Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us; Let us journey to a lonely land I know. There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us, And the wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.
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