Saturady brought a different challenge. After camping in Vermont at Gifford Woods (another favourite spot) I decided to head into the Whites to try a 4000 footer there. I picked Moosilauke as it had a bit of a mystic to it. It is one of the first really big mountains that the AT crosses as it comes into the Whites. Once on top, the AT thru-hiker can finally see the full White mountain range that they will be crossing for the next hard, long, painful week.
The drive was longer then I anticipated and I didn't get to the trailhead until close to 10:30. I chose a simpler approach then the AT trail, going up to the AMC/Dartmouth "Ravine lodge" east of the mountain. This would give me a relatively short approach on the gorge brook trail although I still had to climb some 2500 ft. Normally the Ravine lodge is open to hikers with bunkrooms and a kitchen but, when I arrived, it was closed for Dartmouth freshman orientation trips. I guess Dartmouth take their freshman hiking up and down mountains (with full packs) to welcome them to college - Nice! The lodge may have been closed but the parking lot was still open so I booted up and headed towards the summit. After getting lost (twice!) inside of the first 200m I finally found the Gorge brook trail and started on my hike. The trail itself started out in terrible condition but got better as I got higher. Huge boulders and rubble marked the early trail and lovely rock staircases met me higher up - strange. As I climbed I passed more and more groups. Some small (4 or 5 in a family) and some large (16 in a retiree backpacking group). Labour day weekend - and the only predicted nice weather day - had brought out hordes of hikers. I was surprised to find that most people here didn't know they should yield to faster hikers on the trail and I found myself trapped on narrow trails behind slower groups. Frustrating. The best behaved hikers were the Dartmouth kids (all in groups of 8 plus 2 leaders) whose leaders would yell out "hiker up!" and all the kids in their group would practically jump into the nearby trees to get out of my way. Perhaps a little excessive (okay, a lot excessive!) but I was glad for it compared to the "tourists" who just plodded along, glaring back at you, muttering "whose idea was this anyway.... vacation my #^#$^...." and not giving an inch.
All in all though - despite the crowds - I really enjoyed this mountain. The trail led me up several switchbacks with great lookouts finally coming out on a false summit as seen in the photo with a view of the open bald summit ahead. I decided to change into a dry shirt here as the wind sounded strong up top (little did I know :-O ). To my surprise I could only see one hiker at the summit. Perhaps I would be lucky enough to sit up top in relative solitude? Not to be....
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