Klauks to Katahdin: President Mt. Washington

Day: 143 (August 15)
Starting location: Mizpah Spring Hut
Ending location: Madison Hut
State: NH
Miles today: 11.8
Miles total: 1,852.3

We awoke to one of the croo members singing a lovely wake up song. Yesterday was a voilin wake up call and today was a serenade, the huts are so neat! We helped by cleaning up the kitchen and dining room after the guests had left as our morning chores. We quickly scarfed down breakfast and got pumped for our hike up to the infamous Mt. Washington. We had been looking forward to this climb for a while and it was finally here.

The hike itself wasn't that bad, and having Mt. Washington in the background was very motivating. The climb was rocky but pretty gradual and we finally arrived on the summit around 12:15. The summit itself was an absolute zoo. Mt. Washington is unlike other mountians because there are mutliple ways to the top. You can hike, drive via the Auto Road or take the Cog Railroad. There had to be at least 1,500 people, it was crazy. Sadly for all of us, there was no view from the top which is the case 60% of the time. Oh well!

Mt. Washington is known for having the country's worst weather. The record high on the summit it 72 degrees. The average temperature is 28 degrees. It holds the record for the highest wind speed ever recorded at 231 mph. For us, it was a brisk 52 degrees with winds of 25 mph. For more fun facts about the weather on Mt. Washington visit this website:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Washington_(New_Hampshire)?wasRedirected=true

We had lunch at the snack bar on the summit and we visited the museum to learn more about the mountain. It was 2:00 by the time we finished and we knew we had to get going in order to make it to the next hut.

The next 6 miles were rocky and tiresome. We finally made it to Madison Hut around 6:30 but we were beat. The guests and croo were in the middle of dinner so we had to wait outside in order to even ask if there was space for us to stay. Dinner took forever because we found out that the croo was short staffed for the night. Luckily for us they took all 8 thru hikers that were waiting outside and we spent the remainder of the night washing dishes and preparing for breakfast in the morning. We finally got to bed around 10:30 and we slept like logs because we were so tired.