Klauks to Katahdin: Speech Time

Day: 142 (August 14)
Starting location: Zealand Falls Hut
Ending location: Mizpah Spring Hut
State: NH
Miles today: 14.1
Miles total: 1,840.5

Kristen forgot yesterday to explain our work for stay. If you guessed washing dishes, well you got it. We were put to work in the kichen for about a hour washing everything from pots & pans, plates, bowls, and cups. Washing is done the old fashion way in the huts with no dish washer and everything was washed by hand. Work for stay was a neat experience and it was the least we could do for a free night stay in a hut. Some thru hikers will speak badly of the AMC but we have found them to be very accomodating and flexible. Families spent about $100/person to stay a night in a hut and the crews will go out of their way to help thru hikers in anyway they can.

We woke up this morning at 6:30am to one of the crew members playing a volin. It was nice to wake up to something other than a stop watch. After packing up our things, we hit the trail and made a short stop to see if our favorite moose was still in the pond north of the hut. Sure enough he was still there feeding on the plants on the bottom of the pond. Moose are simply enormous animals. Seeing a moose has definitely been a highlight of our trip.

For the Whites, we had a pretty easy morning until we hit Crawford Notch. Crawford Notch was at 1,277 feet of elevation. Mt Washington is at 6,288 feet of elevation...so there was only one way to go and that was up. The climb up from Crawford Notch to Mt Webster and Mt Jackson was once again steep and long. Once on top of Mt Jackson we were rewarded with our first good view of Mt Washington.

We made it to Mizpah Spring Hut around 5pm. We asked one of the crew members if there were any spots available for work for stay. Lucky there were but instead of doing dishes we were asked to do a talk to the guests on our thru hike. After dinner, the crew made an annoucement that our talk would be held in the libriary at 8:30pm. To our surprise we were greeted by over 25 people waiting to hear about our thru hike. For over a hour we talk about our journey and answered questions. We really enjoyed talking with everyone and it sure beat doing dishes.