Saturday, August 10, 2019
The hardest day so far by a long shot. Just miserable.
Marsha, the co-owner of Nye's Green Valley B&B, dropped me off at the trailhead first thing in the morning and I was on my way. I was doing okay at first but the ascent up Whiteface wouldn’t end. It's 6.4 miles from the trailhead to the summit with about 3,200 feet of continuous elevation gain. That's a lot. And it was really hard ground to hike (more like bouldering at times). And my legs were like lead.
I had lunch at Whiteface Shelter, which was just off the summit so it had some nice views.
The lunch was a nice respite but the day would continue to get worse. The rains came on and off for most of the afternoon as I was descending the other side of Whiteface, and then up Madonna Peak and down again. All the wet roots, slick rocks, and puddles of mud made for treacherous footing and stressful hiking. You had to watch every step. And there were a lot of steps.
In spite of the suck, traversing part of the Smuggler’s Notch Ski Resort on Madonna Peak brought back some fond memories of a family vacation in this area. When I was a 12-year-old kid, we came here for a summer vacation. I did a lot of exploring, climbing up these grassy ski slopes. It likely contributed to my love of the outdoors.
But those fond memories quickly passed. I could feel the temperature dropping and see the big rains coming in across the valley.
I finally reached the Sterling Pond Shelter around 4:00 p.m. just as it started to downpour. I still had to get water and, as luck would have it, the water source was a bit of a hike from the shelter.
I made my way down to the water source on sore legs and beat up feet and began the painful task of filtering my water. Painful because I was having issues with a slow water filter. It took me about a half hour to fill four liters. In the meantime, the cold, hard rain continued to drench me. I was shivering, crouched by the stream, squeezing the shit out of the filter bag to make the water come out faster (it didn't). The temperature couldn’t have been more than 50 degrees. I wanted to cry.
When I finally completed the task, I trudged back up the slope to the shelter. There were no obvious tent sites so I hunkered down inside the shelter. It was only a three-sided lean-to so not much protection from the wind. I didn't realize until later that tenting was allowed on the ski slopes just a quarter mile further down the trail. No matter. Two other hikers out on a weekend backpacking trip soon joined me. I wasn't too sociable in my misery but we exchanged pleasantries.
I changed out of my wet clothes and put on every piece of dry clothing I had, including my puffy jacket and my rain pants, and huddled under my quilt just to get warm. That night's low temp was 49 degrees but damn if it didn't feel like 39.
Needless to say, that afternoon and evening were pure misery. I was cursing and questioning what the heck I was doing. I wasn’t close to quitting but a few more days like this might well change my mind.
So I knew tomorrow was a big day for me. I needed to bounce back and I had to climb Mt. Mansfield, Vermont’s tallest mountain. I just hoped it would get better. Luckily, it did.
Total miles for the day: 11.5
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