We went hiking in New Hampshire's White Mountains a few weeks ago and here are some foliage pics for all you flatlanders. More in
flickr
We hiked in about four miles to the Appalachian Mountain Club's
Carter Notch Hut where we had a reservation. The elevation of the hut is 3288 feet, which was high enough that a lot of leaves were off the trees but one the way up and down they were pretty intense. The
AMC has eight of these huts, the others shut down this time of year but two are open year round. This is one of the two bunkhouses. Unheated and we had a snoring but pleasant oriental couple sharing the other two bunks.
This one is caretaker run which means you haul up your food, they supply the cook stove, pots and pans and shelter. Electricity in the hut itself is solar (lights out at 9:30), stove is gas (helicoptered in once a year) and the privy is self composting. Most people ate freeze-dried dinners. We hauled up rice, chicken, sausage, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, soy sauce swiped from a salad bar and white wine. People were jealous, except for two other couple that also brought up wine.
It was a good social crew of visitors that night including a dozen kids in a Boston Big Brothers program and all kinds of people from all over.
We hiked to the top of Wildcat A at 4422' on the way out. NH has forty-eight 4000-footers and this was my 34th completed. We used to hike a lot and I got a lot pretty quick but our attention turned to mountain biking and canoeing and other stuff and I am now just getting back to knocking off the rest of these. I hope I can pick these others off in the next three years, but who knows. I'd like to hike this winter and stay here.
