| Mile | 1849.4 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 14.4 |
| Day | 137 |
The words “WARNING: HEAT ADVISORY ” are going to be burned into my phone soon.
Managed to get moving by 630 and did the only major climb before it got crazy hot but I was still drenched by the top. The descent from Garfield was a straight waterfall. First views of Mt. Washington at least.
A shuttle driver named Barbara had helped us a ton the past few days and said that Zeacliff was her favorite view, so I waited for the group at it so we could take a picture and send it to her. It was a good view.
We stopped for a while at Zeacliff hut and drank a ton of water since there never is any on the ridgelines and it is 88+ most of the day. Ethan’s Pond shelter has a nice pond near it but I didn’t stop to look at it with all the bugs and evening heat.
The views here are nice but do not justify the suffering in my opinion. The climbs are brutal, there is so little water, blowdowns are every hundred feet it feels like, and the heat and blackflies are never ending. And we have to pay to sleep outside (the caretaker at this shelter does seem to be missing tho…). Everyone in the group seems very tired and very quiet. We are all pretty sunburned.
Tomorrow we climb into and out of Crawford notch and start the presidential range. There’s really only one place to stay on it, and it’s 10$ for a spot in a basement on first come first serve basis. If we mess it up somehow we are really fucked. I am going to be up as early as humanly possible.