| Mile | 1878.5 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 15.1 |
| Day | 139 |
Pretty rough day. Woke up at 3am because search and rescue had come into the hut. Apparently someone had gone missing nearby so they were doing some coordination in the dining room where we were sleeping.
Wind was raging all morning and visibility was super low. We waited for breakfast scraps so didn’t get moving towards Washington until 9. The climb was real windy and we couldn’t see anything but it wasn’t a bad climb. Got to the summit before 10.
Spent a lot of time screwing around at the summit. Tons of people scrambling around the gift shop and restaurant. There’s a cog train that goes to the top.
The climb across the rest of the presidentials was ludicrous. I had planned to skip all of them but NotYet goaded me into at least doing Jefferson. The views were ok and the clouds had cleared but it was non stop open scrambling thru alternating heat and 70 mph winds.
By the time we got to Madison hut we realized that we were moving way way slower than expected. Piph’s boyfriend was in town and giving us a ride at 7 and it looked like we would be very late for that. I elected to take a side trail to skip mount Madison and Piph and Slim followed me but it was a huge mistake as it was super poorly marked and overgrown with the dumb alpine spruce.
I took a real gnarly fall near tuckermans ravine on a rock that gave way. Knee hurts pretty bad.
Piph’s friends have a campsite for the weekend booked nearby so we are crashing here for the night. At least we don’t have to pay the AMC.
Zero in town tomorrow.