Appalachian Trail (day 81) - Madison Spring Hut to Mt Moriah / mile 1893

Trail today was very demanding as if White Mountain's were making sure I'll remember them.

Unfortunately as nice as staying in the hut was last night, I didn't get much sleep. People were walking to the toilet all night which was not far from where we slept and it kept on waking me up. I've packed up as soon as there was enough light and left the hut before 5 AM.

First descent from Mt Madison to Osgood campsite wasn't as bad as people were trying to make it, very steep sure and for the first half above the treeline, the strong wind was setting me off balance, so I had to keep low profile. I've also seen my first (and hopefully not last) moose of the trail! Big, clumsy beast it wiggled it's enormous ears when it saw me and walked away to the forest. 

After the descent there were two options, bridge on the AT has been condemned so there was a detour around it but it was skipping 8 miles of the trail. Other thru hikers informed me that the bridge was in fact walkable and you could also rock hop the Peabody River in case you didn't want to use it. I've decided along with several other hikers to take the original AT and don't bother with the detour.

Bridge other than several warning signs plastered on it was doing fine. I safely crossed the river and made it to Pinkham Notch Visitors Centre for breakfast. Here I've met Tree House and his tramily who also decided to follow original AT, I was leapfrogging with them for the rest of the day.

Climb out of Pinkham to Wildcat D Peak was very strenuous with plenty sections of climbing the granite wall, I've put away the hiking poles and were using hands for better grip and stability on this steep ascent. It was hot and there wasn't many water sources along the way. The path down to Carter Notch Hut was easier but still involved many tricky moments. Once in the hut I took dinner break, I've met here yet another tramily led by Small Foot from New Hampshire. Hiking Grandma also joined us shortly after, she took the detour which saved her few hours, she was planning to stay at the hut and do her third "work for stay".

I've decided to move on and get as close as possible to the town of Gorham where I was planning to stay tomorrow night. There was another climb and descent to be completed - Carter's Dome. The ascent was gradual and reasonable, views from the top were one of my favourites from White's as well. The descent was very hard though, especially after a long day like this. Trail was running on top of steeply angled big slabs of rock quite often without any holds or trees to grab on to, so you really had to trust your shoes and your sense of balance to keep you from sliding down. Many people in the comment section of Farout were really upset with how hard and unsafe this section was, some have bruised or injured themselves during the descent. I could only imagine how tricky it got when it was raining, luckily I didn't have to find that out.

After a very slow and painful way down I ultimately reached level ground in one piece, now I only had to find a camp spot and top up the water before heading to sleep. I was very tired and kept on hitting myself on fallen pine trees barricading the path ever so often. I hit my head, stabbed my leg, lost balance and fell backwards into a pile of branches.

Just before 8 PM I was finally set and cozy inside the tent only 7 miles away from Gorham. Tomorrow after one last ascent the White Mountain's would be over.