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This was my first trip of the year to work on
the Mt Clinton Trail, and I was going to stay at Mizpah Springs Hut for
one night so I could put in a full day's work on the first day and
still have time for a nice hike the next day, hopefully to Mts Pierce
and Eisenhower, and possibly as far as Mt Monroe as well.
The weather on the first day was originally supposed to
be nice and sunny, but the forecast had changed and it was actually
fairly damp, though not actually raining. However, it was relatively bug
free, and I got quite a bit of work done, removing a number of blowdowns
and even cutting a short bypass to avoid a section of the brook with
which the trail had coincided. Because of the dampness, I had elected to
leave my camera back in the hut.
After climbing back to the hut at the end of
the day, I was looking forward to a nice rest in my bunk before dinner,
followed by a peaceful and
cozy night. It was not to be. When I got back to my room, the hut was filled with a horde of noisy Boy Scouts.
One or more of them had even left bags of candy and other trash on my
sleeping bag, and several items of clothing on other bunks. The scouts took
over most of the hut except for five of us who, thank God, had the rear bunkroom to
ourselves. The scouts were warned about quiet hour, but did not settle
down, and the croo were kept busy warning them well past 10:00 and even
11:00 o'clock. Their leaders did almost nothing to control them. They were
messy, noisy, and disrespectful of other's property and space. I came
very very close to packing up my gear and leaving at 10:00 PM. The next day, I
heard that several other hikers who had been with the scouts at Lakes of
the Clouds Hut had not continued their trip to Mizpah just because of
their behavior.
After heavy rains during part of the night,
the trail was quite damp in the morning. The foggy air limited the
views, but gave a lush and fairylike appearance to the flowering shrubs
and plants along the trail, which I enjoyed looking at and
photographing. At the summit of Mt Pierce, I made the decision to skip
Eisenhower and/or Monroe and just head back down the Crawford Path. The
lack of views, the dampness, my experience with the scouts, and the
upcoming Fourth of July weekend made me ready to just get back to my car
and go home.
Since I had come down directly from Pierce,
I figured I might as well go see Crawford Cliff, as I had never been up
there before, and it was only a minor side trip. Thanks to its lower
elevation (only 2400 ft), the views were much better, at least looking
down to Crawford Notch. Distant peaks were still shrouded in mist, but
there were nice views of the Highland Center and a glimpse of the Willey
Slide through the trees. |
