On Tuesday of my first week, Steve Moore (the week's volunteer) and I hiked down to the hut that's maintained by the AMC near the Lakes of the Clouds. The Lakes are actually ponds up in the mountains, although they currently look like --well, snow. It was pretty difficult for me, and Steve was leading me by 15 feet almost the whole way. There were a few icy parts which would have put me a good 30 feet below him if I'd slipped... I ended up crawling over those. As Mike Finnegan (the IT guy on my shift) said, "You have much to learn."
The area was absolutely surreal. The undercast skies made for a beautiful bed of clouds covering the valley, and everything around us was painted in a pallete of whites. We could see the Franconia Ridge ahead (also part of the Presidentials), and the summit slowly crept up behind us. We saw some beautiful little flakes once we got to the hut, and ended up in some very light snow showers and freezing fog on the way back. Temperatures got a bit lower and wind picked up, but the skies cleared as we neared the top again.
The Crawford Trail is a section of the Appalachian Trail, and also the oldest continuously maintained trail in the U.S. It was quite steep at parts, and marked by cairns (piles of stones). I'm hoping that I'll get to do this trail and many others that are around the summit in the next few months. This hike kicked my butt, and I'll need to do some more training to keep up with the guys!
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