A-Typical Day (Part 2)

(Click here for Part 1)

As I turn to leave the summit of Madison the wind knocks me in the face. My first few steps are a drunken stagger as I get my sea legs. I hike downhill but its like trying to paddle a canoe upstream. I have to watch my feet to get good footing against the wind, which leaves me periodically wandering off the trail. The steady wind eases slightly as I descend, coming more in gusts than the constant head-out-the-car-window hurricane I enjoyed on the summit. I can see the hut, my home, my work, 500' below as I make my commute and between gusts I can hear the piston-banging sound of the propane generator we use to run our power tools. The crew is getting ready for work. I hustle the rest of the way down and walk into the hut at 7:25.

I walk to my bunk, under which I store all I own at the hut, and pop a few ibuprofen and Tylenol, a therapeutic combination that helps combat the achy trio of bunk sleeping, hut building and mountain climbing walks. I hang up my jacket, pull on my thin work gloves, cinch my tool belt, holstered my hammer and walk out the door, over the waterline trench, passed the old steel door and into what will be the new hut. 7:30. On time and time to work.

I gather a few tools and get to work setting roof trusses with the crew. Steve and I climb to the top of the scaffolding, even in height with what will be the peak of the new roof. I take a 3'' by 8'' truss from Tristen on the Adams (West) side and match its peak with truss Steve got from Curtis and Kate on the East (Madison) side. We add steel brackets, some bolts, washers and nuts, fighting to get all the holes to align. Then, we add the giant steel collar-tie, which stretches from east wall to west across the dinning room, bolting that to the truss and then set another pair of trusses that get bolted alongside. Confusing yes. Basically, it's a wood, steel, wood sandwich that will hold up the roof of the new dinning room.

Tristen and Steve add a steel bracket which will help carry the ridge

There will be no ceiling so the trusses and steel will be exposed to all the hikers who come through. Someday, on a rainy hike, I'll be able to walk inside and see the very nuts, bolts and nails that we worked on this week, holding up the roof which is keeping me dry.

After our 10 a.m. coffee break Tristen and I get to work setting rafters, which attach to the ridge which has been bolted between the trusses. I work along the ridge off a ladder while Tristen mans the wall. I hold my end up while he sets his. Then, I nail mine into place. I add hangers and hurricane ties and then move onto the next. Once an area between two trusses is almost full, my ladder will no longer fit and I nail sketchy wood cleats to the tops of the rafters and climb them to the ridge, leaning down to receive the next rafter and struggling to lift it to the ridge.

Trusses and rafters all in a row

We continue setting rafters the rest of the day, taking lunch at 2 p.m. and heading in for dinner at 6 p.m. Both meals are ready for us when we go inside, Bethany, our cook, is great about that.

Tonight the moon will be bright. I think, I might head out for another hike...

To be continued again... maybe.

A-Typical Day (Part 1)

I had already woken up a few times early Wednesday morning, but each time I couldn't hear the wood stove crackling in the kitchen or Tom milling about and I'd burrow back into my sleeping bag. Tom is the early riser. If I hear him, I know it's time to get up, which usually makes me the second to rise.

The wind had been hammering our stone hut all night. I got up to go to the bathroom and saw that someone had tied one door shut and used a step ladder braced against a wall to barricade another— fire codes be damned. Our doors blow open in high winds, which if fine during the day, but a bit of a nuisance in the middle of the night. Adding to the disturbance was a random bunk rattling slam. With earplugs it wasn't too loud, but it still shook my bunk as if the wind was blowing boulders off the summit of Adams and sending them bowling against the hut.

Trying to sleep on a construction site with hurricane force winds blowing outside can be noisy business with tarps flapping, wood falling over and buckets and trash barrels blowing around. You can try and secure everything at the end of each day, but that is all you can do. Try.

Eventually, I hear the wood stove begin to pop and know it must be around 6 a.m. I carefully slide out of my bunk, avoiding the ladder to the uppers, and negotiate the 5 foot drop to the wood planked floor. Without any light, working only by feel, I pull on my work pants, the same ones I wore the day before. I slip my wool IBex shirt, the same one I wore the day before, over my head, along with my wool IBex hoody, the same one I wear everyday. Finally, and without much grace in the tight space between my bunk and the next, I pull on my wool socks, which I think... are the same ones I wore the day before.

Working at Madison you dress for function. Warm, warmer and warmest. If it's dry it's clean and to clean something you dry it.

I walk out of the bunk room where there is still snoring going on and slip through the wool blanket hanging in the doorway and into the kitchen. Tom, old-fashion hut building Tom, is sitting on the Madison chair in front of the wood stove, sipping coffee and reading, using the kindle application on his I-Phone. The Madison chair is a coveted piece of furniture. A leftover salvage from the demo, its tall and narrow, about the shape of a child's high chair, with "Madison" written in the back rest with nail heads, kind of like sequins but with the points of the nails sticking out and folded over on the other side.

Sitting on one of our wooden benches, I rub my eyes and begin to shake the morning fog from between my ears. Getting up early means first dibs on the skillets and I'm reading to take advantage. I grab three eggs, half a dozen slices of prosciutto, four breakfast sausages, slice some jack cheese and some butter, grab the medium size skillet and throw a match at one of the propane burners on the stove. Breakfast scramble.

One by one the rest of the crew emerges from the bunk room as I cook. The breakfast free-for-all begins with everyone gathering their own ingredients along with coffee and tea. The morning chatter centers around the wind and the mystery hut shaking slams in the middle of the night. Everyone has there own story. Bethany would be on the verge falling back asleep when, BOOM, she'd be startled back awake. Tom, who barricaded the doors thinking they were blowing open and slamming shut, sat awake in the kitchen in the middle of the night, trying to discover the cause. Of course, it never happened while he was up, it waited until he crawled back into his bunk. Everett  however knew the culprit, he could see the leaning stack of plywood out his bunk window. He'd watch the wind blow it slightly off the wall before slamming it back down with 70 mph gusting wind force. With no other solution possible until morning, he'd lay awake and glare at the plywood, hoping to scare it into submission.

After breakfast I lace up my work/hiking boots, pull on a jacket and slip out the backdoor of the bunk room before the 7 a.m. weather-radio call. It's 6:41 and I don't have to be working until 7:30. I step over the trench we've dug for the waterline, scramble over the rocks we've moved to make room for the addition, walk around the thick steel storm door from the old hut and passed the coals from our burn pile. Finally, I swing my leg over the yellow rope that marks our job site and step onto the Osgood Trail, part of the Appalachian Trail.

The hut and the summit of Mt. Madison

I climb. For the first minute I'm surrounded by low trees, but then I'm in the clear. Nothing but a big pile of rocks between me and the summit of Madison. The wind, still extremely gusty back at the hut becomes more sustained the higher I go. It begins blowing me up the mountain, giving me a boost from behind with each step. At 6:59 a.m., 18 minutes after I stepped out the door, I am standing on the summit.

Morning sun from the summit of Mt. Madison

The sun has been up for a few minutes when I reach the top, a glowing golden ball over the Carter-Moriah Range with Maine beyond that. The summit isn't as peaceful as the photos make it look. The wind is steady at over 60 mph (probably more) and even sitting I need to steady myself to keep from being blown off my granite seat. My hood gets blown over the top of my head, snapping and flapping in my ears until I grab it and tuck it into the neck and down the back of my jacket. Still, I sit on the summit and enjoy the view for 10 or so minutes and can't think of anywhere I'd rather be. Or any better way to start a day. 

Morning from Mt. Madison

(click here for Part 2)

Mountain Misadventure—Live and Learn

As you spend time in the mountains they begin to shrink. The awe remains, but you know they can be conquered for you have conquered them— or at least you think you have. You've traversed their ranges. You've climbed them at night. You've stood on their summits in the middle of winter. When you live in the mountains, work in the mountains and begin to call the mountains home, they shrink even more. Instead of hiking in them, you go for walks on them. Strolls. Escapes.

Working and living in Madison Col can become confining. Your entire world, while at the freedom of 4800', has a 500' radius encompassing your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, work place, commute and social life. You can get stir crazy. Thursday night Everett and I decided to head out for a walk after dinner. The weather was deteriorating, fog had rolled in, it was raining lightly at times. The wind was picking up too, but we needed an adventure.

We layered up. I wore wool long johns with shorts over them, a wool base layer on top, along with a wool hooded sweater and hooded rain jacket. I grabbed my head lamp and stuffed my pockets with candy bars. Everett did the same.

We headed up the Star Lake trail for a surreal ascent of Mount Adams. A cool blue light (moon? last remains of the sun?) made the fog glow. Madison Gulf to our left dropped into a blue hazy abyss of darkness and the summit cone of Adams was a black silhouette above. We scrambled over boulders above tree line, losing the trail, but not caring as we plowed on to the summit above us. We even enjoyed a beer toast part way up, proud of our adventurous little escape. We were damp from the mist in the air, but completely within in comfort zones.

The Summit of Mt. Adams on a clear night (KBW Photo)

As we topped the ridge a few hundred feet from the summit the wind picked up. It threw us a bit off balance, but we reached the summit signs with relative ease.

We decided to follow the Airline Trail down, a more gradual decent that still required boulder scrambling and the finding of cairns (stacks of rocks) to follow the above-tree-line trail. Going down Airline we began having more and more trouble finding the cairns. The rain and wind picked up and more fog settled in. We lost the glow we had from the sky and were now in total darkness other than our headlamps. Soon we couldn't find the trail at all.

Now the Airline is a pretty straight forward 8/10's of a mile to the Gulf Side trail which leaves another 3/10s descent to the hut. I had navigated the stretch with relative ease after sunset Monday in clear weather without a headlamp. The mountain had become bigger though. Huge actually.

Looking up the Airline Trail on a Previous ascent of Adams (KBW Photo)

We forged ahead in the general direction we knew the hut to be, but soon become disoriented. Repeatedly hitting dead ends of krumholtz (thick gnarly shrubs) and boulders to large for scrambling, we had no choice but to head back up hill, eventually hitting the summit to reorient ourselves. The weather had deteriorated a few more notches. The winds were over 50 mph and the rain fell in huge, driving, horizontal downpours. Even when yelling we could hardly hear one another from feet away. Our visibility was confined to a 10 foot area lit by our headlamps from under our hoods. The scene seemed more underwater than above. Later we'd find out that the wind chill was below freezing— around 28 degrees.

We decided to follow Lowes Path to the Gulf Side trail. Lowe's took us away from the hut, but we knew it to have better, more consistent cairns, and was only 3/10s from GulfSide, which is part of the Appalachian Trail and would be much easier to follow to the hut given the conditions. We began hunting cairns on Lowes Path. With one person staying at the previous cairn while the other hunts for the next pile of rocks that mark the way. The leader would stumble and scramble until he found the next cairn, at which point he'd SHOUT back to the other who would join him. The process repeated itself over and over until the leader could no longer find the next cairn, at which he'd return to the previous point and the roles would switch. It turned into a game that kept us focused, but it left the trailing person standing in the wind and rain, cold and exposed, but marking all we had, the last known sign of the trail.

Lowes Path and the Summit of Adams on a previous hike (KBW Photo)

Eventually, it become too slow. We weren't getting down fast enough and we couldn't find the next cairn even though most were less than 20' apart. Things were quickly going from tense to scary and teetered on the edge of worse. We were tired, cold and soaked to the bone. The situation was deteriorating in exponential clicks that were getting faster. We were still working as a team though, and made the decision to forget the cairns and Lowes path. We set a corse in a direction we knew would intersect the Gulf Side trail and crossed our fingers that we'd know it when we crossed it (or else we'd stumble into the abyss of King Ravine).

As we went down more quickly the conditions improved (a relative statement). We spotted a cairn as we crossed a foot path and hoped to hell it was the Gulf Side trail. It was. We turned right (towards the hut) and picked up the pace, spotting its well made cairns at a higher rate than we head been on Lowes and the Airline. With each cairn or trail maker the leader would yell "GOT ONE!" as the follower rejoiced with praise and we forged ahead. It was another mile of fog, rain and high winds before we ran into the sign marking the Airline Junction, or safety shoot to the hut. We headed down and 100' from the door, finally saw the glow of the hut lights through the fog.

The hut was quiet with two crew members still stirring about glad to see we were back safe. "A bit wet out there" they said as we walked in the door, not fully realizing the extent of our 3-hour ordeal. Everett and I humbly began to share our story, admitting our multiple mistakes and acknowledging our good fortune. We threw some wood into the stove and began to strip wet layer after wet layer, wringing them out and hanging them dripping in front of the wood stove. Everyone else went to bed, but we stayed up for awhile contemplating what had just happened.

We were dumb. We had been cocky. We paid no attention to the weather and the hostility of the area we were heading into. The mountains can always throw more at you.

Eventually we crawled into our sleeping bags, as the wind and rain picked up even more, blasting so hard that it pushed the smoke from out stove down the chimney, filling the hut with a grayish haze. 

My first two days...

I had heard in the past that Madison Hut Croos grow to loath the Valley Way Trail, considered the easiest and most protected route to the Hut. It is not an overly difficult trail, but it's protection makes it a bit monotonous as it builds in difficulty with little reward, gaining about 3500 feet in elevation over 3.8 miles.

I hiked up alone, meeting Tom, the job supervisor, at the hut. He had hiked up the Airline Trail, which is similar in distance but follows the more exposed Durrand Ridge. I will likely use this trail for my commute from now on. Eric Pedersen, the AMC Huts Manager, along with the fall Hut Croo (George, Everett, Margaret, Dorothy and Tom (another Tom), were at the hut packing everything that needed to be airlifted out; old signs, blankets, food, tables, benches, books, memorabilia. Bethany, who will be the cook for our crew, got to the hut and began helping a little while later.

Disposing of gone-bad potatoes with a cricket bat. Photo by KBW

Tom and I got to work taking apart bunks in the old Adams side bunk room, which would eventually become the CC's kitchen. The bunks were four high, with the lowest bunk basically being on the floor. Tom had assembled the bunks at Madison in 1978, one of his first tasks with the AMC. 

Taking apart old bunks in what is now our temporary kitchen. That's me in the foreground. Photo by Eric Pedersen

That night was the last for Madison's Fall Hut Croo. Tom, Beth and I enjoyed a celebratory dinner with them. Later we all (minus Tom who went to bed) turned out the lights and enjoyed a rousing came of hide-and-seek through the old hut. This may stick a one of my fondest memories of this whole endeavor. 

In the morning the Fall Croo finished packing up and headed out, leaving just me, Tom and Beth. Beth kept organizing while Tom and I began preparing our new living quarters. I enlarged a few doorways so we could move appliances and hacked a hole in the side of the old dinning room to function as a new doorway during destruction. The rest of the crew began arriving one by one and we all went to work demoing the old hut, starting with the croo room and kitchen. 

By the end of the day, the roof and three exterior walls of the croo room were gone, leaving only the floor, which our supplies were landed on when the helicopter made its first drop that evening. We had six drops (food and personal items) that evening and sent five loads off packed old-hut items back down. I had carried up my essential items but was happy to see my personal things (tools, rain gear, beer) show up in one of the nets. 

Photo by KBW

The airlifts were remarkable. 800 lbs dangling in a net below the helicopter set carefully just outside our door.  Beth put together a great food order for us. We will be eating very well while working on the hut. 

It was a good thing we got those six airlifts in when we did because the weather window closed and the helicopter was unable to fly the remainder of our shift. It looks like today (Saturday) will be good for flying though, and our 30 to 40, 1600lb loads of materials and tools should be received by the weekend crew. 

We do have a bunkroom and bunks available to us (thankfully) but Tuesday night I laid my sleeping bag out on the floor of the old croo room (now with no walls or roof), enjoyed the stars and one perfecting shooting star over Madison. The sky was clear, but I eventually I began to see faint flashes and light flickering through the windows on the other side of the hut. I thought it was a hiker descending Adams towards the hut via headlamp and waited for awhile to find out. Eventually, I leaned out over the edge of the hut, peaking around to the Adams side and saw lightning, flashing away to the west in the valley. I watched it for a bit and eventually packed up my sleeping bag and quietly headed into the bunkroom. 

Wednesday was more demolition.... 

Thursday and Friday was more demolition, with lots of wind, rain and temps in the high 30's. 

 (Photo by KBW)

The First Hut and Dedication Hike (1888-1889)

The first hut in Madison Col was built in 1888 by the AMC and at the time it was considered the largest single undertaking of the young club.

(AMC Photo)

All Packed...

...And ready to go.

Unfortunately, the stowaway has to go.