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
No comments:
Post a Comment