White Mountains Trip Report — Day 0 and Day 1

Dan and I had arrived at Timberland Camp ground, about 3 miles from the AT trailhead, Friday (7/17) night around 10pm.  Sue (my wife) and her Mother had arrived a few hours before us and had been busy during that time setting up my Mother in law’s pop up camper.  It had started raining halfway through the 5 hour drive and continued down pouring throughout the night.

The plan was for Sue to spend the week camping at Timberland while Dan and I left the next day (7/18) to backpack from Gorham, NH to Crawford Notch.  Sue would pick us up in Crawford Notch on Thursday, 7/24.

We got a late start Saturday morning.  Dan and I redistributed the food bags again, leaving behind a larger share than we were originally going to take.  We replaced several hot meals with greater supplies of cold meals, like Tuna Pesto sandwiches and mini-bagels with cheese, pepperoni, and summer sausage.  I also realized I had forgotten my trekking poles and a bandanna at home, in my rush to get out of the house.

Because of my missing poles, we stopped at a local Walmart to pick up a pair of cheap replacements.  The replacements, a pair of Outdoor Products trekking poles (20 bucks for the pair) actually held up nicely during the trip.  I feature I liked that my normal poles lack were the locking clips, rather than a twist lock, for adjusting the pole height.  Major issue was the filmsy baskets on the poles, both of which broke off during the trip.

After getting breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts, Sue dropped us off at the trail head around 1 pm.  The A.T. in the WMNF actually runs over many different trails — this stretch was on the Rattle River Trail, running alongside the Rattle River. 

A.T. / Rattle River Trailhead in Gorham, NH

A.T. / Rattle River Trailhead in Gorham, NH

The first three miles went by extremely quickly; Dan and I covered them in an hour or so, with only a brief stop at the Rattle River Shelter at mile 2.

After crossing and re-crossing the Rattle River,

Bridge over Rattle River

Bridge over Rattle River

the trail began to climb steeply up the side of Middle Moriah and Mt. Moriah.  Our first night’s campsite, Imp Shelter, was on the other side of Mt. Moriah (on the Carter-Moriah Trail.  We gained almost 2500 ft of elevation in the three miles from Rattle River Shelter to Mt. Moriah.  Once on top of the ridge, the the trail became fairly level, with some lengthy sections of moss “bogs” that were protected with a long run of boards for hikers to travel over.

After we passed Mt. Moriah, we stopped briefly on the ridge while Dan readjusted some gear on his back.  The ridge had great views of the Presidentials and the Carters before we re-entered the forest.

We arrived at Imp shelter around 6:30 or 7pm.

Imp is an AMC managed shelter; along with the shelter itself, there were several tent platforms.  Per person, it ran 8 or 9 dollars a night.  Dan and I chose to use a tent platform and picked Platform One, which was the most secluded.  Dan filtered a few liters of water for dinner while I set up the tent and started putting together dinner (Mountain House Classic BBQ Chicken and Rice).  I gave Sue a call (she was also having chicken for dinner, with with corn on the cob and potatos).  After dinner we crawled into our bags and listened to another camper play and Native American flute.  I fell asleep pretty quickly after that, but didn’t sleep very well.  Combination of the tent platform and not being able to find the right temperature balance in my bag kept me tossing and turning most of the night.

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One Response to “White Mountains Trip Report — Day 0 and Day 1”

  1. Jkb says:

    Nice trip report, full of tasty, mouth-watering multimedia goodness, too!

    PS: WordPress rocks!