Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [113]
With the elevation increase came spotty weather. The passing rain showers and thick fog made it a cold day to hike, especially for June. We were excited to reconvene midday at a hut for several rounds of soup.
Huts were a trademark of the White Mountains. They were wooden cabins with running water, electricity, and showers—and they were expensive. Spending the night in a hut usually costs about eighty dollars per person. That was for a wooden bunk in a communal room. Essentially, it was a glamorous shelter for eighty dollars a night. Sometimes hikers were allowed to spend the night in return for manual labor, but the only manual labor I wanted to do was walk to Katahdin. For a hiker, the most appealing part of the hut system is that they offered an unlimited soup bowl at lunch for three dollars. Sure, it was just reconstituted broth, but it was unlimited reconstituted broth.
While the three of us sat in silence slurping our lunches, a young male hiker walked into the building. We didn’t recognize him. It was now June twenty-second, and the hiker informed us that he had started from Mount katahdin at the very end of May. He was a southbounder! Our first southbounder.
I immediately thought of Dude, the southbound hiker I had met in the Smokies. Back then, I had envied him for being near the end of his journey while I was just beginning mine. Now the tables—and the miles—had turned, and I was the one who was a few weeks from finishing.
For the first time since leaving Springer Mountain, I felt like the end was within reach, and that left me feeling eager and unsettled at the same time. It was as if the morning’s first light was disturbing me from a dream not yet finished: part of me wanted to wake up, eat breakfast, and take a shower, but another part wanted to stay in bed and keep dreaming.
After sharing some of our stories with the southbounder and wishing him well on his journey, the boys and I filtered out of the hut and back to the trail. The rain had stopped for the afternoon, but the wind had picked up significantly; the remaining miles to the base of Mount Washington’s cone were entirely above the tree line. When I was able to look up, the panorama of distant mountains was awe-inspiring, but for the most part the wind was so cold and strong that I had to keep looking down or it would bring tears to my eyes.
Hiking alone, I had plenty of time to consider my evening plans. There was no camping allowed on Mount Washington, so we would be forced to stay at Lake of the Clouds Hut, a mile and a half below the summit. I had to decide whether to work for my board and spend the majority of my time scrubbing dishes and washing floors, or whether to pay an eighty dollars guest fee for Spartan amenities.
Nightwalker had already decided to pay the fee and not work. It was his twenty-third birthday, so he could justify the eighty dollars. But I had already had my birthday.
After scaling four mountains all named after dead presidents, I arrived at Lake of the Clouds Hut. I didn’t see any sign of Nightwalker or Mooch, so I proceeded to the front desk. Still undecided whether to work or pay, I asked if the attendant had seen any tall, dark, scruffy hikers walking around.
He replied, “Oh, are you with Nightwalker? You must be Odyssa. Nightwalker’s mom radioed in and paid for the three of you to spend the night as guests.”
My mouth fell open and my eyes began to gleam. They didn’t even have telephones at this hut, and how Nightwalker’s mom knew we would stop here on his birthday and figured out a way to pay for our rooms was, well, magic. Drifting off to my prepaid room, I felt the warm generosity of Magic Momma as if it were a friend walking beside me.
As I settled into the hut, I put on my extra clothes to combat the cold summer afternoon. Even inside, it was still cold, since the huts lacked heat. In a few minutes,