An early start to climb the mountain which has been on our horizon for at least a week. It is a huge silhouette in the distance, which has psyched me out a bit. This is the first mountain of the Whites - the Whites are meant to be tough - I am nervous.
It turns out to be quite straighforward - cloudy, rain threatening and steep.We reach the summit in two hours. It is really cold and windy on the summit, with poor visibility - we don't hang around. Hikers loom up out of the mist. The descent is quite tricky. Once we are back into the treeline, the weather improves and we huddle together for a quick snack. Then another half hour of descending and the blue sky emerges - we wonder if there are now great views from the summit but we are not going back to check.
We follow a very steep track down alongside a waterfall - it is huge rockslabs with timber steps nailed to the granite to enable hikers to get a grip. I wonder how dogs get on doing this bit. Some of the granite is very slimy from the water flow - it is a serious accident waiting to happen here.
We arrive down at the road at Kingston Notch at about 1.30pm and stop for lunch. While we are waiting, Scatters catches up to us. We are still feeling good so decide to continue on to the next shelter even though this involves another climb, which turns out to be very steep and hardwork. We arrive at the shelter just on dusk, very proud of ourselves - we have completed 17 miles in very difficult terrain.
The shelter is packed. We seem to have caught up to hikers we have not seen before - the Canadian Geese, an older couple, and The Barbarians - a father with two children aged around 10 and 7. Both these groups are through hikers.
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