The weather has closed in, but we start hiking regardless. The campsite has been quite sheltered, tucked away on the side of the mountain. We head up out of the trees and are hit by very strong winds with gusts to 30 miles per hour.The mist swirls so we have a surreal experience with low visibility on a moon landscape of rocky ridges and boulders. We follow the ridge, cliimb the peaks, see no views, freeze to death, and then descend down very steep wet boulder cliffs, and wade through muddy bogs. I think of Scatters in town. The descent off Mt Garfield is one of the worst on the whole trail for us.
Finally we arrive at Galehead Hut - we can hear the wind turbines screaming a few miles before the hut. We are lucky enough to be accepted into the hut as 'work for stay' which means they feed us and we get to do chores andn sleep on the floor in the dining room. The hut holds about 50 people - most of them college students from places like Yale, etc, who have paid a $100 a night for dinner bead and breakfast.
The Barbarians arrive half an hour behind us - Paul Molyneaux, Venato and Bluish - and they are accepted for work for stay as well. The noise from the turbines is deafening and the staff shut them down so they can survive the gales. We set tables andn defrost the fridge. We get to eat the left overs after everybody else has finished - potato soup, pasta shells in a meat sauce, and cake. We spread out our beds at 9.00pm and lights out at 9.30pm.
In the middle of the night the winds are so strong they blow open the front door - we are sleeping right next to the door and I struggle to close it against the force of the wind.
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