Aug 16

I woke up before the sun this morning to try to catch Sunshine who was about 5 miles ahead of me. The first challenge of the day was a huge decent off of Moosilauke. Decending down the mountain I realized the south bounders were not lying, trail conditions were extremely wet due to the fact 90% of the trail paralleled a cascading water fall over 2000ft long. The rocks had 6×6 cut on 45 deg. angles anchored to them so that hikers could use them to walk down the steep slabs of wet rocks. After about an hour and a half of nerve racking hiking I made it to kinsman knotch, it was 7:45 am. While walking towards the road crossing I saw a red cooler full of trail magic and I was the first one to get to it.

After a short break I was heading north again. Opsticle #2 was Wolf mountain about a 1500 ft. climb through mud and rocks. I hit the summit and didn't look back, I was on a mission.  Now for opsticle #3 Kinsman Mtn. taking a short break I began the climb with only a half liter of water. Ascending the mountain was extremely technical,  one huge rock scramble after another.  I put my trekking poles away so I could us my hands to help climb. The trail was the steepest its ever been, much steeper and it would have been dangerous without a rope. I thought to myself, "I've climbed every tall mountain for 1800 miles south of here ill be damned if I don't conquer this one as well" With that as my driving force I put one hand in front of the other and made it to the southern summit in no time at all. Little did I know sunshine was just a half mile ahead on the northern summit. While going through the gap towards sunshine a day hiker stopped and said "you must be Carpenter" with a strange look I replied yes. He then proceeded to tell me that sunshine had been waiting on me but was out of water so she headed for the shelter/water source.  I high tailed it down the mountain to the shelter and there she was. We sat at the pond and got water, I hate pond water but I was thirsty.  After sitting around for a while we headed down to meet sunshines dad who is coming to hike with us for a few days. Once with him we all went out to eat. At dinner I had a burger smothered in pulled pork and onion rings along with a baked potato It was an amazing way to end a 19 mile day in the White Mountains. It almost killed me.