A Wild Time on the Wildcats

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Jul 5, 2004

It had been nearly a year since my last hike, and nearly two years since I notched off a 4,000 footer. My job had held me hostage to cell phone range. So I was out of hiking shape _ mentally and physically. But I finally managed to get a weekend where I had someone cover me at work, and where I could escape to the mountains I missed so much.

I'd been in a holding pattern on peakbagginging list of 4Ks but decided to start up again by picking a hike that would get me two 4Ks but also be leisurely enough to get me back into the swing of things.

So I settled on one of my favorite trails in the Whites to start with _ 19 Mile Brook Trail _ and one of my favorite huts: Carter Notch. This is a self-service hut, one where you bring your own food but you can use the kitchen facilities. I'd been here once before, during the dead of winter, and loved the experience. It was more freeing to be here in the summer since you didn't feel beholden to stay in the main hut, warming by the wood stove. I could wander around, look at the Ramparts _ a bowl of rocks and boulders created by a landslide from long ago _ and spend hours on end reading in one of the two bunkhouses, without worrying about staying warm.

Nineteen Mile Brook Trail was just as I remembered it _ leisurely. I was amazed that even with nearly a year since my last hike, I was able to reach the Carter Dome Trail in under book time. Same thing getting to the hut, amazingly book time.

And I was even more surprised to find that the hut wasn't filled up, even on the Fourth of July weekend. But I wasn't complaining.

I unfurled my sleeping bag and scored a bottom bunk in room No. 3. There are two bunkhouses, each with four rooms, each with two bunkbeds. Off a short spur, is a bathroom _ with running water that wasn't available when I'd last visited here in the winter. It seemed like incredible luxury!

For the first time in ages, I had a chance to spend time without any of the modern-day trappings. No TV droning on, no cell phone ringing, no computer humming. Just a few birds, fresh air and solitude enough to read an entertaining novel (a World War II-era spy thriller by Jack Higgins). Wow! What a simple thrill to read fiction instead of a stack of the latest newspapers!