White Mountains Greenleaf Hut Overnight Hiking Trip

Mt. Lafayette, NH

Saturday Oct 15th - Sunday Oct 16th, 2005

Lana, Shannon, Greg and Amanda start out on the trail!

It was rainy, but we stopped at the ranger station and they said we were good to "skip right up the old bridle path." The five of us were poised to climb Mt. Lafayette and spend the night at the Appalachian Mountain Club's Greenleaf Hut.

The trail was really rocky at some places and the climbing was often quite steep.

We stop for a break along the way.

Amanda, Greg, Lana, Shannon, and Molly up above treeline and into the clouds.

After about 3 hours of hiking in the rain we made it up to Greenleaf Hut on the side of Mt. Lafayette; elevation 4200 feet.

We had a reservation at the hut, where we would eat dinner, spend the night and head down after breakfast the next day. The AMC maintains a series of "high huts" thoughout the whites. We were there the last night Greenleaf Hut would be open this season!

The hut sits near a lake, beyond which Mt. Lafayette rose up out of sight into the clouds.

After changing into dry clothes, we spent the afternoon relaxing at the hut; drinking hot cocoa, playing cards and napping.

We met some really neat people there, including the very creative crew who like to have dance parties in the kitchen. They played a song on pots and pans to call us for dinner; a full turkey dinner just like Thanksgiving.

The hutmaster woke us up at 6:30 the next morning playing a beautiful song on his guitar; the best way to wake up if there is one at 6:30 AM. We had a delicious breakfast of pancakes, bacon and hot drinks before we headed out into the cold. It was 33 degress out! We couldn't go up on the ridge due to high winds and the 28 degree temperature up there. Mt. Washington got 2 in of snow and had 100 MPH sustained winds! Luckily, everyone was prepared with warm clothes when we started off at around 8 AM.

Through the clouds, we had a decent view of Mt. Lafayette. Despite the cold, wet weather it was still a wonderful hike down!

We eventually dropped under the rain clouds and were subject to the rain again. There were twice as many leaves on the ground as when we came up the day before. The foliage was still beautiful despite the rain.

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