Hanover, NH to Pinkham Notch, NH

Day 4, Tuesday, September 6

Hexacuba Shelter to Jeffers Brook Shelter, 15.8 miles

My early morning starts continue as I roll out of my sleeping bag at 6:45 AM. It’s 45 degrees this morning, and feels like great weather for hiking. An hour after I leave the shelter I’m watching the sun come up over the ridges below me as I stand on top of South Cube Mountain. It is a beautifully clear morning, actually warmer up on top of the mountain in the sunshine that down at the shelter. There is fog covering most of the valleys below me, but I’m standing in beautiful sunshine on top of the world. I stop for my morning snack and enjoy the warmth.

The trial is excellent on top of and off of the ridge. I stop for a longer break at 9:30 AM at a gravel logging road and ultimately reach NH Highway 25A at 9:45 AM. A bus is pulling off the highway as I hike up. Several hikers get off the bus and the driver unloads their packs from underneath the bus. Someone else coming back to the trail.

It’s a short uphill hike to Ore Hill Shelter by 10:45 AM, where I take another short break. I’m feeling pretty good this morning, and hiking strongly. I reach NH Highway 25C at noon, and take off my shoes and socks to dry out in the bring sunshine under the powerlines that cross the highway. Hardle a car drives by the whole time I’m sitting there.

Five miles later I reach the main Highway 25 at 2:30 PM. It’s now only 1.1 miles to the shelter. But first, I decide to hike to the Hiker’s Welcome Hostel in Glencliff and check things out. I can at least clean up and check messages there if I decide to hike on.

There is a crew at the hostel, including “Fat Slacker”, “Baltimore Jack”, “Malla”, “Lion King”, and many others at the hostel. I take a shower, rinse out my clothes, and drink three root beers, and pop some microwave popcorn before cooking supper under the shed/tent out back. I spend a very relaxing afternoon at the hostel, before packing up at 5 PM and heading back to the trail. It takes me an hour to reach Jeffers Brook Shelter.

“Not Guilty” is already at the shelter, and “Rodeo” is tenting close by. Since I’ve already had supper, I walk up the trail to where “Rodeo” has scoped out a field facing the mountains watch the sunset, and the first stars appear. There is a crescent Moon setting over the mountains, as dusk settles, and we watch first Venus, then Jupiter pop out beside the crescent Moon. It is a lovely evening, warm, and starlit evening sky. I hike back to the shelter, and I’m asleep by 8:30 PM.