It was a frigid night even with the shelter of the hut. Even before our hut breakfast I was treated to a special birthday treat. Miranda had been packing two huge pastries and a bunch of candles through the Whites and set it all up as an early morning birthday cake. There was a blueberry coffee cake with candles that spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and a honeybun with 27 on it. Yum! A bit later on we had the hut breakfast which turned out to be the best part of our work for stay. The regular guests ate almost all of their food and for a bit it looked like we might only get oatmeal, but one of the hut croo made a batch of french toast for us (and some for himself). It was the hottest food we got while there and quite tasty. We finished our stay with our last chore – sweeping the dining room floor.
We headed off back up the rocky trail to Mt. Lafayette. Kind of unfortunate that we had to spend so much time getting to and from the hut and not on the AT. There was a bit of ice on the Greenleaf trail but the summit felt more comfortable than yesterday since the wind had calmed down. As soon as we arrived at the summit Miranda dazzled me with her singing of Happy Birthday! We headed down and off of Franconia Ridge in short order, and transitioned to the equally rocky and slow going Garfield Ridge Trail. The highlight of the day was Mt. Garfield with views back to Franconia Ridge and the rest of the trail we covered today.
Coming down from Garfield Ridge was steep and rocky as usual and there was even water flowing down the trail in places from springs or streams. I had just met a local hiker on the summit whos working on climbing every mountain in the Whites who said the Garfield Ridge trail is his least favorite in the forest. We eventually made it to Galehead Hut shortly before four and again had to reevaluate our plans – there wasnt any way we could make it to Zealand Falls by sundown and camping along the trail would mean using up our own food and having to go into town early. We decided to stay at Galehead and get WFS again. The evening portion of our stay turned out to be pretty awful. The guy running the hut today decided to send the thru-hikers outside to sit while the regular guests were eating dinner. He even wanted our packs outside. It was cold, windy, and there was all kinds of space inside the hut where we had all been sitting quietly. After we were allowed inside we got the leftovers, there wasn’t as much to eat because the guy had let a total of six people stay as WFS so we were all splitting leftovers. Later we were all done eating and waiting for our chores for a really long time, we were getting tired so I started blowing up my air mattress and finally the guy comes out to say that that’s not allowed yet either. He got the hint that we were ready to be doing something though, and finally had us start on the dishes. At least that part went a little quicker than last night with six people. We finished dishes and kitchen cleanup and went to bed; it’s much warmer in here than las night at Greenleaf.