Mizpah Hut
Any thrus reporting issues at Mizpah Hut this year?
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
Not a thru, but I'll be passing by on Thursday 7/12. Anything you want me to look out for? When are you getting there. Might not be able to post until 7/16.
B&e reported passing through Mizpah
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Let me go
Yes, I was given a stay there for my birthday last week. The crew was fantastic, the food great and even the turons were wonderful. I'm assuming your going to badmouth?
No, not me. I was reading a certain trail journal that did though. The report was they were refusing work/stay for no valid reason.Originally Posted by Blue Jay
I have no dog in the hunt.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
they aren't required to offer work/stay to anyone. all hikers should pay their way
to be fair also they showed up really late at 8pm.. from things i've read getting there around 5:30-6 gives you a much better chance at work for stay (dinner clean up i'm guessing)
I got work for stay there, and in every hut I stayed at in 2010.
It's a great gig if you can get it. I gained weight hiking in the Whites I ate so much.
I'm not a great AMC fan -- though they gave me a lifetime membership 40 years ago, something to do with me calling the public's attention to 400,000 acres of public land that Maine had saved and then forgot it owned.
The AMC huts keep getting too fancy for my taste. And their new lodges in Maine are even more so. However, expecting stay for work after most of the supper chores are finished, or at least assigned, strikes me as a bit far fetched.
I've stayed at the huts occasionally. The crews, I've found are mostly bright, enthusiastic kids enjoying a summer or two in the mountains. The annual turn over is probably 50 percent of more so what happens one year is unlikely to impact what happens in subsequent years anyway.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I did hold various committee jobs with the Maine Chapter for 20 years, including editing the newsletter for a decade or so. I quit when I was criticized for running a piece favorable towards a Maine Woods National Park, which apparently conflicted with AMC plans for the woods.
Last edited by weary; 07-09-2012 at 10:31. Reason: verb tense
Good to know. Is it common trail knowledge that if you show up that late that the Huts will just tell you to hike on? I know very little about the Whites and the Hut system other than the hiking is hard and the sleeping options are few.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
i started my presi in a day with a '11 thru hiker (he was ahead of most us away pretty quickly) and he said that if you show up too early or too late then the odds go down. he would try to time it around 5:30 so he would have a good chance. mileage may vary though.. it is pretty much up to whoever is there i think.
Yes it would be common knowledge to a thru-hiker (or at least it was when I was hiking through) to know that. They'll also tell you to move on if they have enough thru-hikers to get the chores done. I'd say getting to a hut after 4:00 and getting work-for-stay is pushing it. You have to be a bit lucky or have a good strategy to get through the Whites and stay at all the huts. You can probably expect to end up having to pay or hike down to a campsite about half the time.
This is just a theory but I think it helps not to look like Charles Manson when you show up....
I put on my cleanest dirty shirt and tried to look presentable before I got there. After all, you are going to be interacting with people who are paying big bucks to stay there. It doesn't make a good impression if the person they have helping looks like a homeless person.
Don't know if there is any truth to it or not but like I said - I had no problem getting work for stay at every hut I stayed at which was every night I was in the Whites.
The thing about Mitzpah that makes it easy for them to turn late thrus away is that it's right next to Nauman Tentsite. Of course that has a daily tenting fee, but imo the thru's in question should've known the timetables others have posted about here.
The more miles, the merrier!
NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191
I kinda figured a thru would have that info by the time they got there. I'm not too worried about it but the more info I learn the better. Do all Huts have those platform areas as well? I know it takes some engineering if you don't have a free-standing tent. I would imagine that cash is NOT king if they don't need anymore help, since the Huts could easily be in no-vacancy mode.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
Lakes of the Clouds hut has no nearby camping areas. From Madison, you can either descend into the Great Gulf, which has lots of sites, both paid and stealth, I gather, on or not too far from the A.T., or you can descend northward about 500' to 1000' from the A.T. to one of four paid RMC enclosed shelters ($13) or open shelter/tentsites ($7), which are first-come, first-served. I gather that good stealth sites on the north slopes are few and far between. Not sure about other paid sites up there, am reading up on it b/c I plan to hike the Northern Presidentials in the next weekend or two.
The more miles, the merrier!
NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191
To clarify, I meant descent 500-1000' in elevation, probably half a mile to a mile of trail. Crag Camp and the Perch are two of the four RMC sites, don't remember the other two off the top of my head.
The more miles, the merrier!
NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191
not knocking them a whole lot but they have received an enormous amount of help along the way and may not have expected the possibility of being turned away. :shrug: a late night under a poncho tarp isn't the end of the world hehe
The huts do not typically have platform areas, but most have AMC managed campsites within a couple of hours. Mizpah is the only ones with adjacent tent platforms, Madison hut has the valley way tentsites but they are downhill from the hut. At most huts, you usually have the option of dropping down off the ridge and finding a campspot, it usually entails losing 1000 feet of elevation and 1 mile of hiking. Lake of the Clouds is the one place you cant readilly do that as the side trail is a restricted use area (and would be a pretty miserable place to camp. Your option there is hike a couple of hours north to Jewell trail and then drop off the ridge to a site used by thruhikers or turn around and head south to Edmonds path.
Some good and helpful comments here, but hikers should pay special attention to Wolf's remarks. The work-for-stay option is nice; it can be a wonderful thing on a stormy night or if you're hurt; however, there will not always be slots for every hiker who wants to do this, and neither the AMC or the various hut crews are ever obligated to provide this service, i.e. hikers should never take it for granted. And, of course, there are thousands of places in the Whites where hikers, thru and otherwise, can camp legally for free, and in most cases, this is what they should plan on doing.
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