Zealand Hut (1/14-15/25)
It's been a long, long time since the last time I wrote one of these blog posts. Almost two years, I think. However, I'd like to get back into it, and my recent trip to Zealand Hut seems like a good opportunity. First, though, some introduction.
Back in Summer 2024, my friend Sylvia put together a trip to Mt. Katahdin. Joining her on the trip were her husband Alan, her friend Chris, her brother-in-law Paul, our friend Vanessa, and I. Paul actually went up earlier and hiked the day before the rest of us because he was coming from farther away and wanted to avoid forecasted bad weather. Sylvia, Alan, Vanessa, and I rode up together and met Chris along the way.
I'll probably do a separate post about it at some point, but for now the important thing to know is that we all enjoyed hiking together despite a couple trials and tribulations brought on by the weather. Thus, when Sylvia proposed that we should all do a winter hut trip together, I was in.
We were originally supposed to have seven people, as Paul's daughter was supposed to join us, but she wasn't able to make it. Then Alan got sick right beforehand, and he had to drop out, leaving us with five.
Of the five we had, three of us had extensive winter hiking and backpacking experience (me, Sylvia, Chris), and two were newer to winter hiking (Paul and Vanessa). In the run-up to the hike, Vanessa asked me all kinds of questions, helping her to get her gear dialed in and to pick up any tips and tricks that might be helpful for winter hiking.
We had lunch at Elvio's Pizza in North Conway. Chris and I expressed some reservations about the fact that Paul had chosen to wear jeans, which is a winter hiking no-no. He assured us that we had a base layer on underneath them and it would be fine, so we let it drop.
We headed out in four cars and parked across Route 302 from the Zealand Road. The hike in was going to be fairly long, with a four mile road walk on Zealand Road followed by a three mile hike on Zealand Trail. On the plus side, it was mostly fairly level, with the only significant elevation gain being the last tenth of a mile before the hut.
At the beginning, we all hiked together, with me out front and Vanessa behind me, with the other three grouped together in back. Eventually Sylvia found her way to join me at the front, and we were chatting when a hiker coming the other way stopped to talk to us. "You heading to the hut?" he asked. We told him we were, and he told us that it was going to be crowded because we had like forty people in front of us on trail.
Immediately Sylvia and I got worried, because we didn't want to be the last ones there and get lousy bunks. A lot of huts, including Zealand, have third level bunks, and you really don't want those. We both knew what had to be done. I am the fastest hiker in the group, and I was going to have to race ahead to try to get in front of those other groups.
However, there were two complications. First, I was carrying my Osprey Xenith, a ridiculously large 105 liter pack, so that was going to make racing fairly difficult. Second, I wasn't keen on the idea of turning the group hike into a solo hike. To combat the second problem, I asked Chris if she wanted to go with me. I knew she was fast enough to keep up with me. However, she had been battling a knee injury, and so she didn't feel like it would be wise to try to race. Paul stepped up and volunteered to hike ahead with me. I'll admit that I was skeptical. I know I am really fast when I get going, and I wasn't sure if he could keep up. Paul said that if he couldn't keep up, he would just drop back, so I figured that was an ideal solution.
I took off with Paul in tow, and within a couple minutes he began to drop back. I kept racing ahead, though I will admit that I was having a hard time of it with the Xenith on my back. Carrying a lot of weight and trying to maintain a three mile per hour pace while doing a good amount of uphill is not an easy task. Still, I knew my capabilities and I took short breaks when I needed them.
Pretty quickly I managed to pass a group of four hikers that I would later learn were friends of the caretaker at the hut. After that, I passed a large group of Boy Scouts. Once I got past them, I figured I was home free. The only group staying with me were two hikers named Luke and Ellen, and they had met while on the AT a few years before, so they were very strong hikers. I did eventually pass them, but even then they stayed right behind me.
Eventually, we made it to the parking lot at the end of Zealand Road, and I think all three of us (Luke, Ellen, and I) breathed a huge sigh of relief to finally be getting off the seemingly unending road. We stopped for a snack, and then pushed into the woods.
I've always thought of myself as a stronger road hiker than a woods hiker, but not on this day. Once we plunged into the woods, I picked up speed and left everyone else behind. I also turned on some music, so that might have helped. The scenery was beautiful, and I was enjoying the hiking a lot more.
I made good time through the woods, and I came to one of my favorite parts of the hike, the long bridge over a boggy area, a mile before the hut. I was tiring a bit at this point, but I knew that the hut was within reach and a quick snack break gave me the energy to keep pushing.
Of course, I also knew that the hardest part of the hike was still to come. That last tenth of a mile can be a killer when you've pushed yourself hard for almost seven miles and only now do you get your first big uphill. I slowed down, took it one step at a time, and pushed myself up the hill. I finished the hike at 4:20 PM, which gave me a time of three hours. It was a drop-off from last year's time of two hours and forty minutes for the same hike, but there were probably reasons for that, primarily snow conditions and the Xenith.
I was still the first person to finish, and when I met the caretaker Brinkley, I told her that I was the harbinger of the crowds to come. She was like, "Oh, so you're to blame?" and I realized that I could have made a better choice of words. It was all in good fun, though, as she turned out to be one of the better caretakers that I have seen, and I have seen a lot of them over the years.
I got us signed up for a dinner slot and claimed some of the best bunks for us. I changed out of my hiking gear and put on my hut gear. For hiking, I want lighter stuff that won't overheat me, but once I am in the hut and not moving anymore, I want warm clothes that will keep me nice and toasty.
Luke and Ellen arrived probably ten minutes after me, and the group of four maybe twenty minutes after them. I figured that my group would likely overtake the Boy Scouts and be the next to arrive. I was not surprised, then, when Chris came into the hut at 5:20. I said, "You made it!"
Chris didn't look happy. "Paul's in trouble," she told me. "Sylvia sent me to come get you."
Immediately, everyone in the hut sprang into action. Brinkley asked what she could do to help, but I didn't really know yet. Chris told us that she had found Paul sitting on a rock right before the big climb up to the hut, dazed and out of it. Sylvia and Vanessa were still down trying to help Paul. Brinkley started getting some hot liquids together while I started getting enough equipment back on to allow me to go out to help.
As I was about to head out the door, Paul came stumbling in. He didn't have his pack, he looked hypothermic, and he had something frozen in his mouth. I later found out that Vanessa had tried to give him some food, and that's what was in his mouth.
Brinkley gave Paul some hot chocolate. I didn't feel like I could be of much help there, so I went outside to try to retrieve Paul's pack. I found Sylvia and Vanessa, both exhausted, coming up the hill with the pack. I went down to meet them. I was running pretty high on adrenaline at this point, so I easily one handed the pack and carried it back up the hill without even using spikes. Adrenaline can do amazing things.
Inside the hut, we did our best to get Paul warmed up. We gave him hot liquids, and then eventually some food as well. We sat him in front of the wood stove in the hut. We got his wet clothes off, and especially the wet jeans, off of him. After a while, he went into his sleeping bag to rest.
Chris, Sylvia, and Vanessa now had to get themselves taken care of in terms of changing from hiking gear to hut gear. Brinkley asked me a lot of questions about Paul, but the truth was that I didn't know him very well, having only met him on Katahdin, and there we didn't even hike together.
Of the five of us, Sylvia is far and away the best cook. I'm probably the worst cook, with Chris also in the running for the title. However, Sylvia had a lot on her mind with Paul, so she asked Chris and I to prep dinner. It was a bit of an adventure, but we made it work. Sylvia has already pre-cooked everything, so that helped.
The Boy Scouts eventually arrived. They had their own wing of the hut, while everyone else was in the other wing, so that worked out nicely. After dinner, Sylvia, Vanessa, Chris, Luke, Ellen, and I played Time's Up, a game that I had brought with me. Paul, who was feeling better by this point, kept time for us. Luke, Chris, and I ended up beating Sylvia, Vanessa, and Ellen very narrowly in the game.
We eventually all settled into bed in our warm sleeping bags. I have to admit that the weather wasn't as cold as I was expecting. I had been at Carter Notch Hut the previous month (right before Christmas), and that was really, really cold. This, though, was manageable. I didn't even need to cover my head with the sleeping bag.
By the way, I want to make a quick gear plug here. My North Face camo down booties are a godsend. They're a little heavy and bulky, but they make hut life so much more convenient than what it was before I got them. I definitely recommend a good pair of down booties for winter hut or shelter trips.
Anyway, in the morning I was the first one up on our side of the hut. I managed the difficult feat of getting changed inside the sleeping bag, and then I went out into the main hut area to have breakfast alongside the Boy Scouts. I brought with me a Peak Refuel Mountain Berry Granola, which is my go-to meal for backpacking breakfasts, especially in winter time. The package says to use cold water to rehydrate, but the secret is to use hot water. It makes it very yummy.
Eventually, everyone else got up. Paul was feeling a lot better, and I was glad to see the spark back in him. Ellen and Brinkley took some pictures for us before we left the hut to hike down.
I struggled a little bit on the hike down. We were moving kind of slow and going downhill, and I was dressed lightly. As I mentioned before, I dress lightly so that I won't overheat when I get moving. However, we weren't moving very fast, so I was starting to get really cold. Vanessa mentioned that she was having the same issue.
I stopped to layer up, adding my mittens and balaclava. However, those were buried at the bottom of my pack, so it took a while to get to them. I told everyone to go on without me, and I would catch up. Once I got moving again, the combination of the mittens, balaclava, and fast movement warmed me up nicely. In fact, I was going so fast that Paul nicknamed me "the Ferrari of hikers" for the way that I was cruising along. It's good to see that while I am definitely not as strong a hiker as I used to be, I haven't totally lost it.
When we finished our hike, we all headed into North Conway for lunch and stopped at Delaney's Hole in the Wall. I had never been there before, and wanted to try it, so I was glad when Chris suggested it. However, their menu wasn't very vegetarian friendly. The meal I did find was really good, though. It was a combination of a pesto pasta and a Caesar salad, which is even better than it sounds.
In the end, I was glad that everything wound up okay with the hike. I was glad that Paul made it out no worse for the wear, and I was glad that I got to reconnect with Sylvia and Chris, and share in Vanessa's first winter backpacking trip. I am looking forward to hopefully doing Katahdin again this summer with the same group! Always remember that you can't take flight until you spread your wings!
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