25 September 2004                                                            Mt .Lafayette, New Hampshire

I rose early to be at the Old Bridle Path trailhead by about 7:30. I'd initially hoped to hike up to Greenleaf on Friday afternoon but work would have none of it. I was lucky enough to steal away for Saturday and Sunday. I changed into my boots, shed my fleece layers and stuffed them into my pack and started climbing. I was hiking up to Greenleaf Hut for my second (and last) Alpine Steward weekend of the season. I'd usually taken the Greenleaf Trail for its lack of use and because I like Eagle Pass so much but had grown a bit tired of it. It was a nice day and the idea of the open ledges along the agonies appealed to me. Up I climbed until the trail turned quick to the left on the edge of Walker Ravine. There was a view from the trail toward Mt. Lincoln across the ravine. The opposite view, up the trail, showed that my climb was about to become more substantial. Climb I did and eventually arrived at the hut. I entered and learned that several of my friends from the Alpine Steward program were there that weekend doing trailwork. I quickly grabbed a bunk, loaded my pack for the summit, and headed uphill for the final 45-minute mile to the peak where I would spend my day. Fall rolls in early above 4000 ft and what little vegetation there was up there was showing its colour. The field of Deer Hair Sedge was nearly luminous in the autumnal light, having dropped its summer cloak of green. As I climbed the clouds moved in and I found the summit to bedark and cold even at 11:00 in the morning. Nevertheless, it was an autumn weekend and hikers were abundant even if sunlight was not. During my hours on the summit I saw about 200 hikers and spoke with about 70 of them, making a plea for them to mind the alpine plants and stay on the trail. Several said they had seen my friends doing trailwork on the ridge and were excited to know that so many people were taking care of this special place. As the summit crowd thinned and my body heat waned I began to make my way down to Greenleaf Hut which used to look like this. It has been redone and has an addition in which there are several composting toilets. I met my friends later at the hut and we had a great supper together and caught up on mountain- and AMC-gossip. Early the next morning we awoke to dense fog outside the hut and rain splattering the windows. We gorged ourselves on coffee, oatmeal, and pancakes and loaded up for the ridge. I would be stewarding again, and they would be humping rocks around on the ridge. I climbed further into the clouds and at one point turned my ankle. It was several minutes before I could walk on it again and I had to continue on slowly. I was less than impressed with the views, which were entirely gray except for what I saw at my feet. When I gained the summit some of the group were there beginning to work on moving a cairn so that the trail to the hut would be easier to find. At the summit we were near the top of the cloud deck so even though it was socked in it was pretty bright. It made for some interesting photos of colour-clad trailworkers. A short while after I got to the top someone yelled, "Mt Washington!" We looked up and sure enough, the highest cloud had blown off for a moment revealing the cloud deck at our feet and the rockpile poking up through like an island in the sky. Slowly the clouds cleared off...blew back in...cleared off again offering tantalizing glimpses of mountains above clouds. Meanwhile, the trailworkers finished their cairn and stood proudly by their work. As they set off along the ridge to tackle more projects the clearing continued to the south. Even much of the lower cloud deck had gone off giving views along the ridge to nearby Mt. Lincoln and Mts. Liberty and Flume over its left shoulder in the distance, and down to the Franconia Notch Parkway. A passing hiker asked me to take his picture for him, as many do. I obliged and he returned the favour, recording me on top of the clouds with George as my backdrop. After talking to about 40 of the 120 hikers that passed by that Sunday I returned to the hut, packed my gear, and hiked down the Greenleaf trail with my friends. We stopped to explore an interesting knoll off the trail not far above the hut and found it to be clear of krummholz but covered with large mats of undisturbed Diapensia. The origin of the Diapensia knoll is unknown to us but we are trying to learn how it came to be.