Pemi Loop: lost and found

When I got to the car I couldn’t find my wallet.

For two days on the trail I had a lingering feeling that I had lost it. I couldn’t remember putting it my pack or in the console of the car. It wasn’t in my bags or under the seat. The last time I had it was when I went to the pay station to fill out the hang tag for parking. I must have placed it on top of the pay station when I was filling out the envelope and left it there.

It was around 7pm. The visitors center was closed. I was in Lincoln, NH, over 400 miles away from home with no money and not enough gas to make it home. The only food I had was a banana that had been sitting in the car for two days.

There was no cell phone reception in the parking lot. I drove down the road to the town of Lincoln and made a few phone calls that yielded me with a place to stay, a western union money transfer and an offer to fill my tank with gas and spot me some cash.

Things were looking up. 

About an hour later I am on 91 South (with cell phone service) and my emails come through. There is one from American Express about my recent call. I called customer service and explained my situation. They accessed my account and pulled up a note, which instructed me to call this number XXX-XXX-XXXX. I hung up and dialed. It was the Lincoln Police Department. The woman I spoke with said that someone had found my wallet and turned it in.

The good news was that they had my wallet.

The bad news was that I had to drive an hour back to Lincoln to pick it up.

This is the second time in a week that I have lost my wallet and had it returned to me. I decided that it’s a good idea to stop carrying cash...an even better idea would be to stop losing my wallet.

Pemi Loop: day one

I planned to do this hike last Fall and got rained out. It was looking like that would be the case again. This trip was originally planned for June 28th and 29th with an overnight stay at Galehead Hut. I watched the forecast deteriorate, read about some recent search and rescue efforts in the Whites and decided to attempt this as a day hike on Friday the 24th. 

When I called the AMC Reservation line to cancel, the representative offered me a Thursday night stay at Greenleaf. It was about a mile off the trail, but the only logical option because it was Wednesday afternoon. I still had to pack and drive to Lincoln. 

4AM wake up call...

After six and a half hours in the car, I was eager to stretch my legs and maintained a good pace for the first three miles...then the up hill party started (about 2,000 feet gain over the next two miles). I tagged Mt. Flume, Liberty, Lincoln and Lafayette...ten and a half miles in four hours and twenty minutes, which allowed me some time to relax and take it in before heading down to Greenleaf Hut.

On the descent, I began to question my decision, wondering if it would have been better to have made the six mile push for Galehead, which sits right on the ridge, instead adding two miles (1,000 feet down and then back up) to this thirty-three mile hike. 

The view from Sunset Rock was worth it...