Therese Marie

Lakes of the Clouds Hut, White Mountains, New Hampshire

This is one of those moments I’d completely forgotten about until someone asked me what the elevation of Mount Washington was.

It was late in the summer, but we still wore our puffies and clutched cups of tea under the stars.

We were at Lakes of the Clouds, the famed hut at the base of Mount Washington, where supposedly “no one gets turned away.”

Aussie and I thought about that as we watched 3 dudes with headlamps on walk off into the night because the hut staff had declared there were too many people staying there already. I don’t want to get into a debate about the hut system in the Whites. It’s – I generally had a fine time with it. It is what it is, and there’s not much you can do but pay the $10 to camp when they ask for it and trudge forth on your hike.

We stared up at the most stars I’d ever seen in my life. We were blessed with a second clear night in the middle of the Perseids. Shooting stars, warm tea, best friends. It was quiet, except for the occasional comment from Growler about being old.

Aussie and I barely made it to the hut before sunset.

We were beginning to doubt that the hut existed because we were so immersed in mountains. It was peak after peak and no sign of a hut. “Maybe we have to just…camp on the ridge?” he said every 5 minutes. I laughed in return. We felt immensely isolated, as if every person in the world was at least ten miles away. We were tucked away into the secrets of the mountains. I’d never felt so far from everything. 

I look at this picture and remember a feeling of regret. I woke up at 5:45am after a hectic, stuffy night in the hut. There were calls coming in from the radio and people moving around all night. What was worse, I’d come down with a cold. Aussie and I had intended to catch the sunrise off of Mount Washington the next morning, but we never made it.

Around 8 or 9 in the morning, I looked back and snapped this photo. I had missed the sunrise. But I was still going up Mount Washington, and leaving this corner of the mountain range behind. Lakes of the Clouds felt so secretive, so private.

Despite the painful memories of illness and shitty sleep, I am so lucky to have experienced this section of the mountain at the time I did. Perfect weather, lots of views, perfect time of day.

Even though society was only three miles away, I felt like a secret little Queen of the Wild in these mountains. 

I took a breath of cold, fresh air on the edge of the ridge before I had gone to bed that night.

In the distance, little sparks of light pin-pricked the black, otherwise indiscernible rocky range. Below me, nothing existed.

I stood suspended on an inky cloud on top of the world, looking at my kingdom.

The sounds of rock scrambling came from behind me, and a woman squealed. “I just can’t believe they don’t have showers.”

But even then, I’d forgotten where I was.

Fly on,

Lil Wayne