(Daily Mi: 10.4) Took a breathtaking walk above timberline this a.m. but the day was cut short by the serious decline in weather I had been expecting yesterday.

Broke camp dead early to beat the crowds and made it up to Little Haystack (3700 ft) a little before 7 am. Nothing but open, scree strewn ridge and summits for the next 5 miles: Little Haystack > Lincoln (5089 ft) > Lafayette (5249 ft)

There was a low black cloud cover and a steady 50 mph roaring up the face the ridge.

From the top of Haystack I have an unobstructed view of the narrow bony ridge clear to Licoln's summit cone encircled by swirling black mists another 1300' feet up. This makes it look like it is right next door, but it is in fact almost two miles away and takes the better part of 45 minutes to pick way across an up.

By the time I summit Lincoln visibility has dropped to about 50 yards. The path is very narrow and "technical" for long stretches. My rain/wind gear was flapping like a slack sail in a hurricane, and for the first time in my hike I have my jacket zipped to the throat.

The clouds begin to lift as I cross over Lafayette which is the high point on the massif, and as I descend the long saddleback to Garfield a brief window of sunshine opens.

Garfield (4500 ft) is by far the gnarliest scramble on the Lafayette ridge. A steep unswitched climb and frankly terrifying descent over big round, smooth, moisture loving boulders.

And praise God I just made it over when the storm broke at 10 a.m.

And what a storm it was. Great sheets of water pouring from the sky. And despite the allegedly impermiable rain coat, gaiters and waterproof boots I was soaked to the absolute bone 30 seconds after it began.

Just comically wet when I hit the AMC's Galehead Hut at the base of Twin Mountain some two miles on, and although I have expressed my deep objections to the AMC hut system in the past, imediately book a $50.00 space in the bunkroom and eagerly retreated from the wind and rain. (Although I was the first long distance hiker in, I decide to leave the work-for-stay open for the group I know to be right behind me).

Choo Choo makes it in for the night. Also an older thru hiker I first met on the commons in Hanover, Mountain Man from Ga. takes a bunk for the night. Nice fellow but both profoundly talkative and profoundly deaf.

Couple of funny notes: fist the senior officers including the President of the AMC happen to be in this night (actually hiked up a challenging side trail to get here) for what proves to be a very interesting seminar on trail maintenance.

Also, just before I got to the shelter I bumped into Old Hank, a northbounding Maine dairy farmer I had met in PA and NJ.

A classic Mainer, Old Hank is doing the trail in true Yankee style: a pair of Walmart velcro-tabbed sneakers, baggy elastic waisted running shorts and a polyesther jersey. In addtion, since I had last seen him, Hank had decided his teeth were too much of a bother and sent them home.

So there he was when I stumbled by him on the side of the Trail, preparing to bushwhack his way to a stealth site behind the hut. He was covered from the shoulders down, pack and all, in a giant rain poncho, his cropped head popping through with a full beard and a big friendly toothless grin.

Later at dinner, a pair of section hikers told me in highly alarmed tones that they were certain they had seen a suspicious hobo poking about for a campsite somewhere in woods nearby.