On Saturday August 8th at 6 am, Clark and I hiked up the cog railway to the summit of Mt. Washington (because why not make this harder than it already is). The morning was gorgeous and offered great views. We started our watches at the summit sign and started the route around 7:30 am. It was already pretty humid at this point, but the breeze in the mountains was fantastic. We decided to add in Mt. Isolation as we were only 100 feet away from the summit. When we dropped back down to Davis Path and continued on, Clark was bombarded with cobwebs as this trail is not heavily traveled. By 9 am the heat and humidity had officially settled in (already 93% humidity). The first water source is 14 miles in, and due to the high heat index (90s) we had already consumed our 1.5 L each by mile 10. We were in rough shape when we got to the river to filter, but after cooling down for a few minutes we pulled ourselves together. After mile 14 there are plenty of water sources every couple of miles, we stopped at every single one to dip our hats in and filter more water (in total we ended up drinking 12 L each and it still wasn't enough with that heat wave). When we got to Oliverian Brook Trail, thunderstorms rolled in and we got absolutely drenched. The last 15 miles is a mixture of pavement and dirt roads (the pavement SUCKED in my sopping wet trail shoes) and we were ravaged by 2 more passing thunderstorms. It was so hot you could see the water evaporating off of the pavement.
Needless to say the day did not go as planned, but we are still happy with our effort. The only good news to report is that we are still engaged after that.