Hiking

Yesterday, Lon and I drove up north to hike Sandwich Mountain, a 3980' peak in the middle of the Sandwich Range wilderness. With the days getting longer and warmer, we decided to take a leisurely start, hitting the trail just before 10am. We made a couple stops to eat, buy lunch, and pick up White Mountain National Forest parking passes. It also took a little while to find the trailhead.

First we headed up the Drakes Brook trail which was quite gentle and wide in the beginning, though the stream crossing early on was difficult due to the water volume from snow melt. Lon thought that this trail could be used by skiers in the winter because of how wide it was. After a mile or a mile and a half, the trail started to angle away from the stream. It got a lot steeper here as we got to the "New England switchbacks" - a very steep section straight up the mountain, followed by a right turn and a short traverse, followed by another right turn and more steep. Somewhere in this steep part, we also ran into a bunch of hard-packed snow in the middle of the trail. This would stay with us for most of the rest of the way up. Before too long, it leveled back out and we were at the ridge.

Here, we had a choice. There was a short side trail up to Jennings Peak to the right, and the Sandwich Mountain trail to the left. We decided to run up the spur to see what was there. The spur trail started off mostly level before turning a corner and heading straight up the side of the peak. After a short while, it popped out into a scrubby area with open ledges. We got the best views of the day from these ledges - across to Sandwich and Tripyramid and way over to the Presidential range. It was so good that we had to stop here for lunch.

After a long lunch, we quickly made our way back down to the trail intersection. Now it was time to head up to the Sandwich summit, just over a mile away. Soon after leaving the junction we entered the Wilderness and began seeing signs of moose everywhere. We also got a lot more snow. The hike up to the summit was a little more aggravating than anything else due to the slope and the lack of scenery. After a good while, we finally made it to the top where there were decent views but nothing quite like Jennings Peak. Lon decided to lay on some rocks, and I took this opportunity to run over and hit the Carroll County high point (see my previous article about this kind of stuff).

Soon, it was time to head out. We were back to the earlier junction in no time and kept on cruising to another junction a little farther down. I had to keep stopping from time to time to pull the snow and bits of forest out of my boots. This slowed me down a little, but not too much. At this section junction, we kept on the Sandwich Mountain trail instead of retracing our steps from earlier. The trail trended downward but was more of a ridge walk than anything. After about two miles, we ran into the first people of the day and talked with them a while. We kept going and eventually found where all the elevation loss occurred - on this really steep and rocky piece of trail at the end of the ridge. At the bottom, we ran into a group of families who were heading up. I'm sure they had fun on that part.

The rest of the way was a pleasant walk through the woods, with more spring as we went on and the snow far behind. We hit the parking lot right at 3:30, five and a half hours after leaving. That's better than the guide suggests including all our rest time. The guide also says this was a strenuous hike. I feel pretty good about how I did even if I did bash my shin on a rock near the end and have a bit of lingering knee pain today. All in all, it was a great day spent in the mountains.

I've posted a variety of links to some maps and tables showing my hiking progress. Keeping track of lists is a pretty common thing to do up here so I thought I'd join in. I'm tracking four different lists of peaks right now with two tables. The purpose of this is to get me hiking more and in new places. It's not to focus all my attention on having to complete some list to the exclusion of everything else.

While I was at it, I also decided to get in on a goal that's impossible to ever finish by keeping track of the highpoints of all the counties in the country that I have visited. It's a very, very empty map at this point. It will probably never get very full since the middle and south of the country is pretty boring, and much of the west requires technical skill. Oh, also it's far away and I have a job. I guess I could at least do a better job of the counties near where I live, though. One I was surprised by was that despite all my hiking and backpacking as a kid, I didn't visit many high points in the south. At least, I can't remember visiting many.

Well, look who forgot to update the blog for a whole month? Yes that's right, it's me. Since it's been so long, I don't think I am going to try to cover all the Christmas and New Year's activities. Maybe I will do a quick review of those later in the week if I keep up the writing again. Since this is the first entry in a long while, I will just cover the latest big thing I did. I'll cover the smaller events tomorrow I think.

Hm, I sure have been silent for a while. I don't know why that is except for the generic being busy answer. Anyway since it is just about the end of the year and I'm not going to get another hike in, I've decided to present this quick retrospective on my hiking this year. It was quite a season for me. We started hiking in March on Monadnock, and finished up just last weekend on the same mountain. I still managed to take two whole months off. I also had some forced time off due to a knee injury. This is way more hiking than I've done in many many years, and is even more than I did when I was in scouts and did this sort of thing regularly.

I meant to go hiking on Saturday so I could spend today making beer. Instead, I decided to get to bed late Friday night and wake up several times so it was basically impossible for me to get up when the alarm went off at 5am. So I went hiking today instead. Of course, I also overslept today but not too badly. Luckily I already had my gear ready and was out in the car at 6:30am. My only stop was in Concord, NH for fuel, breakfast, and lunch supplies. By 9:30, I was in the parking lot at Crawford Notch getting my warm clothes on and my pack ready.

This was a solo hike up the Crawford Path (the oldest continuously used trail in the country) to the summit of Mt. Pierce. It started by ascending alongside a stream and in between two rather low ridges. After passing a waterfall and bouncing back and forth away from the stream, it finally turned away for good and got steeper for a while. Luckily, the steep parts were never really that steep or too long. Before I knew it, I had gone the first 1.5 miles to the junction with the Mitzpah Cutoff trail. The climb was pretty steady to this point but never challenging.

From this junction, the trail alternated between long slow ascents and short steeper sections. There were also some brief spots of ice, but it never required the use of crampons which was good because I left mine on the back seat of my car. After another mile or so, the trail popped out on the exposed northwestern side of the mountain. Here I was finally out of the trees a little bit and the winds really picked up. The views over to Eisenhower, Monroe, Washington, and Jefferson were quite spectacular. I put on some extra clothes and climbed the last few tenths to the summit. It's not really a very exciting summit - you can really only see to the north because all other directions are blocked by trees. But, that view was great and the trees provided shelter from the winds.

I spent about 30 minutes sitting up on the summit eating, talking to people, and taking in the scenery. Then it was time to pick up the gear and head back down. I briefly considered hiking the two miles over to Eisenhower and back, but the weather over Washington was getting steadily worse and I did not want to be caught in that. Aside from having to be careful navigating the ice towards the top, there was nothing much memorable about the descent. It was nice to have a slow, gradual descent at the end of the hike instead of the typical kind that destroys your legs. I got back down to the car around 2pm, packed up, and headed home. Total round trip hiking time was around 4.5 hours. I traveled about 6.4 miles and climbed 2400'.

Overall, this was a fantastic hike. I highly recommend the Crawford Path to anyone who has just been getting into hiking as it's a very gentle introduction with a great payoff at the end. I'd like to go back up that way next year and walk all the way over to Washington and come down one of the trails on the west side. Spending all day above tree line on that hike would be a great time.

Another weekend, another trip up Franconia Ridge. This weekend, Lon and I hiked Little Haystack via the Falling Waters trail. This is a 3.2 mile trail that climbs 3000', passing several waterfalls at the bottom before a fairly steep final ascent going up above treeline. It was colder and windier than my last hike a couple weeks ago but we were well prepared with lots of warm clothing. From the parking lot, the peaks all appeared to be covered in clouds though this would pass as the day went on until it was quite sunny. We got lucky with the weather yet again.

In preparation for some upcoming hiking, I added a few more pieces of gear this afternoon. I picked up a long sleeve insulating shirt for under my sweater, a headlamp, and iodine for emergencies. I think this covers me from head to toe for the whole winter, unless the conditions get really ridiculous. I'm not planning on heading out into anything too crazy this year so I can probably go without an ice axe, snowshoes, goggles, or a balaclava. Maybe if this year goes well, I will pick up some of those things for next year and try heading into the alpine regions.

I'm also quite tired of spending money on this stuff. The sweater was really cheap and a great buy, but I've shelled out money for the insulating pants and shirts. Hopefully what I've got now will carry me through the whole winter as long as I stay inside when it's storming and don't try to tackle something like Washington. Of course, the problem here is that you don't expect conditions to get bad but you should always be prepared for that possibility. I think I am adequately prepared, however.

Yes, I know it's only October, but yesterday's hike was wintry enough. I knew it was going to be cold and snowy in the mountains and I was prepared for it but it was still an experience. I left from my house at 7am with the intention of hiking Mt. Liberty. It's a tall but not too tall mountain and is approached by a relatively straightforward 3 mile trail. I thought that would be a good test of my winter gear without getting me into too much trouble. Unfortunately as I approached Franconia Ridge, I happened to look up towards Mt. Lafayette which is the big mountain on the ridge. It looked so inviting with all the snow and wind that I just had to try it.

Yesterday, Lon and I took advantage of the perfect weather to drive up north and once again hike Mt. Chocorua. It's not an exceptionally tall mountain, but it's a great hike and has excellent 360 degree views from the bald top. It's also extremely picturesque due to the lake sitting down in front of it that you must cross on the way to the trailhead. We went last went up Chocorua in April as one of our intro hikes when there was still snow and ice on the trail. I was looking forward to getting up to the top of this mountain again as well as seeing what sort of difference a season of hiking would make.

Last April, we were nearly defeated by a giant ice sheet on the back of Cannon. Our lack of traction aids on ice meant a long, difficult slog up the mountain with a real chance of injury. This winter it's all going to change. I now have 10 point crampons for my boots. I'll be the one speeding up the mountain grinding through the ice while everyone else toughs it out grabbing onto trees to prevent sliding away. But this is only the start. I'll also be getting an ice axe and lots of warm clothes. I won't have to take the winter off, because I'll have the gear to get to where I want to go.

Consider yourself on notice, winter. I'm not backing down from the challenge this year. And if you push me, I might just spring for the showshoes and cross country skis, too.

Today, I finally climbed Mt. Washington with my friend Lon. It was an amazing experience, and full of strange contradictions that I'm still sorting out in my head. It was perhaps the most difficult hike I have done this year. While the Franconia Ridge hike might have matched it for elevation gain, the Mt. Washington hike took a few fewer miles and was therefore much more steep.

For a change, I'm not going hiking this weekend. Earlier in the week, I was thinking about going up Washington and Monroe. I was probably going to have to solo it too since my usual hiking partners are out of town. Well, on Wednesday or Thursday I started to get sick and today I've got all sorts of symptoms. I figure it's not a wise plan to solo the tallest mountain in the northeast in the middle of a cold front (isn't that always?) when I'm weakened and ill. Even if I could do it, I wouldn't enjoy it much. So hopefully next weekend will be better. It's been about a month now since the last hike, and there's not too much time left before winter sets in up in the mountains.

Since it was over 90 degrees and really humid yesterday, we decided it would be the perfect day to hike up two more 4000' peaks - Mts. Flume and Liberty. I went with a couple guys from work (Lon and Jeff) and some friends of theirs (Steve, Ruth, Christina). The route we chose started out at a visitors' center, followed a bike path for a while, broke off that on the Liberty Springs trail, then headed up the Flume Slide trail to the top of Mt. Flume. Then we walked up the Franconia Ridge trail over to Mt. Liberty where we picked up the Liberty Springs trail again and walked back to the car. Overall, a 10 mile hike with over 3000' of total elevation gain. We reached the visitors center just after 9:30 and were on the trail before 10.

Now, the Flume Slide trail is a little bit notorious for being extremely difficult. It's simply a marked path straight up the side of Mt. Flume on a rock slide involving about 1800' of elevation change over 0.7 miles. Basically, you have to haul yourself up the rocks with your hands and be careful to not fall, as it's a long way down. It was a very hot and humid day, and we were already tired and sweating by the bottom of the slide. So it was a rough 0.7 miles. I think it took me about 90 minutes to make it up including a couple times I got lost when the trail turned to the side and I kept going straight. I can hardly believe that thing passes for a trail and that I was able to make it up.

Flume had some fantastic views of Franconia Notch and all the other mountains in the area. It's only really exposed on the top. It's also a very long and steep way down if you were to fall. Anyway after we stopped on top of Flume for a little bit for some lunch, it was time to head across the saddle over to Liberty. You can't go back down the Flume Slide as it's entirely too risky, so the only way off the mountain is over another one. I was hoping the ridge trail across would be exposed but no such luck. We dropped back down into the trees quickly and were soon enough headed back up.

Liberty is a little taller than Flume but we had about 500' of elevation to climb because of the little descent earlier. By the time we started climbing up it, I wasn't in a great mood because I'd run out of water and my feet were killing me from all the granite rocks on the trail. Liberty was a decently easy summit - way easier than Flume Slide, though most anything would be. We only hung out there long enough for some pictures and to rest up for the descent. The views were spectacular despite the haze. Looking back at Flume was especially impressive.

The trail back down was mostly rocks so it was rough on my feet and knees. By the time we were back to the road, we were all burning up so diving into the icy cold river was a great idea. It was ridiculously cold but totally worth it. We were back at the cars by 6 and after some quick changing, rolling out by 6:30. Dinner was at the excellent Common Man restaurant in Ashland which had great free cheese but also a staircase.

Needless to say, I was tired and beat up when I got back home last night. Otherwise, I would have written about this trip then. It was quite possibly the most difficult hike I've ever done both because of the ridiculous steepness of the slide trail and the oppressive heat. I think it'd probably be easier in the spring or fall, but I don't think I care to find out any time soon. I'm glad I did it but not itching to go back.