Mt. Waumbek

We hiked the most northern peak today. Perry, Karen, Pete, and Myself started in the fog and mist and pretty much stayed in it until the return trip back down. Our lunch spot was nice though, as the sun came out and we ate the nice lunch that Karen had put together.

Radley only got into 1 fight, a dog probably 300% larger than him, whos owner said the dog "was not very social", that was correct as the dog lunged at Radley, but Radley pulled out his El Diablo persona and stood his ground. I had to scoop him up, so the other dog did not eat him. Everyone was ok.

There were not really any good views to speak of with the cloudiness that was in the area for the day. We did catch a glimpse of the presidentials to our south just coming out of the clouds. A good hike to start the fall (end of summer) off with.

Wildcat A and D Peaks (B and C too)

Perry, Pete, and I hiked the Wildcats. We went up Wildcat ski area. This was pretty fun since the footing was good with snowshoes and the views of Mt. Washington were great due to the clear conditions. Once we hit the summit of Wildcat "D" we took the Wildcat Ridge Trail over to Wildcat "A" crossing "C" and "B" in the process. The ridge trail had its ups and downs with constant branches hitting you in the face and body. The snow was probably 4-5 feet deep on the trail so we were up in the tree branches. There was a great view of Carter Dome from the top of "A". This was ans out and back hike, so once we summited the "A" peak we went back the way we came. Beautiful clear day. 9.4 miles in 6 hours.

Mt. Madison and Mt. Adams

Pete and I hiked Mt. Madison and Mt. Adams. Our original plan was just to hike Madison, but since the weather was cooperating we decided to add Adams as well. We started hiking from the Appalachia parking area about quarter past 8. The temperature was 10 degrees at the start, but it didn't take long for us to warm up on the trail. We took the Valley Way trail, which in the most commonly used trail in winter to access Mt. Madison. The trail is mostly protected until after the Madison Hut. It was a mostly uneventful hike up to the Madison Hut, however, a couple did pass us with about 1/2 mile to go until the hut. The thing that made these two a little strange was the fact that the guy was stripped down to his T-shirt, and the girl just had a sports bra. They did have ski pants on, but keep in mind that it was around 10 degrees out. I had 2 wicking layers on and two jackets and I was pretty comfortable, so I have no idea what they were thinking, but it was a good topic of conversation for awhile.

Once we got almost to the Madison hut we put on our crampons due to the ice. From the Madison hut to the summit of Madison was 1/2 mile. We hit that summit and ate some lunch behind some large rocks to get out of the wind. Then headed back to the Madison hut and on to the Star Lake trail towards Adams, which was 1 mile and 1,000 vertical feet away from the Madison hut. This section of trail was pretty tough, we walked over the frozen Star Lake and then the tail got really steep up to the summit of Adams. After reaching the summit of Adams, we headed back down by way of the Air Line trail, which was a more direct route back to the parking lot. We had to use our crampons almost the whole way down to the car. We were definitely beat after this one. Definitely the hardest hike in a while. 10 Miles, 5,000 vertical feet in 7.5 hours.


Madison and Adams hike 03-01-2009 from Peter Rhodes on Vimeo.

I had the song in the video below in my head the whole day. Not really the kind of "pump up" music I should have listened to before the hike, but pretty funny.

North and South Hancock

2-01-2009 Hancocks Hike from Peter Rhodes on Vimeo.

Hiked with Pete and Perry. There was light snow at the start of our hike and for probably the next hour or so and the skies were overcast for the entire day. Lots of snow was on the ground from previous storms this winter. However, the trail was well packed out, so it was actually pretty easy going. As long as we stayed in the trail we were all set, but get off the trail and the snow was waist deep. The one difficult part was the trail up to South Hancock, which was really steep and pretty consistent for about 0.5 miles. It was relatively chilly at 8 degrees at the car and I'm guessing it was about -10 to -15 at the summits. The only time I was actually cold was on the summit of North Hancock, but these peaks are not above treeline so we were protected from the wind for the most part. There were no views at all becasue of the clouds. 9.8 miles in 5 hour 55 minutes.

Mt. Flume and Mt. Liberty

Hiked Mt. Flume via the Flume slide trail then took Franconia Ridge trail to Mt. Liberty and down the Liberty Spring trail back to the Basin parking lot. Didn't bring the camera since I could not find it this morning. Probably a good thing since the Flume slide trail was pretty much nuts with all the ice on it along with the snow that was falling all day. Not really any views from the summits of either peak since they were in the clouds. Temps were definitely below freezing and wind in the exposed areas was probably blowing 20 to 30 mph. Took about 4:45 for the loop.

North and South Kinsman

First hike in quite a while. We decided to do the Kinsmans. It was a good hike to get back into it after not hiking since January. Nothing too eventful other than using the composting toilets at the Lonesome Lake Hut and trying out my new Camel Bak. North Kinsman didn't have much of a view, but South had a 360 view and the day was clear, so it was possible to see Franconia Ridge and Moosilauke from the summit, I'm sure other mountains were visible, but I don't know the geography all that well. A little over 11 miles in 5 hours 50 minutes.

Mt. Eisenhower and Mt. Monroe

Our original plan was to just hike Eisenhower today. We went up Crawford path to Mt. Pierce, this was very familiar from our previous hike last month, except this time the temps were much milder. Probably around 30 degrees higher today than the last time we hiked. The trail was pretty buffed out making it fast with consistent footing. It was actually much easier than during the summer where you need to look out for rocks and roots etc... We made it to the summit of Eisenhower and I made the pitch to Pete to continue on to Monroe, another 2 miles away. I figured since my knees weren't hurting yet, that I could make it the extra 4 miles, and since we were so close we might as well do it. Days this nice don't happen all the time in the winter.

Well, things always seems to look closer than they really are, and this was the case with Mt. Monroe. It was a long 4 miles to say the least and especially since I didn't have crampons and everything was covered in a layer of ice. Pete got to bust out his new crampons and I wished I had a pair. I did order some, so the next hike should be a little easier with them. We snapped the obligatory summit photos and made our way back down to the parking lot. We had to walk 2 miles on the snow mobile trail once we got to the base to get back to my car and I fell on the ice no less than 3 times, once I almost slide off the road and into the drainage ditch, luckily I found a bamboo walking stick that somebody left and used that to stop my slide. I think we figured it out to be a total 13.5 miles which we did in 7 hours and 15 mins.

Mt. Pierce and Jackson

It was pretty cold to start off, only 2 degrees in the parking lot. Pete and I decided not to bring our snowshoes since there was only 2-3 inches on new snow and under that the trail was relatively packed down. At least these were the conditions at the beginning of Crawford Path trail leading from the parking lot. We were the first hikers of the day on the trail, so we had fresh track. The snow got progressively deeper the higher we went. I would estimate in the deepest sections, snow was averaging about 1-2 feet with snowdrifts thigh deep. All in all we probably could have used our snowshoes for ½ hour out of the entire hike, so I think we made the right call in not bringing them.

It as pretty cold up on the summit of Pierce due to the wind. We had to take cover behind some trees and put on more clothes, but we were only in the wind for about 10 minutes before we were back in the comfort of the trees, I’m guessing the temp was around –10 degrees at this point. The sky was really clear with only a few clouds, so we were able to see the summit of Mt. Washington in the distance. From here we headed south to Mt. Jackson, passing the Mitzpuh hut along the way, where we ate some lunch. We saw one other hiker coming up the trail, so after we passed him we didn’t have to break trail anymore, which was good.

It wasn’t as cold on the top of Jackson, and from here we headed back down to Crawford Notch via the Webster-Jackson trail, this part of the trail was nice and back down by snowshoers. We ran into some more of those Gray Jays, so I had to feed them some of my chex mix. We made it back to the car and headed over to the lodge get warm and change out of our snowy clothes. 8.5 miles in 5 hours 23 minutes.

Mt. Willey, Field, and Tom

This was a really nice day. It was the first time in the snow for the year. There was about 6 inches of snow at the base and probably around 10 inches at the higher elevations, with some drifts a couple feet deep up on the ridge. Temps were in the low 20's.

Jim, Pete, and I dropped off the roadmaster at the train station so someone would be able to coast down to the car at the bottom of the notch when we finished the hike. The roadmaster is a girls huffy 24" mountain bike painted in a lustrous mauve color. Spotting the bike here would prevent us from having to walk the 2 miles back to the car on the road at the end of the hike, although someone would have to brave the decent on this beauty of a bicycle.

The ascent up to Willey was the steepest park of the whole loop, so it was good to start with this end of the loop. In spite of the cold temps we were definitely warm on the ascent thanks to the quick elevation gain. There was really no wind to speak of making the woods really quiet and peaceful.

We were making some good time over Mt. Willey and Mt. Field but then we took the wrong trail and ended up going down the Avalon Trail instead of staying on the Willey Range Trail, which would have taken us up to the trail leading the summit of Mt. Tom. Since we had dropped down so far and it was 0.9 miles back up to the trail junction we decided to drop down another 0.5 miles to the junction with the A-Z Trail. Once to the intersection of Avalon and A-Z, we started back up another 1.5 miles to the Mt. Tom summit. I came to do 3 4,000 footers and that’s what I was going to do. Although it would have been temping to just go the 1.3 miles back to the parking lot at this point and come back another day for Tom, I knew that I would have been disappointed in not getting the 3 peaks in that day.

There was a lot of pain involved in this section of the hike since both my knees started hurting on the way up to Tom. Once we got up the 1 mile to the Mt Tom spur we dropped our packs at the trail intersection so we didn't have to carry them the 0.5 miles to the summit of Tom. Mt. Tom has limited views but the sky was clear for the most part and I snapped some pictures. Mt. Washington was in the clouds. I was waving to Kyle but I don't think he saw me.

The decent was relatively uneventful; the typical thoughts of food and a warm car prevailed. I was happy that Pete, being the hiking super stud that he is, volunteered to run ahead of Jim and I to get the roadmaster (bike mentioned above) and ride the 2 miles down the notch to pick up the car. I wish I could have seen Pete pedaling that girls bike off down the highway, that would have been quite humorous. Evidently there were no major incidents on the decent to the car, other than breaking off the shifter due to the cable being rusted inside the housing. When Jim and I arrived at the parking lot at the base of the trail Pete was waiting for us with car.

It was a long day, at 6.5 hours, but very rewarding since this was only the second day of hiking 4,000 footers for this year. It was a good time except for the knee pain. The beer at the Woodstock brewery tasted especially good, that and the pile of cheese and bacon covered potato skins and buffalo chicken wings.