Saturday, May 28, 2016

Day Eight - NH

Friday, May 27

So I hear that Charleston is under a tropical storm warning for this weekend. Of course it is.

I have my album. We went to a McDonalds and I camped with their wifi and outlet until I had it downloaded and then uploaded onto my MP3 player. All is well in the world. And now I'm scarfing a Big Mac as I write this.

Last night featured howling coyotes (fun fact: the coyotes up here are actually a hybrid coyote-Canadian wolf), a wild windstorm that kept me awake, and then came the downpour. The raindrops sounded different, sharp and brittle, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some graupel included. The funny part is that in the morning, the site was dry. The wind blow-dried it for us. This is what we get for camping in the White Mountains!

(The bugs are also pretty bad. DEET, smoke, and sweating like a hog keep them mostly at bay.)

Today had one objective. We ate an MRE for breakfast and then headed out for Edmand's Path. It's a 2.9 trail to the traverse along the Presidential Range, rated as moderate and claimed to be dog-friendly and a gentle slope all the way up.

THIS IS A CHEATIN-BARNER LIE. It also scares me for harder trails, like, say, Mount Washington. There is no way I would take a dog, even one as trail-savvy and intelligent as Ruten, on that rock field. No freaking way.


We found the trailhead without issue, although I'd like to state that whoever complains about South Carolina's roads has clearly never driven in New Hampshire. Those poor cars. It started easily enough on a gentle dirt path over a bridge and some creeks, then got steeper and steeper. We did the first mile in 40 minutes, the three of us and the dog (a Australian Shepherd), the second mile in 1:30, and the third mile not much faster. At one point Aaron, who was in the lead, called back down, "Um, I think we have ice."

This was an understatement. It was actually a giant slab of leftover winter snow and ice, slowly melting. But it made a wonderful little stream and waterfall that I could refill at and Ruten could cool down at. This was the point where Alex and Ruten decided to camp out and wait for us, because it was getting rough on the dog and they were exhausted from a ten-mile hike yesterday. (Ruten actually fell asleep curled up between rocks.) So Aaron and I scrambled on, and I do mean scramble. It was almost as hard coming down as it was going up. But then we got higher and higher, and the horizon fell away, more ice appeared on the trail and alongside it, the trees thinned out, and we found the infamous above-the-tree-line, worst-weather-in-America sign.

To get to the rest of the saddle, we had to cross a rock field. There was no trail. If I hadn't been concentrating so hard on my footing, it would have been terrifying, because one loose rock or rolled ankle would likely mean tumbling hundreds of feet down a rock field. Then we were on dirt and lichen and moss again, in an alpine zone of only dirt and fragile plants. With 360 degrees of views. Mount Eisenhower was further up and only .4 miles off, but a LOT further UP, and we were... pretty much done. I had just run out of water, anyway. We met a thru-hiker doing the full traverse loop who said this was the best view in the range, so hey. 

This is one of the coolest places to me. You can walk along the ridge to every peak, including Mount Washington. It's part of the Appalachian Trail. It's a giant hotspot of geographic and meteorological nerdery.

Because it was almost 2pm, and clouds were beginning to build, we didn't spend too much time up there. We sat, posed, reflected, all the stuff you do when you're on top of the world and staring across the sky at the Mount Washington Observatory, and then it was back down before the muscle fatigue set in.

Down was really hard, too, but we moved a hell of a lot faster. Ruten, who is a herder, was ecstatic to have the rest of his sheep together. We refilled my water and I drank out of my Sawyer Squeeze for the rest of the descent. My knees and ankles are very not happy.

On the way up, our stepping from rock to rock reminded me of the Psalm about hinds' feet on high places. On the way down, we had two miles to go and my knee was already weakening, so I prayed about also getting hinds' legs. Around the next bend was a perfect walking stick. It was smooth at the edges, so someone else had already used it, but it supported my knees and got me down the mountain where I would have faceplanted a few times without it. I had already rolled my right ankle (the one of the high ankle sprain a few years ago) on a rock and smacked my head on a tree, so I'm grateful for the stick. (I never got the hinds' ankles, but I suppose you can't have it all.) Ruten loved that stick. Whenever I wasn't hiking it, he was gnawing it.

My blood sugar was running low by time we got to the car, despite my water and trail mix, but some Powerade and a Snickers from the car cooler fixed that. We are all pretty stiff but not crippled, and enjoyed a nice, calorie-heavy, salty dinner at McDonalds while I downloaded my album. Even Ruten got at least one chicken nugget.

And now we are mostly recovered, journalling and Aaron's alternately stomping around breaking sticks to use as kindling and playing his DS, and Alex and I are talking trails because we're just masochists. (We also talked horses, as we do.)

Tomorrow, we drive to Fort Kent, Maine. It's the very edge of US 1, as far as we can go without hitting Quebec (which would just be going home for Alex). AND WE HAVE HOTEL ROOMS. WE GET REAL SHOWERS. WE GET A REAL BED. First time in 4 days! We are getting raaaank, even with the baby wipes. It's sad, but I'm almost equally excited for interstate travel with actual, you know, road quality. Seriously. These potholes will throw out your axle. It's like Frogger.

Getting higher...

This is the trail.

Ice!

Delicious cold water! (After being treated.)

Higher...

More higher...

Winter never dies.


Pointing to our destination. Check out the 'trail.'

Aaron staring down the rock field.

The top of the traverse.


You can just keep walking.

Totally worth it.

2 comments:

  1. Fun Fact: When Dad and I camped in NH as a kid, we hiked to the top of Mt. Washington. It was a nice and sunny day, till we got caught in that hailstorm whilst we were above treeline...

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    1. When we came back from McDonalds, there was definitely a localized thunderstorm right over Mt. Washington. Were the hailstones big?

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