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Friday, May 23, 2014

Eastern Belknap Loop

Talk had started amongst some acidotic RACING teammates about doing a Pemi Loop in the Summer. This is a roughly 30+/- mile loop in the Pemigewasset Wilderness. I wanted to do it. But as you can see from my ramblings, I haven't tackled anything even remotely close to that mileage or what would be the elevation gain. So, Spring 2014 is my training ground in the hopes that this dream can become a reality. I coerced Tim into a 10-ish mile hike in the Belknap Range. The Belknap Range Trail traverses the entire ridge from Rowe to Major covering roughly 17 miles. I didn't think I was quite up for that yet, so I researched and discovered a loop over the eastern peaks that would cover roughly 10-11 miles. I felt this was doable. I made plans, I pored over maps, I read every detail I could get my hands on trail reports/descriptions etc. I did everything I could to prepare myself for what would be my longest hike to date. I'm surrounded by a lot of incredible athletes, that do this type of thing in their sleep. It's a big deal for me to undertake these hikes. I'm proud of myself for even making it this far (hence the creation of this blog to remember these moments). The only thing I couldn't control was the weather. *sigh*. Mother Nature wasn't happy today. As Tim had taken the day off work, I felt we should give it a go all the same. We ascended the Brook Trail to the turnoff for Straightback, then took the Quarry Spur trail. I wasn't quite sure where the actual Straightback (North) summit was, I just guessed based on mileage I had read. Tim is super speedy and would go ahead and wait for me at each summit.. I lost trail between Rand and Klem and ended up bushwhacking while panic-yelling (it's a thing) for Tim. He eventually realized I wasn't behind him and came looking for me/heard me yelling and we reconnected. (This sounds dramatic, which is how it felt as my first time ever "off trail".. reality is it was probably 10 minutes total). Thankfully most of the peaks don't really have views anyway, so I felt like we weren't missing too much. By Straightback South we could barely see in front of us due to low cloud and fog. We made it to Major and had planned on descending the Mt Major trail, but being tired and it being wet, I didn't want to risk falling on the steep rock section so we added an extra mile by descending the Brook Trail. The rain and wet conditions slowed us down, and by the end we were soaked, I had extremely sore feet and blisters.. but we did it.

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