You Are Here: August 2014

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Pemi Loop (attempt)

Realistically going into this day, I knew the outcome would be a longshot. My heart was 150% ready. My body, I wasn't so sure. Nerves had set in as I made my way to the Penguin Club in Lincoln to meet my teammates. Once there, I realized I had forgotten my hiking pants. What? Who does that? Thank goodness for my rational friend Karen who jumped into gear and helped me through this potential crisis. Of course it was close to 8pm, most stores had or were near to closing, but we jumped into the car hoping that something would still be open. We passed a tiny little store that claimed to have hiking gear so we stopped. Amongst some very weird paraphernalia, they had 1 pair of hiking pants that would fit. I bought them and we made our way back to base and settled in for the night. I'm not sure how much sleep I got, a 3am wake up call is early. Adrenaline had kicked in when the time came, I got up, geared up and Robin, Patty and I headed out for Lincoln Woods Visitor Centre. It was a weird feeling setting out for a potentially 32 mile hike and knowing we would eventually be back at this same spot.. wondering what the day would entail, how far we would actually get.. the goal had been to start hiking by 4am. After much thought and back and forth, we had decided to head up the Osseo Trail and tackle most of the peaks in the first half of the hike.. I had never been over to the Bonds or the Twins, but knew that Flume had quite a few "stairs" or "ladders" and my concern had been if we did that last.. it would be dark, we would be exhausted.. I also knew the last several miles going in this direction would be down off the Bonds and onto the Lincoln Woods Trail which is relatively flat once on it.. in theory it was a good idea. In reality, I'm not so sure. Robin and Patty are IronWomen, they are incredibly fit. Me, not so much. I felt great heading up towards Flume, although my 2nd hitch of the trip came about as I turned to take pictures of the rising sun. I had gone out and purchased a little Kodak Coolpix camera that I could carry in my hand and not have to worry about wasting phone battery. However, what I didn't discover when testing it out at home beforehand was that the storage was not built in. I did not bring an SD card with me, thus I was not able to take pictures.. which probably turned out fine in the end since it wasn't long before everything started going downhill, and pictures were the least of my concern. We made it to the Flume summit, it was cloudy. We quickly grabbed a picture or two and headed for Liberty. At this point, I cannot really remember too much more of the hike. I know we hiked over Liberty, Little Haystack, Lincoln and Lafayette. I vaguely remember Lafayette as the clouds finally started to clear, we stopped for a more substantial food break and there were quite a lot of people on the summit. Beyond that, I don't remember a whole lot. I had been very, very concerned about running out of water. I didn't drink enough as the day progressed. My diagnosis was I was dehydrated. There really is no reason, at this point in the day that I should have been fatigued and as mentally exhausted as I was. It spiraled quickly. I remember seeing the minutes tick away, I kept trying to do calculations in my head about how much further and how long it would all take. It all got the best of me. I felt incredibly guilty that I was botching Robin and Patty's attempt at this amazing feat as well. We passed all the other groups from acidotic RACING that were out on the loop, everyone was very encouraging, but I could see in their faces they knew our attempt was becoming more than we (or really me) would be up for. I cannot thank Robin and Patty enough for their patience and sticking by me as I sunk deeper and deeper into despair that the day wasn't going to go as planned. They assured me they were OK with whatever happened and had no intention of leaving me behind. As we were descending Lafayette we bumped into Chad Denning. I had met him several times when cheering on Tim at his WinterWild series. He was camping with his family at the Garfield Campsite for several days and they were doing day hikes from there. This was to be a bittersweet moment in time. He had been incredibly helpful in offering tips and advice for bail out trails and options once down.. even offering his car which was parked on the other side of the Range than ours so if we needed to bail at that point we could drive to our vehicle. I'm writing this well after the day and it is with great sadness that just a week after crossing paths with Chad and his family on Lafayette, he was hiking on Mt Moosilauke and unexpectedly passed away. Learning this news after the way my day went humbled me. It was OK. I was alive and had experienced an absolutely incredible day. I could always go back and try again. We did end up bailing just after Mt Garfield on the Thirteen Falls trail. Our day still ended up being just over 26 miles. Just made "easier" by descending the final 8 or so, rather than climbing up and over 3 more mountains. I'm sad that I don't remember more than I do. I let my emotions get the best of me that day. So until next time Pemigewasset Wilderness..

Strava Activity - Part 1

Strava Activity - Part 2 (+ another 10 or so miles after my watch died)

The following pictures are courtesy of my friend Robin. Thankfully she took a couple of shots to remember the day by since I didn't!

my saints Patty & Robin

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Mt Shaw, Black Snout & Tate Mountain

With only 2 days left until my big Summer adventure, I was feeling invincible. My friend Robin and I went on a hike in the Lakes Region Conservation Trust as a final "taper".. in retrospect, I'm not sure 10 miles was a great idea, even though I'm feeling great now. We shall see in a couple of days whether this was a good idea or not. Anyway, today was another gorgeous day (I feel like I use that adjective way too much, note to self think of another way to describe nature's beauty). As you may have figured out, I like to take on the challenge of completing any sort of list check. The Lakes Region Conservation Trust has a patch for completing all 5 peaks and 19 trails (30 miles total). Having already visited Mt Roberts and Bald Knob, we headed for Mt Shaw, the tallest peak in the range. The LRCT keeps the trails in impeccable shape. I always think of it as a forest highway system. The signs even remind me of road signs! I love it over there. We reached Mt Shaw and had our morning snack. There was 1 other gentleman up there enjoying the views also. We then headed on down for Black Snout. Now our adventure really started. There are trails off the LRCT official map that were created by the "Trail Bandit".. they are marked on a separate map and lightly maintained but are way different in condition than the official LRCT trails. We took the Banana Trail from near the Black Snout summit.. which if you weren't looking carefully, you wouldn't even notice, except for a small cairn marking the trail entrance. It was steep, it was technical, it was a lot of fun! We made our way over to Tate Mountain (sometimes called Big Ball) and enjoyed looking back up to where we had come. After looking at the map for a while, we attempted to make our way over to Little Ball.. but ended up off the trail and while not lost, we decided to not continue onwards as we didn't want to actually end up lost.. and knowing we had a couple of huge days ahead of us, we didn't want to end up having to hike more miles than our legs could handle right now. So we made our way back to Tate Mountain and down the Tate Mountain Trail to the Mt Shaw Trail and Robin's car, which she had spotted earlier that morning before meeting up. I think I'm ready to tackle the Pemi Wilderness now.

Strava Activity

Mt Shaw summit

Black Snout summit

entrance to the Banana Trail

looking back at Shaw and Black Snout from Tate Mountain

Tate Mountain summit

views along the Banana Trail

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Arethusa Falls

I've driven past the turn for the Arethusa Falls hike so many times and always wanted to bring the boys to check it out. I'd read it is a great family hike, and we've never really hiked just to see a waterfall before. Bonus, it is the largest single drop waterfall in New Hampshire. The hike begins by crossing a train track which had the boys excited! The hike itself was actually more strenuous than I had anticipated, but it was a great day. We took the Bemis Brook loop on the way out and enjoyed exploring all the cascades along the way. As you can imagine on a nice Summer's day it was fairly busy at the falls and along the trail. The boys loved standing at the bottom of the falls and feeling the spray. A wonderful alternative to climbing a mountain.

Strava Activity