White Moutains!

Hello all, I am back to blogging and working! My girlfriend Laura has been in for ten days or so, and accordingly, I've done nothing productive. We did take a very nice three day hiking trip to the white mountains, though.

We drove up Wednesday morning, and got to the trailhead in the Southern Presidentials by about 11 am. The original plan was to hike the Webster-Jackson trail to both Mt. Webster and Mt. Jackson, and then camp in a tentsite by the AMC Mitzpah Spring Hut. Our bodies wanted otherwise, though. I was unaware of exactly how out of shape I was, but that first day was a world of pain. First of all, we grossly overpacked with two sleeping bags and a tent that we never actually ended up using. Also, one of my backpacks main belt was broken, so we had to switch off the bag of extreme pain. Couple that with the fact that there was a downpour, and all of our stuff got wet (and cellphone ruined!), and it was quite unpleasant. By the time we got to the choice of whether to go to Mt. Webster or skip and and go straight to Jackson, it was a no brainer.



After a painful ascent of Mt. Jackson, we were only able to spend a minute or two on the bare summit. We rushed down, with Laura falling a few times in the mud because she was wearing the bad pack. About two hours later, we got to the hut. Now, we had originally planned to stay at the tentsite a few yards from the hut, instead of the hut itself which costs 85 bucks a person (!). But our stuff was wet. All of it. So we got there, confirmed how much it was, and began a dramatic act of putting on our packs and acting miserable and poor. Luckily it worked, and the volunteer took pity on us and somehow managed to charge us only 45 bucks for the two of us. When in doubt, act like a poor, wet student.

We got a hearty dinner, and the best night of sleep ever at the hut. The next day was easy comparably; we had done most of the elevation gain the day before. The first hour was grueling though, and culminated in the summit of Mt. Pierce, which offered beautiful views above the treeline. From there, it was an easy up and down to the foot of Mt. Eisenhower. Against the objections of my apparently more fit girlfriend, I decided we should skip the summit of Mt. Eisenhower. I will never hear the end of it.

From there, it was a none-too-bad hike to the elusive summit of Mt. Franklin. After about another hour, we lunched at the foot of Mt. Monroe. The jerky fortified me, and we decided to make the ascent. It's a double summit, and it wasn't so bad after lunch. Both offered spectacular views of Mt. Washington. On descending we were greeted by the Lake of the Clouds AMC hut, where we planned to stay the night (there's no camping above the treeline).

At the hut, we shared a room with a nice retired couple who couldn't stop talking about how great Colorado was. We decided the four of us would hike the next day together. On Friday, we dropped our packs and headed up with them to Mt. Washington, my old foe. The pack dropped was a huge weight off, and Mt. Washington was a surprisingly easy ascent. I took a picture on the summit for the second time, and we went back down to the hut. About 45 minutes later, it was time to get off the entire ridge and go home via the Ammonousuc trail, if you could at all call it one. Basically it was a bunch of rocks at an 100 degree angle to the horizontal. it was particularly treacherous with our huge packs, and pretty damn scary for the few hours it took to get to the bottom of the basin.

It was a fantastic trip all and all, but right now I am still in a bit of pain. I have resolved to get in shape. Starting tomorrow.

Let the Prelims studying begin.