The Tripyramids, January 1, 2021

1. 

 I hiked only with my sweet dog and constant companion, Chuck or Cole.  He has been on every hike with me and he loves it!  This hike was a birthday gift to myself and after hiking for a while, I realized I had started accidentally at the moment of my birth, 10:46 am.  Weird synchronicity. I parked right on the side of the Kanc. The whole hike I listened to The Henna Artist, so it was like a Bollywood movie in my head.  The hike was beautiful.  There was snow, but not enough to smooth out the rocks. There I switched to spikes, I was able to bare boot it before that, but once in my spikes, I wore them the whole time until I was back at the truck.   The ridge trail had more snow, but the rocky hike section up was harder. On my way back to North Tripyramid, I dropped a mitten so I had to go back to find it.  I wear gloves with mittens on top so a mitten can come off without me feeling it and this has been happening often.  Frustrating!   After the rocky section down, I slowed way down as it was so beautiful!  Why did I want to rush to the finish? It was dark and I was wearing my headlamp.  Some small river crossings but really only one challenging section on this hike.  If there was more snow, this might have been sleddable, but also lots of flat at the bottom. I finished about 6:00.  What a wonderful day.  I always enjoy hiking with just chuckles and listening to a good book.  It is my knee-jerk reaction to invite someone to hike with me, it is safer, but then there is dealing with when they want to start, if they forget anything, their slower or faster speeds, their moods and aches and pains and stops to adjust etc. I live alone, I like being alone too.  The right company is good too. I am sounding like an old curmudgeon.  lol

Mount Adams & Mount Madison, #39 and #40!

 Sunday, February 28, 2021

The weather for this entire weekend looked awful until late Saturday night.  Suddenly there seemed to be a low wind, good temp window to hike the northern presidentials.  Marlene and I firmed up the plans at 6:30 am and I never got ready so quickly!   I met her at the Appalachia parking lot at 9:05 and we were off around 9:20 or so.  The parking lot was icy and pretty full.  We took Airline up to Adams and we summited at 12:40.  Just a bit of wind on the peak but visibility was pretty good,although grey.  The windblown hardpack was difficult to stick my poles in, but the Kahtoola microspikes were fine. The dogs did well too.

We went down to Madison Spring hut and then up to Madison by about 1:40, where we ran into DEL and took more pics.  The wind was picking up. We were happy to get back down below tree line.  Did a bit of sledding down Valley Way.  At first it was too much sidehill to sled.  A branch grabbed my hat and it was a few feet down the sidehill. I stepped over to get it and sunk up to my waist.  I had a hard time getting back up to the trail and I could see many places along this trail where others had done the same thing.  At one point I hit a hard ice ball right on my tailbone and then sledding hurt too much from then on.  Ended up hiking most of the way down.  Arrived back at the trailhead at about 3:40. Less than 6.5 hours and we spent lots of time chatting with people, taking pics and having some food/drink.  We saw at least 4 people in separate groups that we had seen on Isolation 2 weeks ago.  Small world.  And it is always so much fun to talk to other hikers, let our dogs meet, etc.

Two more killer hikes to finish, hopefully before March 21:  The Carters and Wildats, and then the Bonds. And I think I will have to hike them alone.  That takes even more motivation for me.

Mount Liberty and Mount Flume January 10, 2021

 I only waited a few days to get back up to the beautiful Franconia Ridge.  This time Torre and Dan accompanied me up and down the Liberty Springs Trail.  I must admit I accidentally 😉 underestimated the distance when I advertised the hike to them.  It was a steep and rocky hike up to Liberty and I had to fight hard to get them to do Flume as well.  But the best sledding was between the two peaks, especially coming down off of Flume.  There was some sledding down from the ridge but unfortunately, there were too many rocks showing to make it really spectacular. I would imagine sledding down when it is fully snow-covered but be unreal!  Dan came without a pack but at least he remembered his spikes!  We had to feed and water him.  As usual, I brought my bacon and cheesy eggs and water and hot herbal tea.  I rarely finish it all until I am on the ride home but Dan helped me.  

The views made it all worthwhile.  Incredible views. It was a clear day and we could see forever. I am curious about the Flume Slide trail but so many warnings against it and we have no crampons so I will have to remain curious.

Torre ran ahead of us to start the cars as we were about a mile from the end.  This ended well but was a bad idea.  There was no service and Doggo ran between us.  Torre had all the keys, what if he had gotten lost?  Lesson learned, safely.  I would have liked to run with Torre but Dan did not want to run so again, I was a nice hiking partner.  Is this just a female trait of mine, learned after years of subservience?  I will have to think about this. It is never wrong to be kind however, and no one should be alone on a trail unless they choose to be.