p2piper
New member
STATS:
Time: 6.5 hours
Weather: Cloudy, light snow – 30’s below and 20’s at the top
Miles: 6.8
Steps: 19,077
Trails: Lowe’s Path
Two days after a substantial spring storm dumped close to a foot of snow in the Whites, we decided that our best chance for bagging our 50th peak would be to tackle Mt Adams. Leaving Keene at 5am, the drive up was like many other drives – full of great conversation and its share of comfortable silence. We arrived at Lowe’s Store a little after 8am. I went in to see if it was ok to park and the woman who owned the place told me the fee was $1. One dollar? That works.
We packed up, put Dejah on her leash and walked down Route 2 to the trailhead. With relief we noted that someone had already broken trail but also knew this was going to be another snowshoe hike. We hit the trail at 8:30am. The skies were grey, although trying to break up, very little wind, and light snow pellets in the air. The path ascended toward the ridge at a moderate pace. Despite the gentle ascent, I became warm very quickly and gloves and soft shell came off. The snow was a little gooey and with every degree of warmth became even gooier. Our pace was slow – although I wasn’t in pain, I didn’t feel my usual sense of fitness as we climbed. It was harder and I realized how easy it was to let my mind make my body believe it was fat and out of shape. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere so I let it go and just kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Finally we arrived at a point in the trail where it started climbing for real – it felt like it went from moderate to steep from one step to the next. The pitch we had to climb didn’t have any tree trunks or roots close to the trail to help pull us up. I took out the poles and we each took one. I had to point my toes sharply in order to get the crampon of my snowshoe into the snow well enough to get purchase to keep moving upward. That little pitch definitely got the heart pumping and I kept going thinking it was just an anomaly. But no – it wasn’t an anomaly; it was the rule for the rest of the climb. Steep, steep, steep.
My calves started to scream and cramp so I put up my televators – little metal bars on the back of my snowshoes that raise up and thus raise my heel so that my calves aren’t taking the brunt of every steep pitch. My calves immediately felt better – unfortunately, Nancy’s snowshoes didn’t have them and her calves were definitely hurting. After the muscle soreness that I felt after our successful climb up Mt Madison via the Watson Path, I decided to put those televators up and they made a huge difference.
The snow was deeper and more powdery as we climbed. The temperatures started to gradually drift down into the 20’s and as we climbed higher we could tell we were actually inside a cloud. Everything ahead and to our sides was misted with fog. The snow was augmented by rime frost – it looked amazingly beautiful, like mid-winter, not mid-spring. We arrived at the Randolph Mountain Club cabin, checked it out, took some pictures. No one was around although it was obvious the place had been used last night and that day. Onward and upward we went. We arrived at Gray Knob and the tree line at 11:50 am. The folks who had been breaking trail veered off toward the Gray Knob Camp and we kept on the Lowe’s Path, hoping visibility was not as bad as we feared.
The wind was as light as we had experienced in our visits to the Northern Presis, but the clouds made visibility very limited. I could see maybe 100 feet ahead, and we were able to make it to the first cairn, but after that there was no way to see where the trail went. We tried a couple of options but came up empty and reluctantly decided to tackle Adams on another day. Besides, I really wanted to be able to see something if I was going to slug another 1.5 miles up this rock pile. All I could see now was the landscape covered in rime ice and although stunning was not particularly inviting. As we descended to the trees, we met the three men who had been breaking trail. Their leader had a GPS and was going to take a reading, knowing that Lowe’s Path is basically a straight shot to the summit. I felt disappointed but also knew even more firmly and clearly that descending was the smartest thing to do. With a huge Nor’Easter bearing down on New England, I didn’t want to take any kind of risk of having to stay up here because I got lost or we got separated. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. We turned around at 12:15 pm.
So down we went – once in the shelter of the trees, we put on hard shells and our rain pants in preparation for butt glissading our way down the steep sections. Oh my but we had fun. There was one section that was really long and the dips and curves were perfectly banked. We hooted and hollered all the way down. We met several folks on the way – two young men going up to possibly stay the night in a sag somewhere up in the rocks – one had a mess of flag poles to mark the trail so they could get out of there. A group of young people from the UVM outing club met us on the trail, all youth and beautiful smiles, heading up to the cabin for the night. By the time we were off the steep sections, our clothes and packs were soaked and weighed even more than they had when we started out. I felt the weight in my lower back and the hip belt wouldn’t stay tight to keep the pack on my hips and the pressure off my shoulders. Blah.
The temperatures moderated and the snow became softer and softer as we neared the trailhead. My hip flexors were very happy to take off those snowshoes and walk on the road with my boots. I was done. We all were. But we had done another huge climb and made the right decision. We were back at the trailhead by 2:50 pm. I think I enjoy the ride home as much as any part of our hiking days. Three hours of time with Nancy to debrief about the hike, talk about future hikes (Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in June, Baxter State Park to bag Hamlin and Brother in September, Burlington, VT in October), reminisce about all we have accomplished in less than a year. We still have time to bag that 50th peak before our year is up on May 6 – but it’s not about the number we have climbed, it’s about how we have changed.
Still 49 out of 67
Time: 6.5 hours
Weather: Cloudy, light snow – 30’s below and 20’s at the top
Miles: 6.8
Steps: 19,077
Trails: Lowe’s Path
Two days after a substantial spring storm dumped close to a foot of snow in the Whites, we decided that our best chance for bagging our 50th peak would be to tackle Mt Adams. Leaving Keene at 5am, the drive up was like many other drives – full of great conversation and its share of comfortable silence. We arrived at Lowe’s Store a little after 8am. I went in to see if it was ok to park and the woman who owned the place told me the fee was $1. One dollar? That works.
We packed up, put Dejah on her leash and walked down Route 2 to the trailhead. With relief we noted that someone had already broken trail but also knew this was going to be another snowshoe hike. We hit the trail at 8:30am. The skies were grey, although trying to break up, very little wind, and light snow pellets in the air. The path ascended toward the ridge at a moderate pace. Despite the gentle ascent, I became warm very quickly and gloves and soft shell came off. The snow was a little gooey and with every degree of warmth became even gooier. Our pace was slow – although I wasn’t in pain, I didn’t feel my usual sense of fitness as we climbed. It was harder and I realized how easy it was to let my mind make my body believe it was fat and out of shape. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to get me anywhere so I let it go and just kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Finally we arrived at a point in the trail where it started climbing for real – it felt like it went from moderate to steep from one step to the next. The pitch we had to climb didn’t have any tree trunks or roots close to the trail to help pull us up. I took out the poles and we each took one. I had to point my toes sharply in order to get the crampon of my snowshoe into the snow well enough to get purchase to keep moving upward. That little pitch definitely got the heart pumping and I kept going thinking it was just an anomaly. But no – it wasn’t an anomaly; it was the rule for the rest of the climb. Steep, steep, steep.
My calves started to scream and cramp so I put up my televators – little metal bars on the back of my snowshoes that raise up and thus raise my heel so that my calves aren’t taking the brunt of every steep pitch. My calves immediately felt better – unfortunately, Nancy’s snowshoes didn’t have them and her calves were definitely hurting. After the muscle soreness that I felt after our successful climb up Mt Madison via the Watson Path, I decided to put those televators up and they made a huge difference.
The snow was deeper and more powdery as we climbed. The temperatures started to gradually drift down into the 20’s and as we climbed higher we could tell we were actually inside a cloud. Everything ahead and to our sides was misted with fog. The snow was augmented by rime frost – it looked amazingly beautiful, like mid-winter, not mid-spring. We arrived at the Randolph Mountain Club cabin, checked it out, took some pictures. No one was around although it was obvious the place had been used last night and that day. Onward and upward we went. We arrived at Gray Knob and the tree line at 11:50 am. The folks who had been breaking trail veered off toward the Gray Knob Camp and we kept on the Lowe’s Path, hoping visibility was not as bad as we feared.
The wind was as light as we had experienced in our visits to the Northern Presis, but the clouds made visibility very limited. I could see maybe 100 feet ahead, and we were able to make it to the first cairn, but after that there was no way to see where the trail went. We tried a couple of options but came up empty and reluctantly decided to tackle Adams on another day. Besides, I really wanted to be able to see something if I was going to slug another 1.5 miles up this rock pile. All I could see now was the landscape covered in rime ice and although stunning was not particularly inviting. As we descended to the trees, we met the three men who had been breaking trail. Their leader had a GPS and was going to take a reading, knowing that Lowe’s Path is basically a straight shot to the summit. I felt disappointed but also knew even more firmly and clearly that descending was the smartest thing to do. With a huge Nor’Easter bearing down on New England, I didn’t want to take any kind of risk of having to stay up here because I got lost or we got separated. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. We turned around at 12:15 pm.
So down we went – once in the shelter of the trees, we put on hard shells and our rain pants in preparation for butt glissading our way down the steep sections. Oh my but we had fun. There was one section that was really long and the dips and curves were perfectly banked. We hooted and hollered all the way down. We met several folks on the way – two young men going up to possibly stay the night in a sag somewhere up in the rocks – one had a mess of flag poles to mark the trail so they could get out of there. A group of young people from the UVM outing club met us on the trail, all youth and beautiful smiles, heading up to the cabin for the night. By the time we were off the steep sections, our clothes and packs were soaked and weighed even more than they had when we started out. I felt the weight in my lower back and the hip belt wouldn’t stay tight to keep the pack on my hips and the pressure off my shoulders. Blah.
The temperatures moderated and the snow became softer and softer as we neared the trailhead. My hip flexors were very happy to take off those snowshoes and walk on the road with my boots. I was done. We all were. But we had done another huge climb and made the right decision. We were back at the trailhead by 2:50 pm. I think I enjoy the ride home as much as any part of our hiking days. Three hours of time with Nancy to debrief about the hike, talk about future hikes (Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in June, Baxter State Park to bag Hamlin and Brother in September, Burlington, VT in October), reminisce about all we have accomplished in less than a year. We still have time to bag that 50th peak before our year is up on May 6 – but it’s not about the number we have climbed, it’s about how we have changed.
Still 49 out of 67
