Neil
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- Apr 26, 2004
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It was a strangely warm and humid morning that saw me walk up the road along the golf club in St Huberts. All of the peaks were shrouded in dense cloud cover, with the exception of Mount Snow. In spite of a forecast for horrendous weather conditions I was on my way to Dial and Nippletop but only wore a base layer shirt and summer pants. Earlier on, I sat by the warm fire sipping hot coffee in Tom’s living room in Keene and as it grew light I watched the birch trees whipping back and forth in the wind.
But first, before delivering the meat of the trip report allow me to precede it with a peripheral anecdote of what happened at the gate. I put it in italics so it is easy for you to skip over it.
Even though there wasn’t a soul around (except 2 guys from Saranac Lake and Connecticut who were on their way to do Sawteeth) to my surprise the gate house was manned.As I began signing out a burly gentleman with a rather large and magnificent red nose, surely acquired from years of dedication, swaggered out of the cabin to greet me. He did not appear to be friendly but rather, he seemed to exude an air of being indisposed by my intrusion on his bucolic solitude.
Ignoring his attitude (which could have been simple mis-interpretation on my part in any case) I greeted him cheerily and offered that the weather was not so bad after all. He responded with a grunt and read my entry in the book. Then he eye-balled me sneeringly before accusing me of being “that Neil guy from Canaday who runs the forum”.
He said sneeringly, “Looks like no point in goin’ hiking today cuz your forum is busted. Aint no one to read your silly little trip report.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem sir” I offered as a rejoinder in a chipper tone of voice, “I can post my report on several other forums, in fact I am also involved with ADKForum, which has an even wider readership than the one that’s down. It looks like it’s going to be a long and quiet day for you sir, do you enjoy doing crossword puzzles?”
Then he turned a deep shade of red and as he was coughing up something from deep within his damaged lungs I surreptitiously barked like a dog. I do a very convincing dog imitation and he was clearly fooled.
“You got a dog in there?” He asked accusingly, pointing to my pack.
“No,no,no, I don’t have dogs with me, nor shall I bushwhack, ride a bike or discharge a firearm”. I was walking quickly backwards up the road and smacking the side of my pack while muttering, “down boy”. Much to my surprise he turned around and shaking his head went back inside the little cabin and quietly closed the door. And that, as they say, was that.
With great purpose and a youthful spring in my step I strode quickly up the road to the beginning of the Leach Trail. (Later on in the day I would walk back down the road with a great deal less spring and no youthfulness at all).
I chose to do Dial-Nippletop for a few reasons. The first was due to the forecast of 90% chance of rain accompanied by 50 mph wind gusts (at 2000 feet elevation) preceded by 2 inches of sleet and freezing rain. Second, because the climb to Dial entails more total elevation gain than Marcy from the Loj and thirdly because I hoped the well-covered Leach trail would protect me from those 50 mph wind gusts. Moreover, knowing the coniferous trees would be fully saturated with freezing cold water I eschewed my original plan to bushwhack Round and Noonmark and looked for a popular trail that would be nice and wide.
The climb from the road to Noonmark’s shoulder entails 1300 feet of stiff climbing followed by another 200 foot climb through the burn where the trail was a flooded mess yesterday. Ice, water, mud and big stones made for slow methodical walking. Any attempts on my part to put a youthful spring into my step resulted in slipping, staggering and stepping into 4 inch puddles. Up on the shoulder of Noonmark it was now raining (and as it turned out, it rained all day long) so I stopped and put my rain gear over top of my damp clothing. Surprisingly, there was no wind. There was none on Bear Den either. The Noonmark Bear Den col was a watery mess and I even lost the trail for a moment before the 500 foot climb. The trail had plenty of thick, hard slabs of ice and was a lot steeper than I remembered. In fact, I think it was the steepest climb of the day. Beautiful woods in the Bear Den Dial col but alas I saw no bears or dens of bears. The 800 foot climb up Dial felt fairly easy thanks to the more gentle pitch. It was here on Dial that wind was to be found. The higher I climbed, the wilder it got and on the summit it was positively furious. Trees were whipping to and fro and even though they weren’t very big ones I still felt vulnerable. I also thought about the damage to their roots caused by such violent whipping about.
I didn’t linger and as soon as I was 200 feet lower in the next col it was much calmer. The trail had about 2 inches of snow and ice (recently) shed from the trees and the trees were saturated with water. As I climbed towards Nippletop the lansdscape underwent a series of changes until all of the trees were coated in white ice and underfoot, a quarter inch of verglas covered 2 inches of powder snow. The wind moaned and hissed but I myself was well protected by the trees. The 2 miles took exactly one hour and 5 minutes to cover but it felt a lot longer than that. I spent one second on the summit and turned around.
I had been debating my return route all day and being a sucker for punishment opted to go back over Dial. It took me the same amount of time to get back to Dial in spite of the 600 feet of elly loss. The re-climb of Dial, short as it is, made my legs feel like lead. The drop to the col was a piece of cake and took 20 minutes as did the climb up to Bear Den’s summit. The next drop, a lot shorter than the one from Dial was also 20 minutes but was quite slow and meticulous due to the thick plates of ice. Yet another 20 put me on top of the shoulder. The walk down to the road was a quad shredder. From the road to Nippletop and back took me 7 hours, which I thought wasn’t too bad considering. The walk to the car was a slow but purposeful trudge.
After this tuning hike I now feel ready for the winter season.
But first, before delivering the meat of the trip report allow me to precede it with a peripheral anecdote of what happened at the gate. I put it in italics so it is easy for you to skip over it.
Even though there wasn’t a soul around (except 2 guys from Saranac Lake and Connecticut who were on their way to do Sawteeth) to my surprise the gate house was manned.As I began signing out a burly gentleman with a rather large and magnificent red nose, surely acquired from years of dedication, swaggered out of the cabin to greet me. He did not appear to be friendly but rather, he seemed to exude an air of being indisposed by my intrusion on his bucolic solitude.
Ignoring his attitude (which could have been simple mis-interpretation on my part in any case) I greeted him cheerily and offered that the weather was not so bad after all. He responded with a grunt and read my entry in the book. Then he eye-balled me sneeringly before accusing me of being “that Neil guy from Canaday who runs the forum”.
He said sneeringly, “Looks like no point in goin’ hiking today cuz your forum is busted. Aint no one to read your silly little trip report.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem sir” I offered as a rejoinder in a chipper tone of voice, “I can post my report on several other forums, in fact I am also involved with ADKForum, which has an even wider readership than the one that’s down. It looks like it’s going to be a long and quiet day for you sir, do you enjoy doing crossword puzzles?”
Then he turned a deep shade of red and as he was coughing up something from deep within his damaged lungs I surreptitiously barked like a dog. I do a very convincing dog imitation and he was clearly fooled.
“You got a dog in there?” He asked accusingly, pointing to my pack.
“No,no,no, I don’t have dogs with me, nor shall I bushwhack, ride a bike or discharge a firearm”. I was walking quickly backwards up the road and smacking the side of my pack while muttering, “down boy”. Much to my surprise he turned around and shaking his head went back inside the little cabin and quietly closed the door. And that, as they say, was that.
With great purpose and a youthful spring in my step I strode quickly up the road to the beginning of the Leach Trail. (Later on in the day I would walk back down the road with a great deal less spring and no youthfulness at all).
I chose to do Dial-Nippletop for a few reasons. The first was due to the forecast of 90% chance of rain accompanied by 50 mph wind gusts (at 2000 feet elevation) preceded by 2 inches of sleet and freezing rain. Second, because the climb to Dial entails more total elevation gain than Marcy from the Loj and thirdly because I hoped the well-covered Leach trail would protect me from those 50 mph wind gusts. Moreover, knowing the coniferous trees would be fully saturated with freezing cold water I eschewed my original plan to bushwhack Round and Noonmark and looked for a popular trail that would be nice and wide.
The climb from the road to Noonmark’s shoulder entails 1300 feet of stiff climbing followed by another 200 foot climb through the burn where the trail was a flooded mess yesterday. Ice, water, mud and big stones made for slow methodical walking. Any attempts on my part to put a youthful spring into my step resulted in slipping, staggering and stepping into 4 inch puddles. Up on the shoulder of Noonmark it was now raining (and as it turned out, it rained all day long) so I stopped and put my rain gear over top of my damp clothing. Surprisingly, there was no wind. There was none on Bear Den either. The Noonmark Bear Den col was a watery mess and I even lost the trail for a moment before the 500 foot climb. The trail had plenty of thick, hard slabs of ice and was a lot steeper than I remembered. In fact, I think it was the steepest climb of the day. Beautiful woods in the Bear Den Dial col but alas I saw no bears or dens of bears. The 800 foot climb up Dial felt fairly easy thanks to the more gentle pitch. It was here on Dial that wind was to be found. The higher I climbed, the wilder it got and on the summit it was positively furious. Trees were whipping to and fro and even though they weren’t very big ones I still felt vulnerable. I also thought about the damage to their roots caused by such violent whipping about.
I didn’t linger and as soon as I was 200 feet lower in the next col it was much calmer. The trail had about 2 inches of snow and ice (recently) shed from the trees and the trees were saturated with water. As I climbed towards Nippletop the lansdscape underwent a series of changes until all of the trees were coated in white ice and underfoot, a quarter inch of verglas covered 2 inches of powder snow. The wind moaned and hissed but I myself was well protected by the trees. The 2 miles took exactly one hour and 5 minutes to cover but it felt a lot longer than that. I spent one second on the summit and turned around.
I had been debating my return route all day and being a sucker for punishment opted to go back over Dial. It took me the same amount of time to get back to Dial in spite of the 600 feet of elly loss. The re-climb of Dial, short as it is, made my legs feel like lead. The drop to the col was a piece of cake and took 20 minutes as did the climb up to Bear Den’s summit. The next drop, a lot shorter than the one from Dial was also 20 minutes but was quite slow and meticulous due to the thick plates of ice. Yet another 20 put me on top of the shoulder. The walk down to the road was a quad shredder. From the road to Nippletop and back took me 7 hours, which I thought wasn’t too bad considering. The walk to the car was a slow but purposeful trudge.
After this tuning hike I now feel ready for the winter season.
