Day one in the Whites we were up pretty late – we had just over an hour of a drive to our motel from the trailhead, had to eat, settle in and surprisingly, none of us showered. Ha! True hiker fashion when you’ll be up in a few short hours. I had planned ahead and made the most delicious meal for myself, all I needed was a microwave: a baked potato with steamed broccoli and chickpeas smothered in a local “cheese” sauce that I had picked up at our Farmer’s Market. So good!
I woke up Monday morning feeling pretty good, tired but not sore, and I remember slapping on my glasses and asking, “so what are we hiking today?!” Paula had been up for a while and also wanted to hike, suggesting Mount Tecumseh, as the mileage was short and it’s the shortest of the 48 peaks. Sold!
Jeremy passed on the hike because he was sore, so he drove us to the trailhead and read a book. At the start, there was no snow on the ground, but within 15 minutes, flurries began to fall. The first mile in was fairly easy; barely any incline and felt like an easy walk in the woods. But I knew we only had 1.5 miles left and that it had to get steep to cover ground… and golly, did it get steep. I don’t know if it was because my legs were tired or the snow, but we were slow moving. Oh, and the steeper we got, the heavier the snow fell.
At one point the trail seemed so steep, I’d hike for .10 then take a 10 second break and continue like that until it evened out. Our final push to the summit was fast despite breaking trail in 3-6 inches of snow because the wind was fierce and I think we were both getting chilly. There was no view but we snapped our summit photographs and scrambled down to a section of the trail where the wind wasn’t too bad so that we could add an additional layer.
While changing, we ran into three what-looked-to-be college kids, one of which was in sneakers with bare ankles! I could only imagine her slippery descent (and freezing ankles) and put on my microspikes, thankful that I hadn’t removed them from my pack. Oh! There was a little lookout on the ski trails that we had skipped on the way up (focused on moving forward) but enjoyed on the way down. We were fast moving, packing down a trail for her, and before we knew it, we were on the last mile out. The closer we got to the parking lot, the less snow there was, with barely any in the lot! It was a great little hike and I was thankful that Paula wanted to climb that second day to take advantage of the trip up north.
4.89 miles | 3.5 hours | 16/48
*annnnnd I’m just realizing that all of my photographs have been showing up sideways/upside down on any other computer/device other than my own… don’t know why that is. Sorry about that! I’ll look into it… soon 🙂