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Hiking Mount Waumbek

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On Day 2 of our weekend in New Hampshire, we decided to hike a quick “little” mountain, Mount Waumbek at 4006 feet. Paula had already hiked it previously and said it was fairly easy and doable on tired legs. We took our time packing up at the motel and eating breakfast, and was at the trail head at 8:15AM. Again, it was a gloomy day but the humidity was gone which made the climb much easier. The trail looked to be an old carriage trail and soon we passed an old well. You could see the remnants of old pipes underneath our footing; Paula mentioned there being an old hotel or building on the top of Starr King. About twenty minutes in, Paula made the decision to wander back to the car. It was lightly drizzling, her legs were tired and she just didn’t feel like climbing this mountain again. I didn’t blame her. Off I went, knowing she’d start back out on the trail around noon if I hadn’t returned by then. No big deal I thought… until I did the math. This hike was a total of 7.2 miles and we started after 8AM. That meant I had to hike at least 2 miles an hour, on a wet trail with boots that have zero tread.Once I realized how fast I’d have to hike to make it back by noon, I mentally told myself to just keep moving. Typically I’d stop for 15-30 seconds to catch my breath every once in a while, but on this morning, I just slowed and focused on my breath. The scenery was beautiful despite there being no views; the fog made it seem like I was in the rain forest. The climb was pretty steady but nothing difficult / too slow me down. I eventually passed a fellow heading down and didn’t expect to see anyone else, until I did at the summit of Starr King.I met what I assumed to be a husband and wife with their dog, William or Bill for short. He was very enthusiastic and eager to press on – I zoomed past them as they checked out the remains of an old fire place. I wanted to keep moving because I didn’t want to keep Paula waiting, and traveled the mile in between summits within no time. The mile was wet for sure, as it was a pretty flat / even section of the trail, but nothing I didn’t slosh through without hesitation. Summit of Waumbek at 10:28AM. I quickly took a photograph of my pack near the cairn and grabbed my bag of crispy wasabi peas for a snack; I had 1.5 hours to descend and 3.6 miles of slippery ground to cover.

After a handful of peas, I was off! I ran into multiple young men on the trail in between Waumbek and Starr King who seemed to be trail running, and then a couple more people once passing Starr King. I knew I was moving pretty fast because the young men never caught up to me. When I can trust my boots, downs have become a favorite of mine. On this day I was cautious but anxious to make it out on time. Then, it became a HIGHWAY on the trail! No joke, one group had more than 20 people in it! And they were all hiking together! There had to have been at least 25 other people on the trail scattered in between; I was thankful I was heading out of the woods at that hour and not headed toward the summit.

I don’t remember much, other than the small mental notes one makes of the ground on the way up. And the good news: I met Paula on the trail less than a quarter mile from the now-filled parking lot. Officially back at 12:11PM. Not too shabby. Now 25/48 for NH. Oh! And Paula sewed on my 46er patch! This was my first peak sporting the new hardware – only took me four years to get it on there 🙂

 

Hiking Whiteface + Passaconaway

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Apparently I’m horrible at keeping goals lately – I only shared 5/23 times last month AND I wrote 6 posts that I never hit publish on because I was too lazy to upload photographs. Palm of hand to forehead! So, I’m trying again.

A few weeks ago Paula and I headed back north to the White Mountains. She’s so darn close to finishing! This trip brought her to 46/48, with plans on finishing this October. I so desperately want to finish with her, but it’s about the journey and I feel like if I rush it, I won’t enjoy it. Hopefully I’ll be with her to see her finish – and the same for me, whenever that happens.

We drove up Friday after work and stayed in the Stonybrook Motel & Lodge in Franconia, as Paula’s been camping a lot this summer and wanted something easy. Deal! I slept well and was up around 6AM, as our goal was to be out of the room by 7AM. I ate my usual soup and paired it with Snyder’s pretzel bites, so good! Before I knew it, we were dressed, packed and on the road. We took a less popular route up Passaconaway because it was a damp morning (it had rained overnight) and didn’t want to climb the cliffs wet. Okay! We parked off of 112 and headed up the Oliverian Brook Trail at 7:45AM. The trail was super easy, a nice warm up for the day. Here’s a look at our route (thank you Internet):

The weather was cool, humid but cool, which made it easier for me to move along the trail. I felt soaked: I was sweating, everything on the trail was wet and a lot of it would drip down with each gust of wind. We stopped around ten thirty for a quick snack – homemade zucchini banana muffins for me – at the Walden Trail junction. That’s when I remember the trail really starting to climb but totally doable; slow and steady. We reached the summit of Mount Passaconaway at 11:14AM with no views whatsoever.

We descended down the opposite side of the Walden Trail and took a right down Dicey’s Mill to Rollins Trail. Paula mentioned that we were walking along the ridge of The Bowl – an area of forest that has never been logged – and that the views are usually spectacular. Unfortunately still no views. I knew we had more than a mile to travel and was just waiting for the climb to get harder. I felt swift but my stomach started to grumble, so we stopped and ate lunch on the trail: hummus with Wasa crackers and seitan slices for me! Within five minutes, a woman hiking solo approached us from the direction we were headed and said we only had a quarter mile to go! We were shocked but thrilled and were even more so when we reached the summit, easy peasy! 1:51PM

The hike down the Rollins trail over to the Kate Sleeper Trail was also easy-going and I remember being in good spirits. Once we hit the Downes Brook Trail: instant pout-y face. It wasn’t the trail, it was me. See, I’ve been avoiding buying a new pair of hiking boots but all of that procrastination resulted in me being MISERABLE during the last 1/3 of this hike. My feet hurt SO bad – the insoles are paper thin and I can feel every pebble under my feet. In addition, I no longer have any tread of those boots. I know how important it is to support your feet, but those boots, I love those boots. No blisters, they keep my feet warm even in the sub-zero temperatures, and we’ve reached many summits together. But in those five minutes into the Downes Brook Trail, I wanted to rip those boots off and crawl the 5 miles or so out to the car, ha! There was a lot of blow-down on this trail, you can tell it’s not as popular as others, but very easy to follow. And you do have to cross the brook about ten times, which wasn’t an issue this trip because the water was low and the rock hopping was easy. At one point I mentioned to Paula that I just wanted to take my boots off and soak my toes – she suggested we wait until we got closer to the road. But that never happened. And when we did reach the road, we were SWARMED with mosquitoes! Never in the years that I’ve been hiking had I seen so many aggressive little buggers! I was miserable, I was tired and I was trying my hardest to hitch a ride but no one stopped. So we walked the mile or so on the road until we reached the car at 5:46PM. You can tell I wasn’t so happy because of the lack of photographs 🙂

I immediately ripped my boots off, rubbed on some oils and gave my poor toes a massage. I learned a very valuable lesson during this hike and have already placed an order for a new pair – unfortunately Salomon doesn’t make the same ones anymore but I’m sticking with that brand hoping that the fit is similar. Fingers crossed!

I don’t remember the exact mileage but I do know it was 15+ (not 19 like shown above) and it took us 10 hours, including all of our stops. Oh! And I forgot to mention – the Downes Brook Trail had so much moose poop on it! So much so, we thought we’d run into one eventually. Occasionally we’d stop to listen and look around, hoping one would stop by the brook for a drink of water. No such luck, even when we smelled what could have been a bear. It was a nice hike despite my boot problem and I’d recommend this route, especially if you’re looking to avoid the cliffs. 2/21

Hiking Goodnow Mountain Fire Tower

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After packing up camp, I talked the beau into hiking another small mountain with me. I reassured him that while I hadn’t done any research prior to the trip, local brochures/reports stated it was a much easier hike. (Blue was rated difficult and Goodnow was rated moderate with benches along the way -ha!) The drive wasn’t too long, maybe thirty minutes from the campsite and easy to find, with a big white ESF sign on 28N. I had told him that if the lot was packed, I was okay to go home; hiking on a “highway” especially in the heat is not my idea of fun. We laced up, signed in and headed up the trail at 10:19AM.

Immediately the trail goes up, similar to a Catskill hike, but quickly evens out. You can hear the traffic for quite a ways, but the forest seemed much greener and enjoyable than the previous day. We only noticed a couple of  spots along for the guided tour; unfortunately there weren’t any print-offs at the start for us to read. I was surprised by the amount of trail work on this mountain: someone had been cleaning out the rock bars, there were a number of planks to walk on, a bridge and benches made of downed logs. It’s definitely a family friendly hike and lucky us, we only saw one family/group on the trail near the summit. Don’t get me wrong, you do climb a mountain, it just seemed like a breeze compared to Blue Mountain. After a final push to reach the summit before the group of kids, the fire tower was in view at 11:20AM.

There weren’t any views on the rock, but the views in the tower, as usual, were amazing. And this was a TALL tower! I’m becoming confident climbing them and this one made me stop two or three times to regroup… I just felt like I kept climbing and climbing… but it was worth it! And was very windy up top but the tower felt sturdy (unlike others I’ve been on). Just as we were soaking in the views, this little blonde girl, probably 5 or 6, came bopping into the tower with her dad; she was super cute! He took our photograph before the rest of the gang climbed in. We climbed down, ate a quick bar, and left the summit at 11:34AM – we had afternoon plans and needed to hit the road. The climb down was easy and uneventful – in the car at 12:28PM.

We were both starving by the time we reached the car, so we decided to make the trip to North Creek to grab some lunch. There was a cute little cafe, Izzy’s, that we each had a delicious sandwich at, and a local hiker decided to serenade us with a song on the piano. It was a wonderful way to wrap up a weekend away in the mountains. We’re already planning the next trip! Goodnow brought my fire tower count to 18/23 (my 13th ADK tower)

Hiking Blue Mountain Fire Tower

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For the beau’s birthday he wanted to spend the weekend up North camping – I was NOT going to argue with that! It was the perfect opportunity to try out some of the wonderful items we were gifted over the last couple of months and the tent we purchased using gifted money; reviews coming soon!

We took off late Friday afternoon with a jam-packed Prius and were checking into the Lake Durant State Campground before 6PM. I fell in love with this location a few months back when Paula and I stopped randomly to check it out – there are many sites right on the lake with gorgeous views. We anticipated it to be far more crowded than it was because many of the sites were booked when we were trying to make a reservation, but it was quiet and we got lucky with site #22. Maybe many canceled because of the predicted rain? Their loss!

I quickly got a fire going after helping set up the tent aka castle because we were cooking over the fire: foil dinners! A super easy recipe I picked up from my parents: chopped potatoes, carrots, onions, red pepper and protein of choice. Growing up this was venison or a red meat, now it’s ground veggie “beef.” Add some salt, pepper, garlic pepper, vegetable oil and a vegan worcestershire sauce, fold it up into some foil (make sure it won’t leak when flipped) and cook for a good hour while setting up camp / enjoying a beer or two. So SO GOOD!

We weren’t up super late because we both wanted to hike in the morning… aka I wanted to get in at least one peak while being that far away from home. We decided on Blue Mountain because it was the closest to the site – maybe a ten minute drive up Route 28N just past the Adirondack museum. I hadn’t looked up any trail reports on this hike because I assumed it would be easy – Jen said it was fairly easy and Paula wants to finish with her grandson on this peak – golly, I didn’t think so at all! The parking lot was already half full at 10:15AM when we started out and it felt like the first 20 minutes or so were easy and then it went straight up. Realistically, I have no clue how much time or distance had passed until the change happened. All I remember was the sweat DRIPPING off of me and looking up and only seeing a steep, slab rock climb. The beau was happy to see it was kicking my butt too every time I had to stop for 30 seconds to catch my breath. After 1 hour 19 minutes, we reached the summit (approximately 2 miles)!

Also to note: the trail goes up the rock NOT along the sides! I felt like the entire way up on the not so easy section there was a second trail that people had made. This makes me sad because it’s only widening the impact we have on that mountain. I just wanted to yell, “get on the trail!” to the 75 people we must have passed along the way but I didn’t want to be THAT person.

The summit did have a view just past the tower and cabin. We bumped into the fellows camping next to us on site #22 and they took our photograph and chatted while we ate a much deserved bar. But the best view was at the top of the tower! We waited our turn and climbed up to enjoy the breeze. The view was picture perfect! I realized once we were in the tower that this was my first hike with my husband! Still sounds funny to say out loud. And I don’t feel old enough to have a husband.

We didn’t stay at the top too long because more people arrived and the bugs were a bother when the breeze wasn’t blowing. It took us just as much time to climb down as it did heading upward, probably because we did stop to chat with a couple of people about other hikes in the area and because I was picking up trash along the way. People just threw their baby wipes, water bottles, etc on the trail… and it wasn’t there on our way up. Very sad…

The parking lot was full when we signed out and there were many cars lining the road. It was a wonderful view and one worth checking out, but I’d suggest going during the week or during the winter / off season if you don’t like crowds. Maybe even a sunrise? This brought my fire tower count to 16/23

[Lake Durant] Upstate, New York

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Dear Beau: This weekend you climbed two mountains and ripped your new pair of hiking pants. I hope the views were just as worth it for you as they were for me. Dear Tent SO big I could use it as a garage: I promise to take care of you for many years to come and to invite as many people in to enjoy the bathtub bottom. Dear campfire: you thought you’d defeat me with your $4 wet wood but Jona: 2 Campfire: 0. Dear Husband: cheers to another year around the sun!

Monday was tough for both of us, exhausted from an adventure-filled weekend. We’re both daydreaming about buying land up in the Adirondacks and building a small solar powered cabin to run away to throughout the year. And kayaks. And a Subaru. But first, our guest bedroom in Troy. It’s pretty swell here too in the little city we call home.