Elevation: 4,780 (New Hampshire's 11th Tallest, New England's 12th Tallest)
Route: Edmands Path
Mileage 6.6 miles Round Trip
Arya's Take: My Dad is the Worst because he won't let me go play with all the other dog or eat other people's food or dig a bed in the Endangered Alpine grass. Other than that, a blast!
After we did Mounts Monroe and Washington, Arya and I didn't actually get out hiking very much over the rest of July and August. There are a couple of reasons for this, mainly that late July and early August is the only time in New England where it actually gets unbearably hot, and I hate the heat. Through the high summer I don't really feel like doing much of anything on the weekends, and while we did get out a couple times on the hikes in and around Montpelier, we didn't get to any of the high peaks.
Though as we approached the end of the summer, we had an opportunity over Labor Day to bag another 4,000 footer. We'd used our family's house in New Hampshire as a base of operations before, ands it's been a tradition for years and years to have one last hurrah for the summer there over Labor Day, and it's probably when we get the most people there (we've pushed 30 in the past, which gets tenuous in finding places for everyone to sleep). My brother and our friends who we'd hiked Washington with would be there, as well as our parents, our uncle, our older brother, and his wife's brother (it's complicated). There were rumblings about going for another hike in general, and my younger brother and I set to work scouring the White Mountain Guide for another nice day trip.
We had settled on Mount Eisenhower, which is a gently sloping peak in the Presidentials (as you would expect with a name like Eisenhower) due south of Mount Monroe. It still is a rather prominent mountain, well above treeline, though it wouldn't present us with quite the challenge like its neighbors to the north did. We were looking for something nice anyway, so that we wouldn't all be dead tired when we got back to the Farm.
Eisenhower's a good one for this, as the Edmands Path, the main route up, was actually an old bridle path in the 19th century, with some remnants of things like stone walls and even stables visible in the overgrowth. My brother and I had fond memories of hiking Eisenhower back in 1993, and we figured that if we didn't have much trouble with it as kids, we'd be OK as adults (even if we're starting to get creakier). And we were actually prepping to get going the morning of, when my Dad, my uncle, and my older brother decided they wanted to come too. The more the merrier, of course, and it was actually a nice callback to our hiking days of yore, since my Dad, my uncle, and my older brother had all finished their 48 4,000 footers too. It had honestly been years since we'd all gone hiking together, though, so in addition to bagging some peaks for Arya and our friends, it'd be a nice nostalgic day for me and my younger brother. So after making sure we had enough food and water for everyone, as well as durable footwear, we were off to Crawford Notch and the Edmands Path, on a bright, sunny late summer morning.
Well, we had a couple of snags along the way. First, some of our number decided to stop at a Tedeschi's deli in order to buy their lunch (I had more than enough PB+J to go around, but I guess it's not for everyone), and while we gassed up, my Dad made a snarky comments about wasting time and how we wouldn't be on the trail now until after 10:00. This amused me, since I remember with crystal clarity my Dad's desire to get on the trail as soon as possible, and it honestly had not occurred to me, even with Arya, that we didn't have to have mushed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Some things just got ingrained as just "what you do" when you go hiking, I guess.
Anyway, at long last the rest of our group had their lunch, and we took the Kancamagus Highway through to Crawford Notch. The Kanc is another pillar of nostalgia for me, as it's a way to avoid the traffic of North Conway and get to the mountains beyond. The only times I've really ever been on the thing were days like today, heading to or from the trailhead, or days off at Summer Camp when the staff would retreat to the Swift River (which the Kanc follows).
Talking with my Dad and his brother on the way was great too, since we never get much time when it's just the three of us, and to see the changes in dynamic when it's my dad and my uncle together is great. For example, they spent a large part of the trip reminiscing about the car that they shared briefly when they were in college, a Porsche 911. Their reasoning behind getting a Porsche in college was exactly what you'd expect, though they ran into some trouble when they went to get the thing inspected (after only having purchased it used a couple weeks prior) to discover that the only thing that was connecting the chassis to the body was the steering column, and that was spotty at best. Thus the dream ended.
At any rate, we pulled through Crawford Notch and kept our eyes peeled for the Edmands Path Parking Lot, which after we got turned around a bit we discovered to be completely packed. We had to park on the street a couple hundred yards from the trailhead, but eventually got settled and were off, at 10:15 (much to my dad's chagrin).
Arya took to the trail really well, and continued her habit of remaining more or less on the path, which I cannot thank her enough for. As for our position in the rather larger hiking group, the easy grade of the Edmands Path coupled with her zeal made us actually the blazers for a while, which is a position I don't usually find myself in until the descent. Also as we gained our altitude it turns out that it was cool enough for steam to form around my shoulders (where my pack's shoulder straps were), and I even had some middling success convincing my Dad to try using some sweat-wicking T shirts to hike next time. I had only recently become a convert to the church of sweat-wicking (mainly through skiing), and it was an affront to his traditional hiking garb, but as Lindblads have a tendency to sweat rather a lot when we exercise, it really is a game-changer. My Dad was, as is his wont, wearing a heather grey t shirt that was rapidly becoming not- heather grey. I'll convince him yet.
We passed the time with various games, much like we usually do when hiking. This time it was "Name an Athlete and then I'll name an athlete whose first name begins with the same letter as your athlete's last name", and we lucked out with really nice weather. We did have to stop a couple of times just to make sure everyone was still together (again, not something I'm used to when hiking alone with Arya), but we really were up to treeline in no time. We paused at the Yellow WARNING NO BUT SERIOUSLY TURN BACK IF THE WEATHER'S BAD sign, and emerged to the summit cone of Eisenhower. We actually ran into a family hiking with their dog right before the summit spur (well, Arya insisted we go introduce ourselves), and found that they were from Montpelier. Small world!
Summiting Eisenhower actually proved a little more challenging than I anticipated, especially give how well Arya did with Mount Monroe. It wasn't exactly steep per se, but there were some drops that made me a bit nervous, and the traffic was heavy enough for me to want her on a shorter leash. Especially as she wasn't always super friendly to the people we passed; it seems like some people are fine, and others make her nervous. More on that later. At any rate, we made it to the top, and had to find a spot to eat lunch, with most of the good places already taken. Eisenhower has a giant cairn to signify the summit (no USGS cap to be found), and as you can expect, this is where most people were. Down the trail a bit we were able to scope out some rocks that allowed us to avoid the alpine grasses (though Arya still wanted to have a snack), and we broke out the food.
My uncle called my aunt (he had 4 bars of LTE, the jerk) and my dad called my mom to let them know we'd made it to the top. I tried calling my fiancee but no dice, with my outdated 3G coverage being rather spotty. Arya was content to make goober faces at me (as evidenced by the picture here) and after a short break we figured it was time to descend.
Honestly not much happened on the descent that I'd call noteworthy, though my Dad and uncle had to ice their legs when we got back to the Farm...hazards of getting old I guess. From there, Arya had 4 New England 4,000 footers down, only 63 to go, and the next one on the docket was one of my all-time favorites.
-M
No comments:
Post a Comment