Old Speck: October 1, 2015

Mountain: Old Speck
Elevation: 4,170 (Maine's 5th Tallest, New England's 40th Tallest)
Route: Old Speck Trail
Mileage: 3.8 miles
Arya's Take: Booooooored Now


The reality of me hiking the New England 4,000 footers with my dog has usually been that I'm seeing a lot of old familiar places.  As I've mentioned in the past, I finished the 48 new Hampshire 4,000 footers when I was 15, so there isn't a whole lot of new ground for me to cover, so to speak.  Now, having moved to Vermont, I was able to do this a couple times, mainly with Arya's first-ever 4,000 footer, Killington.  But even then, I'd been hiking in Vermont before, and even though I hadn't done Killington, it's not like I was new to hiking in the Green Mountains.

This changed when we did Old Speck.  In an interesting quirk, Old Speck is actually the eastern-most peak in the White Mountains, technically belonging to the range that you probably associate most with New Hampshire.  It's right over the border in Grafton Notch, and so it was a natural starting point.  As a stroke of luck as well, I'd decided to take the better part of two weeks off after my wife and I got married (which I would strongly encourage of anyone getting hitched; we did NOTHING for two days after the wedding itself and it was incredibly restful), so I plotted to head up on October 1, figuring that it would still be reasonably warm up there.  Besides, I really had no idea what to expect from Maine, given that if I'm in it I'm more often than not down in Portland or Kennebunkport.  So I was excited.

Now, before I get into the actual hike, let me tell you that I'm glad I did this on vacation and not over a normal weekend, because it turns out, getting to this part of Maine from central Vermont is freaking impossible.  I headed out at the break of dawn (though it's October, so that was at like 7:00), and it took two hours and 45 minutes to just MAKE the trailhead.  Granted it was a pretty drive, as I got to head through far-northern New Hampshire and past the Presidentials on my way, but I really had no concept for what to expect once I got into Maine.  See, Vermont and New Hampshire are, much like most New England states, tiny.  I can be in 5 states and 1 Canadian province within a 3 hour drive of my house.  Maine, though, is the closest we have to a normal-sized state, and even when we crossed the border, we had many miles to go.  I'd actually asked my wife if I could borrow her CR-V to drive there instead of my Prius, since even though the gas mileage would be worse, her headlights are much better than mine, and I honestly had no idea when Arya and I would be making the trip back.

So we eventually puttered into the parking lot for Old Speck around 10:00, which was I supposed a little on the late side, and I jumped out of my wife's car to discover that it was FUCKING FREEZING.  Now I'm never one to start a hike layered up, since I sweat pretty much immediately and have to pause 10 minutes in to pack everything up, but when I saw that it was 37 degrees outside, I knew even I couldn't start in shorts and a tee shirt.  Arya was, of course, fine, as well as annoyed that I was taking so long to get ready.  And, reader, I'll have you know that I didn't devolve into a sweaty mess for 20 minutes.

Apart from that, though, it was a lovely New England fall day.  There was a fair amount of valley fog we had to contend with to start, which obscured some of our views of the notch when we'd gotten high enough (in the picture above, which was right by a cut-off rather weirdly named "The Eyebrow".  The leaves hadn't started to change really at all in Vermont or Massachusetts, but it was like heading 6 weeks into the future up in Maine.  This was especially odd to me, since I had felt like summer had persisted far further thanks to our wedding (the weather we had on the day itself felt more like July than September), and now the world was playing catch-up.

Arya and I followed a stream up past the Eyebrow, trying to get beyond the fog.  I was able to use my Maine Mountain Guide for the first time, and was struck at how much longer it seemed to be taking to get to the top of the ridge.  This really wouldn't surprise you if you looked at any topographical map worth its salt, but I had anticipated really being able to get on top prior to lunch time, and that looked less and less like it was going to happen.

Not that it wasn't a pleasant hike, of course; there was a peculiar flower/moss hybrid plant that kept following us as we went up the trail, but with the fog obscuring any views that we might have, once we left the path of the stream, there wasn't a whole lot to keep my interest.  I got a particularly annoying song stuck in my head, and with Arya charging ahead, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.

The other thing that really started to annoy me was a series of...well, they weren't quite false peaks, but they certainly made me feel like they were in my way.  After each one, I was convinced that we would start ascending Old Speck proper any minute now, and my hopes kept getting dashed.  I did start to feel a glimmer of hope when the clouds began to break enough for use to start getting some views, as well as using my Dad's old trick of watching the size and composition of the trees in the surrounding forest to gauge how high we were.  Eventually we reached the junction with the Mahoosuc Trail, which is where we left the AT and when I knew that we only had 0.3 miles to go till the summit.

And unfortunately, once we got there, it turned out to be a bit of a letdown.  The summit itself was just a dirt clearing surrounded by trees.  I mean, this is Maine's 5th tallest mountain, which is farther north and significantly taller than mountains like Camel's Hump or Abraham, and yet they had wonderful views in all directions.  Of course, there was a fire tower on top (seemingly the last one standing in the Whites; the Guide makes mention of plenty of former towers on summits),  but the ladder was vertical and Arya wasn't really feeling it.

The clouds continued their valiant attempts to break, though without the tower there wasn't much good it was going to do me, so I settled in for lunch.  Arya didn't really want anything to do with her lunch at first, patiently waiting me out to see if I would grow bored with mine, and I read up in the Maine Mountain Guide about the surrounding area and why, exactly, Old Speck is a holdover in the Whites.

I also looked at the maps that came with the guide for all regions of Maine, and realized that Old Speck might be our only Down East 4,000 footer for some time.  Most of the rest are located even farther north along the New Hampshire border (and look like a great series of hikes), but GODDAMN it would take all day to just get up there to do the likes of the Bigelows or Saddleback.  I've since resolved to make a weekend camping trip out of them, but Arya wasn't read for overnights yet.  And don't get me started on Katahdin.

I learned from my in a text over lunch that October 1 is National Black Dog Day (because every day seems to now be National or International *Something* Day), so with that in mind I gave Arya the last little bite of peanut butter and bread from my sandwich, and we headed back down.  The subpeaks were still annoying, and it seemed to take forever to get back to the Eyebrow.  I guess that's the blessing and curse of having a landmark or junction to look for right by the beginning of the trail, since on the way up you basically know "We haven't gone nearly that far yet", and on the way down you spend a looooooong time muttering "Where the hell is the Eyebrow"?  This wasn't helped by me knowing exactly how long it was going to take us to get home once we were done with the hiking bit, and how tired I would be when we did get home.

Eventually, though we were overlooking the Notch again, this time bathed in the fading autumn sunshine, and by the time we got back to the car, it was completely clear.  Arya did her customary "zonk out for the entire ride home" bit, and I was treated to another spectacular view as we passed through Gorham, NH and the Prezzies again, as the peaks of Mts. Madison and Adams were dappled in the twilight even as dusk came to the valley floor.  We did end up needing the CR-V's headlights on the way home, though only for the home stretch, and I felt good out our first foray into Maine hiking, even if it would be some time before we would be able to try it out again.  And, as mentioned previously, an October 1 hike would usually be seen by me as a nice cap to the season before swapping my hiking boots and pack fro skis and poles, but we still did have one last gasp, even as Autumn began to cede to Winter over the New England High Peaks.

Next up: Completing the set in VT!

-M

Osceola East Peak: September 5, 2015

Mountain: Osceola East Peak
Elevation: 4,156 (New Hampshire's 34th Tallest, New England's 41st Tallest)
Route: Mount Osceola Trail
Mileage: 1.0 mile
Arya's Take: My Dad is STILL Waaaaaaay Overprotective

So with it not even being noon, Arya, our friend and I set off from the top of Mount Osceola to its East Peak, which lingered around a mile to our, well, east.  Having properly psyched myself out about how hard the trip was going to be, we descended off to the left of the old fire tower, and back into the woods.  We had been able to see our objective while we were resting on the summit, which I suppose is nice, given that it didn't really seem too far away.  Arya didn't really want to depart from the summit quite when we were ready to, but after we got going, she was all in.

As with most of the mountains that we've been climbing as Arya's worked on the list, I racked my brain to try and remember my impressions of East Osceola from when I did it with my Dad (and our black lab, Max) all those years ago.  Honestly, not a lot was coming up, which made me a bit nervous, as the White Mountain Guide made special mention of a chimney section that seemed like it would give us a hard time.  Well, that it would give Arya a bad time.  Honestly the main thing I remember from the hike up with my Dad was peering down the back side of East Osceola and him mentioning that Greely Pond was down there, and that it was a bitch and a half to climb up East Osceola first.  So we went onwards, a little blind.

And I think mainly because I has psyched myself out about it, I kept anticipating when the chimney would be.  The whole mountain turned out to be quite steep, which I should have probably guessed considering that East Osceola drops the required 200 feet of prominence from the main peak over only half a mile.  At any rate, the trail did drop off almost immediately, though each time I was convinced that we had just arrived at (or more frequently, we had just passed) the chimney, there was another section of steep rocks ahead.  We had to wait every now and then for a hiker ascending to pass us, yielding what we could to someone who was having a much worse go of things than we were.  But, eventually, we got to the chimney itself.

And almost by accident!  Arya charged ahead on the extendo-leash, as she usually does, and was out of sight briefly while I was catching up.  I had half a thought that she would careen over the edge, but I found her paused at the top, being a bit skeptical as to how to proceed.

Also rather thankfully, she ended up deciding that the best route was off to the left, where there was a slope that, while steep, wasn't straight down.  Our friend decided to try her luck at the chimney itself, and we congregated with some other hikers at the bottom, all waiting for various friends and family members to catch up.  And from there, it was a rather nondescript trek to the summit, through a little flat bit at the col of the ridge, and then a moderate but not too strenuous ascent.  We ended up arriving basically at noon, and took the opportunity to have some lunch.  Arya snarfed hers down immediately (SOP), and then amused herself by going after some mountain flies.  They have a habit of staying absolutely still until disturbed, and then they swarm up and buzz around in one huge mass.  Arya had a blast.

I was also able to show our friend the joys of the Lindblad family lunch packing technique, ie, a squished blob in a plastic bag that at one point had been a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  There was some jelly making a purple stain on one side of the bread, and on the whole it was still edible, but we never were a family with much thought into where our food needs to get stashed.  My Dad always said that it looks the same in the end anyway.

From the summit of Osceola East (being that it's completely wooded we didn't really spend much time there except to eat), we made our way back to the chimney, and Arya and I decided that the easier route would still be the side trail to the right, and our friend took the chimney again to see what it'd be like on the ascent.  After waiting worriedly at the top for her, Arya was satisfied and we were back on the summit of Osceola in no time.  It was crowded with a lunch rush, and it was difficult to find a spot for us to take a snack at first.  Arya was also a little sick of being in the sun after a few minutes, and took the chance to crash under one of the old concrete supports that was left over from the fire tower that used to be on the summit.  I chatted with some nice people from Virginia who were up for Labor Day, and when they found out I was from Vermont they of course immediately asked me about this Bernie Sanders guy and what we all thought of him (this has, over the intervening months, only become more and more common when people hear where I live).

Apart from that, the rest of the hike down was, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear, rather uneventful.  It was nice to catch up with our friend, and to see what she thought of the upcoming hockey season, and what she thought of her Osprey framepack, as I was in the market for one and have *loved* the 18 liter daypack I have from them.  She also asked how I and me then-fiancee were doing, as September 5th was a mere 10 days before our wedding (everything went great!).

From there, we headed our separate ways and Arya and I went back to the Farm, to find everyone lounging around the pool and enjoying their Labor Day.  And most years, a September hike might be the last one of the year, but this season turned out to be a little different.  After a couple weeks off (wedding, after all), Arya and I put our sights to a place neither of us had ever hiked before: Maine.

-M

Mount Osceola: September 5, 2015

Mountain: Mount Osceola
Elevation: 4,340 (New Hampshire's 23rd Tallest, New England's 27th Tallest)
Route: Mount Osceola Trail
Mileage: 3.7 miles
Arya's Take: My Dad is Waaaaaaay Overprotective

I know I've said something to this effect before, but I have a real soft spot for this mountain.  Mount Osceola was one that I did with my Dad and our family dog back in 1996, when I was smack in the middle of my peak-bagging days.  It was actually the second hike we'd done as a misplaced apology for not getting both Mount Madison and Mount Adams when we'd attempted them in 1995.  Which is to say, my parents rightly interpreted the weather as being too dangerous for us to attempt Adams, and we turned around.  Me, being a selfish 10-year old, pitched a fit.  Have I told this story before?  I'm sorry, I have a habit of repeating myself sometimes.

At any rate, my Dad and I hiked Adams with Max in September of 1995, and we made a tradition of going on a hiking trip each September the years afterwards, until I finished my 48 in 2000.  It was a really nice getaway for the two of us, and it was a special thing that I looked forward to through the summer, as a nice transition into Fall.  We also went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant by the Farm, a place called The Woodshed (which has, sadly, since burned down).  Osceola and Osceola East Peak were the mountains that cemented the trip as an official tradition, so when I was looking for nice mountains to continue Arya's 2015 Summer of Hiking, it was a natural fit.  We also figured to invite one of our friends from the Franks trip, as she had gotten waaaaay into hiking, and hiking with friends is always better than hiking alone.  She even has a dog who will actually put up with Arya, and while the pooch didn't join us up this time, let's just say you'll be seeing some of her in posts to come.


Labor Day actually provided me with a nice chance to stretch the weekend after the hike itself, and at dawn on that Saturday, Arya and I headed out from Barre to trek up through the Northeast Kingdom and down 93 to Osceola.  It's situated not really all that far from the Franconias, and having skied at Loon Mountain over the winter while still driving from Vermont, I figured to chance it and meet up with our friend at the trailhead as she lives in Southern New Hampshire.  After the climb, we'd head to the Farm and meet up with everyone who was already there.


It's actually a really nice drive over the North Country, and the leaves were juuuuuuuuust starting to hint at changing when we headed out amidst river valley fog.  I'd loaded a fair amount of podcasts for the trip (Arya was overruled) and apart from getting slightly lost before finding the Connecticut River, we managed OK.  This of course presented a problem, as we'd agreed to meet at the trailhead at a set time, and I didn't actually have our friend's cell number at the time, so there really wasn't a way that I could alert her that we were running a bit behind.  I took it a little faster on 93 than I probably should have given the circumstances, and once we were off at the Tripoli Road exit, I tried to rely on my 9-year old memories of the trailhead to see if we were headed in the right direction.  The White Mountain Guide has descriptions with mile markers, which helps, but Google Maps isn't really all that useful when you're trying to A. Find a trail that isn't part of it's road network and B. Have no cell service to speak of.

We did end up finding the right place, and our friend had only been there for 10-15 minutes, so I only felt moderately bad than shitty about not being able to get there on time.  I had a minor freak-out when it looked like I'd actually forgotten Arya's harness and extendo-leash, though after ripping my entire car apart I found that they had just fallen to the floor in the back seat.  Crisis averted (and adrenaline pumping), we headed up the Mount Osceola Trail and out of the fog.

The climb was much as I remember it from when my Dad and I climbed in years ago; nice and steady, moderately steep but not exactly anything super challenging.  Arya did her thing of plowing ahead and occasionally getting wrapped up around trees, and the only thing that really struck me was how hot it was for September.  My friend and I chatted away, catching up about various things over the summer (she's originally a friend of Amanda's from the barn they both boarded their horses at), and she gauged my excitement for Amanda and my wedding, which at this point was a mere 10 days away (Spoiler Alert!  It was great!).  Eventually we were able to come up on some nice overlooks of the Waterville Valley, though I was only really able to say that with confidence because after wondering what mountain we were looking at nearby, I saw the cut ski trails of, well, Waterville Valley and hazarded a guess.

Our friend had actually just recently climbed Tecumseh, the 4,000 footer that Waterville happens to be on, and corroborated that my memories of the climb are pretty much accurate to this day. A lot of stairs, a lot of trees, and not a lot of payoff at the end.  I'm sure Arya and I will get there in due time, of course, though I think I can admit freely at this point that I'm picking and choosing nice hikes to go on her with, before we exhaust that list and end up scraping the bottom of the Hale-and-Zealand-filled barrel.

And honestly?  Osceola's not a bad couple of miles.  The trail sort of meandered gradually as we gained elevation without even realizing it, and right I was starting to wonder where we were on the ridgeline, we emerged at the peak.  I quickly remembered why I liked the mountain so much, as we were up in barely 2 hours, with it even being really too early for lunch (I remember my Dad and I getting on top by like 10:00 or so in 1996, and me remarking that my brothers probably weren't even up yet).  The remains of an old Fire Tower gave Arya some makeshift shade, as we peered across the view towards Osceola East Peak, which would be our destination before lunch.

Osceola is a rather nice view for the effort you put in, as while it's not quite above treeline at the summit, the clearing for the former fire tower, coupled with a rockface and cliff to the East, gave us a clear vantage point to see for miles.

I was chatted up by some hikers from Virginia who, when discovering I was from Vermont, asked if I was a Bernie Sanders supporter (I am) and if it took me long to drive to New Hampshire from my house (it did not).  I also showed my rust for the White Mountains when asked by my friend what we were looking at, and I couldn't for the life of me tell her.  A fellow hiker helpfully pointed out that they were the Tripyramids, which I suppose I should have figured out, as I know the trailhead for them is rather close to the Tripoli Road exit off of 93, and the three peaks had a uniform, distinctly pyramidal shape.  Can't win them all, I suppose (I'm still horrendous with mountains in Vermont, by the way.  It may take me decades to correctly get my bearings).

The Tripyramids (only two of which count, annoyingly) were the next Me-and-Dad trip in 1997, and it was the first time we'd gone hiking with our old dog Max when he had a dog-pack.  Not to get ahead of myself, but suffice it to say that Max's reaction to having to carry his own stuff and his overall speed afterwards was a driving force in my insistence that Arya have one too.  We even looked at Max's old EMS pack, actually, but as he was a 80-pound barrel of a black lab and Arya is...not, it didn't really work out.

From there, we hydrated, ate some gorp and jerky, and prepped for what would actually be the more arduous park of our trip.  Because, dear reader, while Osceola is the larger of the two 4,000 footers on this particular ridge, we still had a ways to go to get to the East Peak, and we had to lose and then gain at least 200 feet of prominence in the process.  Most mountains do this rather gradually, with peaks being separated by quite a bit of ridgewalking.  Others simply glom onto a larger peak and don't actually count (COUMountClayGH).  Osceola East Peak, though, is actually quite close to Osceola (it's only a mile), which meant we were in for a bit of a change of pace.  They call it:  The Chimney.

I was really actually rather apprehensive about all this, especially because I honestly wracked my brain and had NO memory of doing it with my Dad and Max, and the fact that the White Mountain Guide goes out of its way to mention the Chimney, and how dangerous it can be in bad (and especially wet) weather.  We didn't exactly have rain clouds bearing down on us, but still.  How would I fare with my bum knee down (and up!) a freaking chimney?  How would my dog fare?

Arya's response?  --------->

Here we go!

-M

Mount Moosilauke: August 7, 2015

Mountain: Mount Moosilauke

Elevation: 4,802 (New Hampshire's 10th Tallest, New England's 11th Tallest)
Route:Gorge Brook Trail
Mileage:3.7 miles
Arya's Take: We should go this way!  Wait, no.  This way!  Wait, no. This way!

This was actually more difficult to coordinate than it should have been.  I'd known for a while that Mount Moosilauke, apart from being one of the tallest 4,000 footers in New England, was also New Hampshire's Western-most one, which made it an ideal choice to hike while starting at home in Vermont instead of at the Farm.  Once I'd decided to hike it with Arya and picked a date in late July to do it when the weather looked good, I prepped and was ready to go, until I found out that I had actually left my knee brace at the Farm when we did the Franks, and, unfortunately, I can't really hike (or walk for long distances) without my knee brace.

"Fear not!" I said, "I'll just go to Walmart and buy another copy of the same brace, since that's where I got the first one.  And redundancy is good!".  Alas, even though I should have known better, I woke up at the crack of dawn and went to the Walmart in Berlin to find that they had sold out of braces, and didn't have any.  This happens a lot at this particular Walmart, and yet I never learn.

I then proceeded to go to every pharmacy and grocery store in the Barre-Montpelier Micropolitan area to no avail, and had to scrap my plans.  It felt terrible, and I'd been really excited to do Moosilauke, considering my memories of it (a lot of above-treeline stuff) and the fact that I had everything ready EXCEPT the brace.  At any rate, my parents found it and I got it back in time to try again, a little later in the summer but no worse for wear.

And after an hour and a half drive (not bad, really), we found ourselves in the domain of the Dartmouth Outing Club.  See, there's a bit of a quirk with Moosilauke, in that while most of the White Mountains are under the purview of the Appalachian Mountain Club, around a century ago, some intrepid students at Dartmouth College decided to form an Outing Club, and owing that Moosilauke is the closest major mountain to the college, kind of set up a little kingdom there.  All the major trails start at a stunningly nice lodge that they've built there, with outlying bunkhouses paid for and built by subsequent classes.  There must have been some kind of event going on at the lodge the weekend we were up, because it was alive with crowds; alumni running around with their kids, peppy and helpful current Dartmouth students acting as staff, and sooooo many people on the trails.  It honestly took us a little bit to find the trail we were looking for, for a couple of reasons:  first, there were so many walking trails around the lodge that were simple loops and *seemed* like they should be the one that we took, and second, after Tropical Storm Irene, the DOC had to reroute basically all of their trails around the river in some capacity, which would lead to some angst from me later on in the day.

At any rate, we found the trail for the Moosilauke summit (well, the one I had chosen, at any rate), and after helping a nice couple find the trail as well, we started our gradual ascent.  I figure as best I can they were from New Jersey, and Dartmouth alums, guessing from their accents and green-and-white apparel, and for a while there it looked as though we would be de facto hiking companions.  This irked me a little bit, through no fault of theirs, as they seemed perfectly nice, but I was keen to get out on the trail and not be in the middle of some pack, so that I could avoid having to make idle small talk with strangers, and so that I wouldn't have to worry about reeling Arya in on her extendo-leash.  I was successful, at least in part, and after a bit the New Jersey couple started to lag a bit.

I guess this wasn't surprising, as the trail snaked along side Gorge Brook, and they weren't exactly dressed for more than just a stroll through the woods (the woman had a Dartmouth sweatshirt on, and wasn't even carrying any water).  I suppose they didn't really know what they were getting themselves into, though they seemed only a little worse for wear when I encountered them coming down.  Eventually the early morning fog started to lift, and we started to gain some elevation along a nice little ridge with some mossy what-looked-to-be fir trees.  I was starting to feel pretty good (and the headache I'd developed on the drive started to lift), though every now and then I'd feel a pang of anxiety about whether we were, truly, on the trail we needed to be on.  I mean, we were heading in the right direction in that the trees were getting sparse and I could see Moosilauke looming at us in the distance, but I never quite settled down.

I really shouldn't have been as nervous.  After all, I had purchased a new White Mountain Guide for this very purpose, even though I've since learned (through a wonderful AMC book on the History of the White Mountain Guide itself!) that up until 2006, all of the maps that the guide came with relied on the same surveying data that was originally done for the AMC by one guy at the turn of the 20th Century.  I wanted to be absolutely clear that my path was correct, and was a little disheartened to learn that not only was the blurb in the guide's description of Moosilauke basically "be careful, a lot has changed since Irene", but the maps were a barely-ledgible mishmash of red lines that all seemed to intersect at one point or another.

I was just beginning to second guess myself when I came across a lovely DOC sign nailed to a tree, brightly colored in orange and blue (quick aside: why don't more mountain and outing clubs choose their blazes and trail signs based on high visibility?).  It was rather oddly in the shape of a humpback whale, but it clearly marked a new cutoff to the left, and the continuation of the Gorge Brook Trail to the right, so off we went.  After that, confident that we were at least on the right trail, I went back to obsessively wondering where the next landmark was so I could plot how far we'd gone, and how far we still had to go.  After we reached the bridge and memorial marker at about 1.5, we began to really, truly ascend, and I calmed down.

Arya at this point was having a blast, especially since the trail was wide enough for her to truly slalom around it.  I actually had a bit of trouble myself, based mainly on my lingering headache and lack of Aleve.  Eventually the trees started to thin out, and after a couple of rather conspicuously man-made viewpoints complete with benches, we really made it above treeline.  Well, sort of.

This was around the point that I figured out that the Gorge Brook Trail was definitely NOT the one that I'd taken up Moosilauke when I did it at summer camp all those years ago.  Moosilauke being a big honking mass of a mountain, we'd actually approached from the other side of the summit, which is why I remembered so much hiking above treeline (I also remember that one of the counselors actually finished his 48 on top, and I attempted and was denied a swig of the bottle of champagne that they'd smuggled up for him).  This isn't to say that Arya and I didn't have much hiking above treeline, it was more that we had fits and starts of treeline hiking (like the picture to the right there) before dipping back for some almost-but-not-quite-above treeline straights.  The mountain flies were especially bad that day too (it being August and all), much to my and Arya's annoyance.  We ended up having to cede right of way to a fair number of hikers who were faster than us (more on that later), and it wasn't until right below the summit cone that we were really able to be above treeline completely.

We were actually confronted with a nice pleasant surprise, as the final approach of the Gorge Brook Trail takes you across what I can only describe as a mountain meadow.  Unlike other places above treeline we'd climbed earlier in the summer or last year, we were treated to a good half mile of a grassy clearing, with a rock-marked pathway to help conservation.  You can probably guess how much respect Arya had for such artificial boundaries.  Upon reaching the summit we were surprised to see a fair number of people already at the top, not just the ones who had passed us as we lost steam at treeline.  There were some rather nice dogs, too, including a golden retriever and a German shepherd who wanted to become fast friends with Arya.  After extricating her from a tangled leash or two (I'm getting really good at that, by the way), we settled down in the hollow remains of a summit house and had some lunch.  After snarfing down hers as quickly as possible and refusing water from her collapsible trail bowl (naturally), Arya decided it was high time for a nap and sprawled out in what looked to be the most uncomfortable position possible.


This was actually a welcome change of pace from her usual MO of alternating between trying to play with other dogs on the summit, and trying to eat my lunch when I'm not looking.  Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, at least for enxt hiking season.  With zero cell service (shocker!) I tried to amuse myself by reading the intro of the White Mountain Guide's section on Moosilauke, as it has its own section of the guide, and its own map besides.  Apart from learning about the history of the DOC and the partnership it has with the AMC, the only thing I gleaned was that while there is some debate over how exactly the mountain's name is pronounced (Moo-sill-AWK vs. Moo-sill-AWKEE), both are considered valid.  This kind of frustrated me, as I'm firmly in the AWK camp, and friends of mine I grew up hiking with (and my Dad) are in the AWKEE camp.  Come on, AMC, pick a side.

It was also around lunch that I started to notice something that was going to have a bit a an impact on our day:  some cumulus clouds were sneaking in, getting a bit bigger, and starting to get dark.  Now, since I started hiking again with Arya, we'd had impeccable luck with the weather, mainly because I would call off hiking plans for a weekend if it looked like there was going to be rain.  Even with the forecast today, there was only a chance of showers, and when I'd woken up, apart from some river valley fog, everything looked fine.  So I was a bit dismayed to see what was looking to bear down on us, and decided to wrap up lunch and start the descent, just to be sure.

This turned out to be a pretty good idea in hindsight.  Right as we left the summit, the clouds started to close in , and I felt really kind of bad for a group of summer campers that Arya and I ran across as we slipped back into the trees.  There were the standard campers you'd expect: the ones that were chatting away at 1,000 miles an hour, the quiet ones, and the ones who probably didn't want to go on the trip in the first place who desperately asked me how much further they still had to go.  I rounded down on my estimate, at least for their counselors' sake, and after Arya was done getting simultaneously petted by like 15 people (she was, to say the least, a fan), we continued downward, casting a worried look at the sky.  I mean, it didn't look like it was going to thunderstorm or anything, but I bet that the summer camp had a lousier time on top than Arya and I did.

Arya and I also had to contend with one of the oddest circumstances that I've come acrosson a hiking trail as we wound down the mountain.  I mean, moving to the side of the trail to accommodate ascending hikers is rather common, as you generally want to defer to the people who are having a rougher go at it than you are.  However, without much warning, we were confronted with he fact that so many Dartmouth alums were around Moosilauke on this particular day because there was a footrace scheduled up the mountain.

You read that right.  While this hunk of rock is challenging enough at the nice leisurely pace Arya and I were setting, a bunch of what I can only assume were current Dartmouth students decided to RUN 3.7 miles up and 3.7 miles down, all the while working around all of us normal hikers.

Most of the time it was easy enough for use to lurch to one side as we heard the huffing and puffing coming up the trail, though there were a few instances where Arya and her extend-o leash were far enough ahead to snare a few runners.  They were all nice enough about it, though I felt kind of bad, and hope that their overall times weren't affected by dogs too much.  Still, among the wackier unexpected events on the trail, and something I still can't quite believe.


We ended up passing the New Jersey couple as well, who also asked how much farther the summit was, after insinuating that I'd not warned them about how hard the climb was going to be.  The woman now had her Dartmouth sweatshirt tied around her waist, and was obviously getting water from somewhere, since she was probably the more chipper of the two.  Again, I found myself erring on the side of a shorter estimate, and wished them luck.  Arya wasn't one for small talk either, and it was now decidedly overcast.

Thankfully the rain didn't start until we were back at the bridge and memorial plaque at 1.5, and it didn't start in earnest until we were back in the maze of former trails and bypasses from Tropical Storm Irene.  That said, even though I tried to tough it out to the end, even I had to stop and put on my raincoat eventually.  Arya seemed to be fine with getting wet and really was rather mad at me for making her stop, but it was worth it as we approached the DOC lodge when it really started to come down. 

I actually had an odd little interlude at the end of our hike, too, as a woman I'd passed hiking up had said that she left her blue fleece behind when she'd stopped for a drink, and asked us (well, me, anyway) to keep an eye on it as I descended.  I did end up finding a fleece (I'd call it more grey than blue, which led me to wonder if I was just stealing someone else's fleece), and dropped it off at the lodge after trying to explain exactly why I was wandering around the mess hall).

We then had to trudge back to our car, which was a rather long walk down the access road, as only Dartmouth alums can use the parking lot by the lodge.  That, coupled with the fact that my phone died on the way out, complicated our drive home a little bit (OK, a lotta bit), as I officially had no idea where I needed to go to end up back in St. Johnsbury, and thus, on the track back home.

Rather frustrstingly, too, the rain cleared almost immediately as we got back on the road, and I was left to wait for my car charger to wake up my phone and Google Maps.  This took what seemed like for freaking EVER, and while I drove around blind, thinking erroneously that I had some clue of where we were, we ended up tacking on a good 35 minutes to our drive back home.  Not that Arya minded, of course, as she was snoring in the passengers seat the whole way home.

Next up:  an old favorite!

-M