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
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