Mount Passaconaway: May 28, 2016

Mountain: Mount Passaconaway
Elevation: 4,043 (New Hampshire's 43rd Tallest, New England's 57th Tallest)
Route: Dicey's Mill Trail
Mileage: 9.2 miles
Arya's Take:  WATER.  GIVE ME WATER

With a really successful 2015 hiking season behind us, which saw Arya snag 10 whole peaks, I wanted to get 2016 off to a good start.  I was hoping to be able to make 10 mountains a sort-of yearly average for Arya, which would have her in striking distance of at least the New Hampshire 48 by the time she exited her hiking prime.  She was going to be turning 3 in 2016 after all, and has plenty of steam left.  That might end up being a little ambitious, but it manifested in me wanting to get the hiking season started even a little earlier than usual.

I may have mentioned this in previous posts so I apologize if this is repeated, but the way the summers at my family's cabin in New Hampshire generally go is thusly:  there's a big get together at the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day, where a lot of people come up, we grill, swim, play tennis, hang out, and generally just enjoy the weather.  There's a similar event at the end of the summer on Labor Day, but these long weekends include not a whole lot going on outside of the Farm itself.  This year, I decided to change that and announced that I'd be hiking with Arya on that Saturday, if anyone wanted to join me.  I didn't expect many takers, mainly because it'd mean spending the majority of the day away from everyone else (kind of defeats the purpose of a large get together), and also because through a fluke in the forecast, it was going to be BALLS ASS HOT.  Like, in late May, you can expect it to be in the mid to high 70s in Northern New Hampshire, but I had declared that we were going to hike in 95 degree heat, with accompanying 85-90% humidity.  As one of my friends has gotten into the habit of saying, this would be suboptimal.

As it happens, I did get some volunteers to come along on our little sauna adventure, being my sister-in-law's younger brother and sister.  We've all been close friends for most of the 17 years my brother has been dating/married to their sister, and both of them had gotten the hiking bug thanks to my brother a couple years previously (namely, they'd done the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail and Mount Monroe).  I was grateful for the company, as Arya's not terribly talkative on our solo hikes and I have a tendency to get songs stuck in my head when I'm alone.  Actually, I ended up getting "Cabinet Battle #2" from Hamilton stuck in there any way going up Passaconaway, but that's neither here nor there.

The impending heat compounded the importance of my choice of mountain, but basically I chose Passaconaway for a couple of different reasons.  First, it is situated in the Sandwich Range along with Mount Whiteface, which puts it at the southern tip of the New Hampshire 4,000 footers, and only around 30 minutes from the Farm to its Trailhead.  Second, after I knew I wanted to do one or the other, I did some research on the Blueberry Ridge Trail up Whiteface, and discovered that not only was it ridiculously steep in places (not Arya's favorite), the ladders and steps that had been in place when my family had done Whiteface in 1994 had been recently removed.  I didn't want to be literally carrying my dog up nearly vertical sections of trail in 95 degree heat, so Whiteface was out.  I still don't know how best we'll tackle it with Arya, but that's a problem for another day.

I also agreed with my companions that it would be ideal for us to get out well before dawn, so we could avoid most of the mid-day heat, and so that we could come back to the Farm, immediately jump in the pool, and enjoy the afternoon with everyone who didn't want to come hiking.

So there we were, out by 5:30, and on the trail by 6:15 or so.  The Dicey's Mill train actually starts off at the end of a rural residential road, and leads hikers up past a really lovely pastoral farm and fields before entering the woods.  There was a gate as well, more to keep out vehicles than anything else, and we crossed it to head to the trees.  It did feel a bit odd basically walking through someone's back yard before the sun was up, but between the mist coming off the fields themselves and the complete lack of other hikers, it was a nice start to the day.

The trail itself was fine, moderate if relentless in its climb.  I'd actually forgotten my hiking boots at home before I headed to the Farm, which made me panic for a second, before I realized that I'd worn some low-top trail shoes to work that day, and could use them instead.  For the most part it didn't impact my day at all, with a few exceptions, but I'm a firm believer in high ankle support whilst hiking, so I was moderately nervous all day.  I have no scientific evidence to back that up at ALL, mind you, but it's what I've always been used to.

Arya did great, and starting early to avoid the heat turned out to be a great idea.  I had, of course, packed more than enough water for both of us, and had a water-purifier pump with me just in case, but she took advantage, at least early on, of how wet the trail was to grab drinks here and there.  I was actually quite surprised at the dampness, as it hadn't exactly been a bad winter and we didn't get much rain recently, but I suppose in the mountains it takes things a little longer to dry.  It did complicate our footing in places, but for the most part it wasn't an issue.

I ended up playing some word games with my brother- and sister-in-law (I've given up trying to figure out if that's what we actually are since we're not directly related by marriage btw.  It's just easier that way), and starting an argument about Voldemort's strategy in creating Horcruxes that lasted the rest of the weekend.  My position was that it was foolish of him to use such obvious and connected artifacts, when he could have easily made a grain of sand a Horcrux and then dropped it in the ocean.  See?  How could anyone have found that?  My in-laws argued that he was paranoid enough that he needed to know where they Horcruxes were so he could keep tabs on them, which would be impossible with the grain-of-sand strategy.  But I digress.

Passaconaway didn't hold many firm memories for me when I'd done it at summer camp 15+ years ago, and in hiking it again I began to understand why.  Apart from an early stream crossing, there isn't that much that sets it apart, to the point where the only really nice views are below the summit, and there isn't much to the summit at all.  We actually decided once we were there to head *back* to the outcropping for lunch, since at least we could see stuff there.  Or, well, breakfast, since it was 9:30.

Another wrinkle of starting the season so early also arose, as while it wasn't quite 95 degrees when we summitted, the black flies were out in FORCE.  If you're not familiar with these bastards, I commend you on your charmed life.  Basically, little tiny flies swarm through New England from around mid-May to mid-June every year (my dad always said black fly season was Mother's Day to Father's Day), biting and buzzing everywhere.  I actually don't get bitten very much, but they have a nasty habit of flying right into your eyes and nose, which is downright annoying.  We applied as much bug spray as we could, and I started to cast a worried eye to Arya, as she pointedly refused to drink any water out of the dish when we'd had breakfast.  This is of course as you'll remember rather typical for her, but as she did end up suffering some acute symptoms in the heat when we did the Franks, and it was much, MUCH hotter on Passaconaway, I didn't want things to get out of hand.  To that end, I figured getting down and out would be the best option, and we started our descent.

This is where a recurring problem of mine started to make itself known, mainly, my bum right knee.  Now I had my brace on and everything, and I'm not sure if it was the lack of ankle support or what (displayed in the picture above).  My leading theory, based on my experience on Mount Ellen in Vermont, I think that it's not actually the steep stuff that really spells disaster for my knee.  More, it's the steady and unrelenting moderate slope, that doesn't allow me any real rest time, but is just...constant.  I really started to feel it at around 10:45 when we were about halfway down, and began actively wishing to see the gate and Farmhouse.  It wasn't, you know, BAD, but I was in a fair amount of discomfort, coupled with the fact that even at the stream we passed, Arya had refused to drink any water.

At this point I just wanted to be done, and figured that Arya would be OK once we got her back to the Farm.  We emerged at the trailhead around 11:30 (a new best for me being off the mountain!) and arrived back at Memorial Day just in time for a hop in the pool and a grilled lunch.  And, from the reaction Arya had when given some water and some shade, even she has her limits on when she wants to stop hiking :)

-M