Hiking in the White Mountains

On Thursday evening Kelsey came and collected me for the hiking trip she had organised to the White Mountains. We were a group of seven people: 4 MITG&SPers and others who knew Kelsey and had an interest in hiking. We stayed at her parents' place in Andover so that we could get an early start the next morning.

After dropping the two cars at the potential endpoints of our hike, we caught a shuttle from Crawford Notch around to Pinkham Notch. You can see the happy group ready to set out along the Boott Spur Trail. We first weighed our bags: mine was 30 pounds (14 kg); others were mostly the same except for the 50 pounds (23 kg) carried by Mike W, who had most of the emergency gear (and some extra luxuries - some items such as a camp stove count as both).

The trail began as I had expected: steep up. The day involved a climb of 3000 feet (900 m): the only time I've climbed further in a day was the 1400 m gained going up Half Dome.

We made steady progress, planning to have lunch once we got above the tree line. The weather was quite hot, and we were sweating profusely (notice how one always sweats profusely, rather than extensively, abundantly or copiously, for example), but the walking wasn't too technically difficult. In the end we decided it was lunchtime before breaking the tree line. After lunch, we set off in two groups, allowing Mike A and Jim to go faster so they had time to fly their kites (Mt Washington has "the world's worst weather", including strong winds (at this moment, which is reasonably randomly selected, windspeed is 70 km/h). We found ourselves above the trees very soon, and the path was beginning to change. Instead of a formed path, it became a direction we were meant to travel along the rocks, marked by cairns every 50 m or so. It proved slow going, and I realised it was becoming unlikely that we'd reach the summit of Mt Washington (the hut for which we were aiming is 1000 feet below the summit). That wasn't a disappointment, and we had quite a long pause on reaching the top of the steep section, to enjoy dried mango, brownies, etc.

We headed on across the very rough terrain (for much of the walk, there were no rocks available whose surface was at least shoe size, making steps rather uncomfortable). We reached Lakes of the Clouds around 5 pm. The wind was strong by terrestrial standards, and wisps of fog were flying past, but it was not cold.

It was soon dinner time, and I was amazed by the feast that was supplied. We began with delicious bread, with a bean, etc. soup, then moved on to salad, then chicken with pasta (and there was some kind of vegetable, I think). It was a better meal than I cook for myself at home: the style and quality were similar (less variety of vegetable), but more different parts. Dessert was peanut butter and chocolate slice.

I joined a few of the group for a game of what I would call cheat. I've never found this game to work before, but it was hugely improved by the concept of being able to call 'truth' on your opponent's cards, being rewarded by having them thrown out of the game (and being able to start the next round) if correct.

Early in the morning, I awoke to howling winds and the sight of clouds zipping past my window. We had expected the weather to deteriorate for the second day, so I was a bit concerned about what was coming.

The next morning began with a breakfast almost as good as the dinner that preceded it: porridge with various dried fruits as toppings, bacon, quiche, a sweet slice, and hot chocolate. The weather forecast was pessimistic: temperatures not that much above freezing, with very strong winds and the chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. We decided we had to rug up and get moving as soon as possible. On actually checking the temperature outside, we realised it wasn't actually very cold, and I didn't even wear my thicker jumper. I did wear a raincoat, but only as protection against the wind (which was the strongest I have ever felt).

We set out, feeling like we were heading for Mordor, in a tight line bound for Mizpah. Fog kept the visibility to 10 or 20 metres if we were lucky, so it was more of a "get to where we're going" than an "enjoy the scenery" walk. We bypassed the summits, because there's little point climbing them only to see the same fog we've been looking at all along. I wore gloves and a beanie, but they were enough to help me feel very comfortable while walking.

As we climbed Mt Pierce (the main trail goes over the summit), the clouds thinned, and we had some good views back towards Mt Washington and the other peaks we had passed near. At the top, we actually had very good views through a clearing sky. It was looking so promising that Mike W and Jim decided to go back and climb Mt Eisenhower, leaving their packs on Pierce and taking smaller bags. The rest of us continued on and reached Mizpah fairly early in the afternoon. On exploring the hut, we found this:!

Someone must have carried it up (in pieces) in the early days of the hut. It didn't actually work any more (despite a day's work from a hut worker and his engineering friends), but it was impressive to look at. Later we discovered that another MITGSP member used to work on a reed organ in a hut in the White Mountains, but it was in a different hut, so there are at least two! More games and chatting filled the afternoon, before another impressive dinner (turkey and associated foods, followed by an apple and pumpkin slice that one of the team members - not that day's cook - described accurately as "sheer awesomeness" or words to that effect).

The next morning, we decided to split once again into two groups. This time Mike W joined the fast group (where he belonged): those three took the longest of the possible routes we had planned for our final day. The slower four planned to see how we were feeling at the top of Mt Jackson, and choose between two shorter routes (still about 5 or 6 miles, so typical days, but slightly shorter and easier than the other route). We set off happily through very comfortable weather.

There were some very steep climbs on the first section, but we reached Mt Jackson feeling pretty good. We thus decided to continue to Mt Webster, following the second longest of the possible routes. The descent (even though we weren't descending very far) was very difficult. I found it harder than the ascent, partly because my pack got in the way while leaning back in a way that it just didn't when I leaned forward. We survived, and after a lot of up and down (felt like more down, but must have been pretty even) we reached Mt Webster. There were excellent views,

so we had lunch here. As we were eating, though, the wind picked up to probably the strongest we had felt all weekend. It really was the sort of wind that pushes you around. We finished lunch a bit quickly and headed down on our final leg. We passed a couple of very nice waterfalls (better places for lunch, if only we had known). Then we kept going down, and down, and down. We had indeed come up a long way on the first day, and had to lose all that elevation. It was much easier work, of course, and actually we were making good time, but it had its own way of being draining. We arrived relatively suddenly at the highway, feeling the odd feeling of no longer being so far away from all that is so familiar (and yet so strange: "they have rubbish bins here!").
We met up with the rest of our group and, after a quick ice cream break, headed back south towards our homes. It was a most enjoyable weekend.