sli74
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After cancelling the last 3 plans for a Presi Traverse due to torrential downpours, Brian and I decided we’d take a chance on having manageable temps and weather this Sunday, yesterday. We made the final decision to go on Friday evening and after a flurry of activity got ourselves in order and packed the car. On Saturday morning, we drove to Appalachia, with a brief stop in Woodstock to eat a hearty breakfast at Peg’s. Once at Appalachia, I dropped off Brian and all our gear and made my way to the Highland Center. Leaving my car there, I boarded the AMC shuttle for a rainy ride via Pinkham and Gorham back to Appalachia.
In the meantime, Brian had set up our tent in a well hidden spot, and come back to get me from the trailhead. We spent the next 7 hours, eating dinner, reading and trying to get some sleep. Unfortunately for us the rain soaked the tent and the wind howled most of the night. We slept little if at all and woke grudgingly to the alarm at 11 pm. We ate breakfast, packed up, dismantled our tent and stashed our stuff in the trees before hitting the trail just past 12:30 am . . . the first half of the trip up Valley Way went smoothly and faster than expected.
We were both soaked within an hour, however and this would influence our decisions later that morning. Unlike last year’s Presi Traverse, there were no scary mama moose protecting their babies. However, just before Valley Way campsite, I got a scare from what sounded like a large animal moving in the trees but we decided it was just something small that sounded large. By this time the steadily decreasing temps were starting to have their effects on us . . . wet and cold, we were extremely cautious and aware of the potential hypothermic contidions.
We got to the hut at about 5 am, and quickly used the facilities, ate some food and got back out in the howling winds. Now that we were above treeline, the wet, cold, windy conditions made for a miserable combination. I knew in my heart this wasn’t going to prove a successful attempt. The temps at the Hut were hovering around 34 degrees and it got MUCH colder as we ascended to the summit. The trip up to Madison with all its jagged rocks tries my patience in good conditions so I knew this would be a difficult climb. The winds were blowing around 50 mph from the NW leaving us exposed for all but a short section of the trip to the summit. On the way up, I almost immediately regretted not changing out of my wet gloves into drier mittens. Within 0.1 miles, my wet gloves were more like ice gloves as they pretty much froze on the outer surface.
Brian was making better time than me as I struggled to stay upright in the harsh winds which kept knocking me off my feet. Balancing precariously on jagged rocks has never been my strong point and now fighting the winds, I started coming to my senses about this Presi Traverse insanity . . . After taking about a half dozen small falls, and crawling at times on the hands and knees, over wet rock, we made the summit, taking an hour to ascend 0.4 miles, ugh !!!!We tagged the summit and began to descend, already talking about where we would bail, from the Hut or after an attempt on Adams. On the way down, I took a pretty hard fall that made our decision, we would save Adams and the rest of the Presidentials for a less windy and less wet day . . .
Back at the Hut, we both realized that our clothes were soaked to the skin. Also, the winds had been so bad that all those little pieces of hair that usually flap around my face had worked themselves into hard tangled knots. Brian proceeded to cut large chunks of the knotted hair as people in the Hut looked at us like we were nuts. Having made the decision to hike down from the Hut back to Appalachia, we spent the next almost 2 hours, eating and changing socks and watching the Hut guests leave. Another group on a Presi Traverse, came in discussed their plans, and all but one continued along the Ridge, making me question our decision to bail. However, one look out the window and the hot shower, clean sheet, hot pizza and movie back home were calling my name.
We decided a change of scenery was in order and opted to take Airline back to Appalachia. For all the running water that was Valley Way, Airline proved to be worse, as we encountered wet rocks, streams for trails and MUCH more MUD than we encountered on Valley Way. Once back at Appalachia, we paid the shuttle AGAIN to get the car from the Highland Center. Brian got the car and came back for me and my stuff. Sitting at Appalachia in the periodic sun, I began to regret our decision but Brian came back and reminded me of the hot shower, hot pizza and the movie we would watch once we got home.
Ten minutes into the drive home, Brian was falling asleep at the wheel so I took over driving, which lasted 30 minutes before I pulled into a trailhead parking area just south of exit 35 on I93. I shut the car off and went to sleep, not realizing that Brian had turned the headlights on. Needless to say, the car battery was dead when I woke up 2 hours later. To add to the misery, my cellphone also proceeded to die half way through my call to Honda car care. An hour of standing at the roadside, begging people to stop and help, yielded nothing but “the finger” from a wonderful young lady, who has apparently never needed car help. We did finally have one car stop, but they also did not have jumper cables. Three hours later, we finally had a pick-up truck pull in and help us jump the car.
Amazingly, both Brian and I kept our spirits high and joked about the inability of our ugly mugs standing wet and cold on the roadside to get cars to pull over for us. After that ordeal, we got our wet, cold selves home, taking turns driving and arriving back in Boston, well after midnight. We got our a**es handed to us but had a good time and will be back in better weather next time.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for better weather for the multiple groups with traverses planned for next weekend, including the TBTS Presi hike.
sli74
In the meantime, Brian had set up our tent in a well hidden spot, and come back to get me from the trailhead. We spent the next 7 hours, eating dinner, reading and trying to get some sleep. Unfortunately for us the rain soaked the tent and the wind howled most of the night. We slept little if at all and woke grudgingly to the alarm at 11 pm. We ate breakfast, packed up, dismantled our tent and stashed our stuff in the trees before hitting the trail just past 12:30 am . . . the first half of the trip up Valley Way went smoothly and faster than expected.
We were both soaked within an hour, however and this would influence our decisions later that morning. Unlike last year’s Presi Traverse, there were no scary mama moose protecting their babies. However, just before Valley Way campsite, I got a scare from what sounded like a large animal moving in the trees but we decided it was just something small that sounded large. By this time the steadily decreasing temps were starting to have their effects on us . . . wet and cold, we were extremely cautious and aware of the potential hypothermic contidions.
We got to the hut at about 5 am, and quickly used the facilities, ate some food and got back out in the howling winds. Now that we were above treeline, the wet, cold, windy conditions made for a miserable combination. I knew in my heart this wasn’t going to prove a successful attempt. The temps at the Hut were hovering around 34 degrees and it got MUCH colder as we ascended to the summit. The trip up to Madison with all its jagged rocks tries my patience in good conditions so I knew this would be a difficult climb. The winds were blowing around 50 mph from the NW leaving us exposed for all but a short section of the trip to the summit. On the way up, I almost immediately regretted not changing out of my wet gloves into drier mittens. Within 0.1 miles, my wet gloves were more like ice gloves as they pretty much froze on the outer surface.
Brian was making better time than me as I struggled to stay upright in the harsh winds which kept knocking me off my feet. Balancing precariously on jagged rocks has never been my strong point and now fighting the winds, I started coming to my senses about this Presi Traverse insanity . . . After taking about a half dozen small falls, and crawling at times on the hands and knees, over wet rock, we made the summit, taking an hour to ascend 0.4 miles, ugh !!!!We tagged the summit and began to descend, already talking about where we would bail, from the Hut or after an attempt on Adams. On the way down, I took a pretty hard fall that made our decision, we would save Adams and the rest of the Presidentials for a less windy and less wet day . . .
Back at the Hut, we both realized that our clothes were soaked to the skin. Also, the winds had been so bad that all those little pieces of hair that usually flap around my face had worked themselves into hard tangled knots. Brian proceeded to cut large chunks of the knotted hair as people in the Hut looked at us like we were nuts. Having made the decision to hike down from the Hut back to Appalachia, we spent the next almost 2 hours, eating and changing socks and watching the Hut guests leave. Another group on a Presi Traverse, came in discussed their plans, and all but one continued along the Ridge, making me question our decision to bail. However, one look out the window and the hot shower, clean sheet, hot pizza and movie back home were calling my name.
We decided a change of scenery was in order and opted to take Airline back to Appalachia. For all the running water that was Valley Way, Airline proved to be worse, as we encountered wet rocks, streams for trails and MUCH more MUD than we encountered on Valley Way. Once back at Appalachia, we paid the shuttle AGAIN to get the car from the Highland Center. Brian got the car and came back for me and my stuff. Sitting at Appalachia in the periodic sun, I began to regret our decision but Brian came back and reminded me of the hot shower, hot pizza and the movie we would watch once we got home.
Ten minutes into the drive home, Brian was falling asleep at the wheel so I took over driving, which lasted 30 minutes before I pulled into a trailhead parking area just south of exit 35 on I93. I shut the car off and went to sleep, not realizing that Brian had turned the headlights on. Needless to say, the car battery was dead when I woke up 2 hours later. To add to the misery, my cellphone also proceeded to die half way through my call to Honda car care. An hour of standing at the roadside, begging people to stop and help, yielded nothing but “the finger” from a wonderful young lady, who has apparently never needed car help. We did finally have one car stop, but they also did not have jumper cables. Three hours later, we finally had a pick-up truck pull in and help us jump the car.
Amazingly, both Brian and I kept our spirits high and joked about the inability of our ugly mugs standing wet and cold on the roadside to get cars to pull over for us. After that ordeal, we got our wet, cold selves home, taking turns driving and arriving back in Boston, well after midnight. We got our a**es handed to us but had a good time and will be back in better weather next time.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for better weather for the multiple groups with traverses planned for next weekend, including the TBTS Presi hike.
sli74
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