do_truancy
New member
Trails: Imp (north leg), Morah Carter Trail: first south to South Carter then back North to Morah and out.
I had planned to hike the wildcat-carter-moriah two different times and there was some good reason I did only a part of it.
Total Miles: 14.8
Time: 10 hours due to breath-taking views that required lollygagging along the way.
**********************************************************
The promise of a stellar weather weekend was kicked off by Leaf and I having a beer Friday night on the porch in the city before driving north to slip under the stars and rising moon at Barnes. Although last week was the peak, there were enough falling stars to provide me with all the wishes I needed for this year: the Perseid showers were still active.
We arrived at Barnes in time to catch the racers prepare for the start of a 50miler ultra-race that began at midnight and followed a crazy course up Imp trail over and around.... just listening to the course made me ache! The next morning, at a much more mudane start time and pace, we walked up Imp trail enjoying the waterfalls and the gradual incline of the trail. For me this was my first hike, since I began the 48’s way back May 28, 2009, that had the promise of not only staying dry, but sunny! The views were breathtaking...looking east over to the Baldfaces and west to the Presidential- damn fine!
http://leaf.smugmug.com/gallery/9298603_mw96d#621417729_FSYaJ
The trail over to South Carter had wonderful-fun, newly constructed bog boards that required multiple passes and silliness that resulted in ‘a-pain-in-my-ass’, and the ground-wetness kept the heat at bay. We toasted South Carter with a hydraulic sandwich and baiting a Jay with french-onion flavored sunchips. Then we headed back north. The walk to North Carter was fun and we passed again the through hikers. The scamper down from South Carter provided us cooler air as we descended into the shade and me more target practice by throwing my poles down ahead of me.
After oohing and aahing at the fantastic views on Imp Mountain, we made the detour into the Imp campground to check out the place. It is a lovely place and we took a ‘long-trail’ break at The Bench. As we started to walk over to Moriah we met the ‘toughies’, Mots and MEB doing all 48’s at once without support (I know, I know, there is a term for such an effort but I don’t know it)! They were on their way to Imp campground which is where Jason and Gillian were going to stay. It was tempting to just stay the night there and visit Moriah the next day, but alas both Court and I had to start Sunday off at home. The walk over to Moriah was hot in that blue hazey summer way with a few cooling zephyrs here and there when the trail drifted to the westside of the ridge.
The walk along the ridge swung back and forth from the east to the west with lovely views and lots of LARGE FLATISH HOT ROCKS to go up. But after all the wet trails I have been plowing through-- I was lovin it. We got to the killer-cool junction where the sign says go 0.1 miles <- that way to Moriah Summit. Climb up! yeah! Again we hung out, toasted the peak, and just soaked up the late day beauty with a steady western breeze, hardly having any interested in moving on.
As the saying goes –It’s all downhill from here- I like going up. There was a long stretch of walking down the LARGE FLATISH HOT ROCKS which was fun but then once the trail was just trail-- I just want to get to where I could TAKE-OFF my shoes! I have not had uncomfortable feet until this hike. As we kept expecting to get to the trail head (where the hell was it), we could hear loads sirens (what intarnation was happening in gorham?) and honking for god-sake!
Leaf called for a possible pick-up and lift to The Van. Luckily Rebecca and Swamp were going to be passing near-by and would pick us up. A garbled message had them swing by only not to be able to find us...we were cooling the tootsies off in the river. Fortunately they were good humored enough to turn around and come back to get us. THANKS!
We got to the van, changed into the life-threatening cotton and headed to Barnes for a visit at the fire and good company before hauling ourselves back to reality. Oh by the way, it was 9ish and still (!) there were three people out on the race trail, one who was 75 years old and veteran of many of these races-no one was worried!
!It was tough to leave!
Poor Courtney was subjected to my stayawakeanddrivelikeabatout ofhell playlist on the way home-
I had planned to hike the wildcat-carter-moriah two different times and there was some good reason I did only a part of it.
Total Miles: 14.8
Time: 10 hours due to breath-taking views that required lollygagging along the way.
**********************************************************
The promise of a stellar weather weekend was kicked off by Leaf and I having a beer Friday night on the porch in the city before driving north to slip under the stars and rising moon at Barnes. Although last week was the peak, there were enough falling stars to provide me with all the wishes I needed for this year: the Perseid showers were still active.
We arrived at Barnes in time to catch the racers prepare for the start of a 50miler ultra-race that began at midnight and followed a crazy course up Imp trail over and around.... just listening to the course made me ache! The next morning, at a much more mudane start time and pace, we walked up Imp trail enjoying the waterfalls and the gradual incline of the trail. For me this was my first hike, since I began the 48’s way back May 28, 2009, that had the promise of not only staying dry, but sunny! The views were breathtaking...looking east over to the Baldfaces and west to the Presidential- damn fine!
http://leaf.smugmug.com/gallery/9298603_mw96d#621417729_FSYaJ
The trail over to South Carter had wonderful-fun, newly constructed bog boards that required multiple passes and silliness that resulted in ‘a-pain-in-my-ass’, and the ground-wetness kept the heat at bay. We toasted South Carter with a hydraulic sandwich and baiting a Jay with french-onion flavored sunchips. Then we headed back north. The walk to North Carter was fun and we passed again the through hikers. The scamper down from South Carter provided us cooler air as we descended into the shade and me more target practice by throwing my poles down ahead of me.
After oohing and aahing at the fantastic views on Imp Mountain, we made the detour into the Imp campground to check out the place. It is a lovely place and we took a ‘long-trail’ break at The Bench. As we started to walk over to Moriah we met the ‘toughies’, Mots and MEB doing all 48’s at once without support (I know, I know, there is a term for such an effort but I don’t know it)! They were on their way to Imp campground which is where Jason and Gillian were going to stay. It was tempting to just stay the night there and visit Moriah the next day, but alas both Court and I had to start Sunday off at home. The walk over to Moriah was hot in that blue hazey summer way with a few cooling zephyrs here and there when the trail drifted to the westside of the ridge.
The walk along the ridge swung back and forth from the east to the west with lovely views and lots of LARGE FLATISH HOT ROCKS to go up. But after all the wet trails I have been plowing through-- I was lovin it. We got to the killer-cool junction where the sign says go 0.1 miles <- that way to Moriah Summit. Climb up! yeah! Again we hung out, toasted the peak, and just soaked up the late day beauty with a steady western breeze, hardly having any interested in moving on.
As the saying goes –It’s all downhill from here- I like going up. There was a long stretch of walking down the LARGE FLATISH HOT ROCKS which was fun but then once the trail was just trail-- I just want to get to where I could TAKE-OFF my shoes! I have not had uncomfortable feet until this hike. As we kept expecting to get to the trail head (where the hell was it), we could hear loads sirens (what intarnation was happening in gorham?) and honking for god-sake!
Leaf called for a possible pick-up and lift to The Van. Luckily Rebecca and Swamp were going to be passing near-by and would pick us up. A garbled message had them swing by only not to be able to find us...we were cooling the tootsies off in the river. Fortunately they were good humored enough to turn around and come back to get us. THANKS!
We got to the van, changed into the life-threatening cotton and headed to Barnes for a visit at the fire and good company before hauling ourselves back to reality. Oh by the way, it was 9ish and still (!) there were three people out on the race trail, one who was 75 years old and veteran of many of these races-no one was worried!
!It was tough to leave!
Poor Courtney was subjected to my stayawakeanddrivelikeabatout ofhell playlist on the way home-
)
