Woody
Active member
Training hike for "Pound the Presi's" Presidential Traverse. I stashed a bike in the woods at the OBP/Falling Waters parking area and drove back to the Whitehouse Trail parking area. I started hiking at 9:30. Hiking the Whitehouse trail is better than walking the bike path. Only took about 15 minutes to get to the beginning of Liberty Spring Trail just past the bridge on the bike path. The river crossing near the bottom of the Liberty Spring Trail was a bit tricky, but I managed to cross on the rocks without any water going over the top of my boots. There was a group of boy scouts on the other side of the river that told me the river had been much higher the previous day. They decided to cross on a large tree stump a few yards down stream from the trail crossing. The tree looked slippery. I hope they all made it across ok. I was hiking up the Liberty Spring Trail in my polypro T-shirt, long pants with gaiters. I was pretty warm on the hike up until I got to the tent sites. I thought I was getting bit chilled because I was taking a quick break. In another 10 or 15 minutes I was at the trail intersection with the Franconia Ridge. I decided to have some lunch and I could feel the wind start to pick up so I put my longsleeved polypro shirt and my wind shirt on to keep me a bit warmer. There was also a slight drizzle starting now that I was in the cloud cover. I started to head north on the ridge. The trail was in good shape except for a couple of blow downs that I had to go around. As I neared the top of Little Haystack it started to rain a bit harder so I put my shell jacket and gloves on and pushed forward. The rain started to become freezing rain and blowing sideways. My scholler hiking pants were getting wet on the windward side - my left - and I was starting to get pretty chilled. I was really starting to understand how people can get hypothermic even though the calendar says it is only a week before Memorial Day. I got to a sheltered spot where the trail went between some krumholtz scrub and stopped to pull my rain pants out of my pack and put them on as well. I checked the mini thermometer hanging on my pack. The temp was close to 30 degrees. No wonder I was getting chilled. Seems I put the rain pants on at just the right time. As I approached Mount Lincoln the rain turned to snow. Soon the flakes got very large and they were still blowing sideways! I couldn't see much more than 50 to 70 feet in front of me. I pulled out my gps just to get an idea of how far I had to go to get to Lafayette since I couldn't see the peak. As I approached Lafayette I was getting really chilled. My gloves were wet and my hands were freezing. I have been warmer hiking Franconia Ridge in February. When I got to the summit of Lafayette my thoughts turned to the couple that headed in the wrong direction a couple of winters ago during a whiteout and the poor women ended up freezing to death. I was pretty confident of which way I wanted to go to take the Greenleaf trail down to the hut, but I took a GPS reading just to be sure. (The cairns have blue blazes painted on them) Last time I was on Lafayette during a clear day I recorded some waypoints going down the Greenleaf trail to the hut just for this purpose. It was blizzard conditions at the top of Lafayette and I couldn't wait to get to the hut and warm up a bit. I had a softshell jacket in my pack but I didn't want to stop and take off my hard shell jacket to put it on. I just kept on moving to stay warm. I actually started to warm up a bit as I headed to the hut. At one point the clouds parted a bit and I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures. Just as I was putting the camera away the clouds parted and I could see the hut for a few seconds. The next time I saw the hut I was about 50 feet from it. I got to the hut at about 3:25 and went in and took off my wet jacket and soaked through gloves. I hung out and had bagel and a couple of chocolate bars to eat and tried to dry out a bit. At 4 pm I decided it was time to go. By now it was snowing hard at the hut as well. This time I put my softshell jacket on under my hardshell and then I put on dry fleece gloves and then my goretex shell mittens over the gloves and I headed on down the Old Bridle Path. As I reached the last of the Agonies the rain and snow was letting up and things were warming up. As I was thinking of stripping off a layer I passed a couple on their way up towards the hut. The guy was in shorts and the young lady had a light jacket on. They did have reasonable packs on so I assumed they were prepared. I figured they needed to know what they were heading into so I mentioned to them that it was snowing a bit higher up as they approached the hut. By this time I could also see that the snow was accumulating a bit just below the cover of the clouds higher on the ridge. I hurried down the OBP as fast as my short legs could carry me without tripping and falling. I managed to get to the parking lot at 5:50 pm just as the rain started to pour. I was hoping my bike was where I left it. It was. I stashed my trekking poles on the side of my pack and jumped on. I was soaked as soon as I started to peddle. I made good time on the bike path splashing through the puddles and was at the car by 6:15. I was glad I brought the bike because the road walk would have really sucked. I threw the bike in the back of the truck and changed into dry clothes and hit the road. Great solo hike.
Great report, I enjoyed reading it and I'm glad you were prepared with the extra layers! Hopefully your "pound the Presies" hike will be warmer and dryer. 
