"Laboring" in the Whites

[TMax]

Part 1 North Kinsman, S. Kinsman, Cannon
Decided to spend the Labor Day weekend checking out some more peaks in the Whites. Started out Saturday morning about 9:00 am (after having pulled into North Conway at 1:00 am...) at the Lonesome Lake trail. Having read p2piper's trip report on this same hike a week or so ago and the struggles she had, I opted to go in the clockwise direction. The trail up to the hut climbs at an easy to moderate grade and I ran into quite a few family groups coming down. This was my first visit to the Lonesome Lake Hut and I was quite surprised and how cluttered with junk and trash the yard around the hut was. That's not typical for AMC... I ran inside quickly to fill my water bottle that I had emptied on the way up (it was hot!). Then I got on the Fishin' Jimmy Trail where I didn't see another soul! I did however have to follow a long trail of spit and phlegm. I kept thinking, "this guy must be hacking up a lung!!" The trail was rocky, rooty and steep in places so not a lot of fun to climb. There were triangular shaped "steps" attached to some of the ledges to assist with footing. On only two of them could I see any mechanics of how they were attached. (Pete Hickey, if you're reading this...how'd they do that???) In all my miles of hiking, I've not seen this structure before. I was tentative at first, thinking they wouldn't hold me in spite of the clear indication that they were well used! Got up to Kinsman without seeing anyone else, stopped at the little cairn on the summit rock for pictures, bypassed the viewpoint and then headed for N. Kinsman. I ran into who I believe were the spitting culprits on their way down from SK. Turned out it was a group of 4 (two adult men and two teenage boys), not just one person. I can tell you, it certainly made me think twice about where I spit or blew snot rockets after that. The hike over to NK from SK is easy. When I came out on what I initially thought was the summit, I saw the big cairn over on the true summit. Ran over there, took a quick couple of photos and left just as quickly due to the fairly large crowd hanging out. Back over to SK and I stopped on the viewpoint for lunch. The sky was a little overcast but it was still a great look over to the Garfield Ridge. The wind was blowing pretty good on that rock top so I headed off after about 20 minutes and two extra layers! The hike over to Cannon was tough. Those cannonballs seemed never-ending! I know there's only supposed to be three but I felt like I went over waaay more than that! Even though some very recent amazing trail work softened the mpact, I was still relieved to finally get to the junction with the Lonesome Lake Trail, knowing it was only about a mile to go! HOWEVER, a good chunck of that mile was STEEP and climbed over really big boulders. Now I like that kind of hiking cuz it breaks the monotony, so I was up that pretty quickly. At the summit tower the clouds had increased and the wind was howling. Lots of "non-hiking" people were there having ridden up in the tram so again, my stop was quick. The views had deteriorated but were nice just the same. Then I walked back to the junction with the Hi-Cannon Trail and took another longish break, contemplating my map and the closeness of the topo lines for that trail. What a great hike down! A couple of sections with a#$-puckering exposure (where it looks like the trail drops off a ledge in front of you!), some really steep pitches and a rickety old ladder made it an adventurous walk and made it necessary to focus my body. It was a little surreal walking through the Lafayette Campground and smelling all those dinner time smells as I worked my way to my car. Another completely satisfying day in the woods.

 

[TMax]

Part 2...The Hancocks

I took Sunday off from hiking after driving to the trailhead in a pretty good downpour. Instead, I spent the day hiking around on different pieces of property, checking out the real-estate market in the area...a girl can dream can't she??

Monday morning the weather report called for a 40% chance of scattered showers...I should've known I would be in the 40% area. Driving over the Kanc, the sun was shining and from the viewpoints along the way you could see the mountains sticking up above the cloud cover. I thought "this is gunna be a great day." Started out that way but pretty quickly I walked up into a heavy mist that got me soaked just by the moisture in it. Right off the bat I realized I was breaking trail---through all the spider webs! I attempted to walk while waving my poles in front of me to help assist in the trail-breaking. Now, as those of you who have hiked with me know, grace and coordination are not strengths of mine and I quickly realized that using my poles in this manner was likely to result in great physical danger to myself (no spiders were hurt in thie making of this trip report...) so I resigned myself to eating a few webs along the way. The trails were all in great shape. Hancock Notch Trail is wide, smooth and easy. What a sweet difference. I again chose the clockwise direction for this loop, climbing North Hancock first. The grade is steep but the amazing trail crew has done a fantastic job on the trail. The higher I climbed the wetter I got and the skies opened up with serious rain just short of the summit. Absolutely no views from the top for me! I didn't hang out at all and made quick work of the trek over to South Hancock. The walk over is another easy ridge walk with the trail falling off the ridge on one side or another frequently. On the west side, the wind would bite, the east side was much nicer! Ran into two also very wet women just coming up on the summit of the north peak. None of us hung around for long. I moved down the trail pretty efficiently given that everything was quite wet. Started to run into other folks making their way up most of whom didn't look too happy with the weather. 24 stream crossings later (12 on the way up and 12 on the way down) all of which were relatively easy, I was back at the trail head. Can't wait to go back and climb these peaks in winter.

 

[spongebob]

Wow! TMax hiking White Mountians other than the Presidential Mountains........This is the fourth sign of the apocalypse.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Wow! TMax hiking White Mountians other than the Presidential Mountains........This is the fourth sign of the apocalypse.

#$%*, did I miss the first 3?!?!?

 

[hikethe115]

Congrats TMax! As long as it was only the webs and not the spiders then that is okay. And I agree it is better for you to not use your poles for the webs

So you got 5 done....you're under the 20 mark now, right??? Workin' the plan

 

[Woody]

steps

TMax,

Hike the Beaver Brook trail on Moosilauke and you will see more of those steps attached to the rocks!