sapblatt
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- Oct 22, 2004
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Tuco, jessbee and me met up at the exit 3 park and hike at 4:30am (I need to whole-heartedly thank jessbee for suggesting 4:30 over 4am…4 ½ hours sleep made all of the difference over four hours!) We headed up to the Moosilauke Ravide Lodge Road to meet Dr. Wu for our hike.
We were all suited up and ready to roll by about 7am. We were going to take the Gorge Brook Trail up and the Carriage Road and Snapper Trails down. This route, as well as many of the routes on this mountain are very nicely graded with not real steep sections to speak of. Tuco and I wore Stabilicers all day while jessbee and Dr. Wu wore snowshoes from the summit down, mainly for added traction over the flowing ice above treeline. I was feeling off (stomach) all day – sort of felt like I had been punched in the gut, which made it hard to breath well and made me a bit slow…it all got better after the summit (downhill often helps!)
The uphill was a battle for me the way I was feeling – lots of quick breaks and we all took one longer one at the “last water” spot. Even when Gorge Brook starts going up faster, it is still gentle…it seemed like each increase of elevation was a tough 50-100 feet section followed by a gentle switchback. As the trail climbs the number of impressive outlooks become more frequent. Often with exceptional views back to Sandwich Dome, the Trypyramids, Franconia Ridge and Mount Washington. As the scrub got shorter and we broke out of the trees the ice and wind increased. The summit cone still protected us quite a bit until we went over the top. After the scrub we all had facemasks and goggles on. Wu and jessbee continued bare booting until the summit.
We finally summited around 11am. The wind was fierce – our best guesses put the wind at about 50-60mph – enough to move us around when we were standing, but not enough to knock any of us down – although it was close a couple of times. We joked about spending an hour on the summit – it was more like two minutes! Wu and jessbee put on snowshoes for traction as we descended towards South Peak.
This was the roughest period with the wind. I was routinely being moved across the trail from right to left. The section is fairly short before reaching some protective scrub. In this section we passed by a few large groups – I believe we saw LenDawg, chinooktrail, drewski, Kevin Rooney, Cath Goodwin and the icy bearded Brutus. Nice to see everyone – tough day to make out faces through masks and goggles and tougher to stop and chat for any length of time.
We quickly reached the Glencliff Junction where Tuco, Wu and jessbee went up to the scenic South Peak while I sat and tried to feel better. We were quickly on our way down the Carriage Road to the Snapper Trail and back to the road walk. The road walk is really easy, at least with minimal packed snow and a little ice. I would guess the walk took well under 30 minutes. This was a spectacular day with some great folks to hike with.
Hopefully my hiking companions will post some of their pictures from the trip!
We were all suited up and ready to roll by about 7am. We were going to take the Gorge Brook Trail up and the Carriage Road and Snapper Trails down. This route, as well as many of the routes on this mountain are very nicely graded with not real steep sections to speak of. Tuco and I wore Stabilicers all day while jessbee and Dr. Wu wore snowshoes from the summit down, mainly for added traction over the flowing ice above treeline. I was feeling off (stomach) all day – sort of felt like I had been punched in the gut, which made it hard to breath well and made me a bit slow…it all got better after the summit (downhill often helps!)
The uphill was a battle for me the way I was feeling – lots of quick breaks and we all took one longer one at the “last water” spot. Even when Gorge Brook starts going up faster, it is still gentle…it seemed like each increase of elevation was a tough 50-100 feet section followed by a gentle switchback. As the trail climbs the number of impressive outlooks become more frequent. Often with exceptional views back to Sandwich Dome, the Trypyramids, Franconia Ridge and Mount Washington. As the scrub got shorter and we broke out of the trees the ice and wind increased. The summit cone still protected us quite a bit until we went over the top. After the scrub we all had facemasks and goggles on. Wu and jessbee continued bare booting until the summit.
We finally summited around 11am. The wind was fierce – our best guesses put the wind at about 50-60mph – enough to move us around when we were standing, but not enough to knock any of us down – although it was close a couple of times. We joked about spending an hour on the summit – it was more like two minutes! Wu and jessbee put on snowshoes for traction as we descended towards South Peak.
This was the roughest period with the wind. I was routinely being moved across the trail from right to left. The section is fairly short before reaching some protective scrub. In this section we passed by a few large groups – I believe we saw LenDawg, chinooktrail, drewski, Kevin Rooney, Cath Goodwin and the icy bearded Brutus. Nice to see everyone – tough day to make out faces through masks and goggles and tougher to stop and chat for any length of time.
We quickly reached the Glencliff Junction where Tuco, Wu and jessbee went up to the scenic South Peak while I sat and tried to feel better. We were quickly on our way down the Carriage Road to the Snapper Trail and back to the road walk. The road walk is really easy, at least with minimal packed snow and a little ice. I would guess the walk took well under 30 minutes. This was a spectacular day with some great folks to hike with.
Hopefully my hiking companions will post some of their pictures from the trip!
! I dropped a "hello" or "how you doin'?" to everyone I saw, but like everyone else, it was impossible to pick out someone unless you expected to see him/her. Glad everyone enjoyed themselves and stayed warm! 
