Peakbagging Cheating (or cheated)?

[SherpaKroto]

Cheating is when you write your name next to a mountain that you didn’t hike up and back down.

When I read this it brought back memories of a time when I felt I was cheating (or cheated). When I climbed Wildcat for the first time (1975) it was pouring the entire way from Carter Notch, and it was 2 steps forward, one back. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that I would take the Gondola to Pinkham's and call off the rest of my hike. As I reached the platform, I saw that although I had heard the Gondola for the last mile, it was actually not running that day due to the weather. I kept on unhappily (solo) and in a foul mood. When I reached the first ledge, I slipped, and rolled a good way down the ledge. Although not seriously injured, I was stunned, and ended up falling again a short time later. I don't really remember the rest of the hike to Pinkham's. I spent a long time just sitting there, showered, and finally decided to continue on to Hermit Lake for the night, and then to Crawfords the following day (which was a good decision). As I neared completing the NH48 list, every time I looked at the Wildcat notes, I felt guilty that I enjoyed every one of the hikes but that one. I felt cheated. After I finished, all I wanted was go back to Wildcat. I had climbed them both and back, but it just didn't feel right. I had stayed away from climbing them again for 27 years, although I had had many opportunities! I chose the Flags on the 48 hike as the occasion to return, and it did the trick. I had a wonderful hike with friends and came away with extremely positive memories. Now when I look at the completed list, it really feels complete.

Has anyone else had similar thoughts or feelings as they were chasing the lists? Anyone do something similar to what I did? I know many of you don't feel the way I do about peakbagging, so save those comments for another thread. I love knowing that I've been blessed with being able to go to many beautiful places wiht new and old friends that I might have otherwise missed, and look forward to going to them again and again. I also look forward to seeing the new places I've noticed along the way, and know I'll find more when I get there.

 

[trailbiscuit]

Middle and South Carter...I have no recollection of these peaks...none. It was a rough day for me last July. Some combination of heat exhaustion, dehydration, high ozone levels and me just being a big sissy. But, I could barely move forward and doing everything I could just to get to Imp Shelter. I can't remember anything about either of these summits. Only a hazy veil of pain and suffering. Needless to say, I survived, but it was not good times. (All the credit goes to my hiking buddy, who you may have seen in other posts, for keeping me moving and in one piece.)

So, I can't wait to get back and see these peaks when I'm of sound mind and body.

BTW, SherpaK...great idea for a thread.

 

[Jim lombard]

Wildcats also

Sherpa I also had a bad experience on the Wildcats. It was January of 1987. It was only my second real hiking trip and we were ill prepared for the conditions faced. None of us had snowshoes, crampons or even waterproof boots. We trudged over the ridge from a night at Carter Notch hut and then slipped-slid-fell-froze our way back to the hut. It took me a full 5 years to get back to hiking and fortunately that was a wonderful hike up Carter Dome. My wife and I are returning to the Wildcat ridge in a few weeks......17 years since I was there last.

 

[Jim W]

I think my story will have some similarities to this thread.

I was itching to get out and do some Appalachian Trail-bagging. This was in June of 1998. It was still softball season, and I was an assistant coach, and I had never missed one of my daughters' games. Never the less, I made arrangements to take a couple of vacation days and skip out on one softball game.

I spotted my car at the Garfield Trail trailhead. Then took the AMC shuttle to the Flume Slide trailhead. I did Flume Slide in light rain and it was awesome. Went across Flume and Liberty, then camped at Liberty Springs. I was having a blast. The next day the weather was perfect. I went up to Little Haystack, and then to my favorite - Mount Lincoln.

Then while standing on Lincoln, I got slammed with guilt. It was only one softball game, but all of a sudden I needed to go home. The rest of the hike was miserable. Ten miles of loneliness and depression like I never knew. I hated the Garfield Ridge Trail and the Garfiled Trail on that day.

I didn't wait 27 years to go back, though. I've been back many times and now I can say I love those trails. I never stopped hiking alone, either. And of course, I never missed another event involving my girls.

 

[KenC]

Sherpa,

Must be something about the Carter area!! This past october several friends and i planned a traverse from Gorham to Pinkham hitting the whole ridge. There had been an early season snow but we opted not to bring crampons. They would not have done us any good this day anyway...

We headed up the Carter/Moriah trail on a great Sat AM. As we gained altitude the trail conditions changed quickly! Ther was snow yes, but with it was a thin layer of ice covering everything!! Needless to say it was a difficult trudge, slipping and sliding up rocks and down Moriah with full packs in these icy conditions. There was just enough ice to make everything very slippery but not enough for crampons.

Complicating this was the fact that i had injured my left knee several weeks earlier but was feeling pretty good. Needless to say the pounding from the sliding and slipping took it's toll!!

We did spend a great night at the Imp shelter with some great people, but the next morning the old knee was NOT in any shape to head up and over the Carters. I tried to convince my buddies to let me decend Stony Brook and they continue on but they would hear nothing of it! They said we start as a group and finish as one!!

I felt as if i was cheated yes, but felt like my partners got cheated more!!

I plan to return there this fall after the crowds are gone, hopefully they can all join.

 

[JohnL]

I only feel cheated when I try to remember some details about hikes I did 20-some years ago but nothing comes back from those lost parts of my brain. I am fortunate to have numerous photographs from many of my early adventures but sometimes, even with photos, I cannot remember a darn thing about the hike. I have a photo of me on top of Mt Willard in the winter but I have no idea who I was with or anything else about the hike. No record of the hike in my journal, either. Nice photo, though.

JohnL

 

[audrey]

Oh, yes! Waumbek was horrible on a hot humid buggy day, some fine person had defecated on the trail on Mt. Starr King, and we had to walk through a cloud of flies. We have since been back several times, the best being a winter bushwhack up Priscilla Brook.

Killington was Pat's and my last NE 4K (bad judgement!) on a summer day with hordes of gondola riders and an obnoxious hiker who was bragging loudly about his few exploits. We've happily been back a number of times, the most recent during Gathering X, superb company, of course!

 

[Dugan]

Agreed, John L. After 20+ years of hiking, I've forgotten more peaks than I remember.

Does it still count toward the lists if you can't remember it?!

 

[stoopid]

I keep a log and correspondence. Hard to cheat or forget .

I do wish to do Gothics again someday, I didn't get much of a view (90% in the clouds and the visibility without clouds may have been 5 miles).

 

[jbrown]

Mmmmmm...Gothics...

Reminds me of my hike last year. We, my brother, Joe, his brother-in-law, Andrew and my cousin, Justin, did the Wolfjaws, Armstrong and Gothics from Crandall lean-to by JBL. We were supposed to do Saddleback and Basin the next day, but ended up bailing. Seems that we all missed someone near and dear too much, or some crap like that...
Plus we were so demoralized by the descent of the Ore Bed Brook trail that we didn't have the energy or the will to contiue with the planned itinerary. We started to run low on water toward the end of the day, but mis-judged our distance from JBL and decided to run in on what we had...big mistake. Joe has bad knees and wouldn't let anyone take his pack so he was dogging it much of the time on the descent. It ended up being a very late night for us and we all just wanted to get a hot shower and a descent meal...

I'd go back to Gothics for the view, though. Best I've ever seen. Let me know, Stoopid...

 

[Peakbagr]

One vivid memory that I can recall. Our party of 4 busted our collective asses climbing Street after a blizzard followed by an ice storm. After breaking 24" of "cement" every inch of the way from Indian Pass Brook, we arrived on a socked-in summit ridge. The branches were iced-up snow barriers, visibility was 20' in blowing fog, and we could not locate the cannister. We knew we had climbed the peak, but the cannister was either below our feet in the snowpack, or just above the snowline, encased and invisible.
After an hour of hunting, we reluctantly gave up and headed back to the Loj.
While I miss the canisters dearly, if you didn't get the can that means you must have missed the summit so we went back 2 weeks later on a stellar day and bagged them both.

 

[mavs00]

Similar sorta....

Differnt sort of cheating, but cute nonetheless. The quote reminded me of this story. As we (my family and I) approach completing the 46 we are starting to plan (yes Alpine, I just sent my request letter in the other day) for the big day.

Anyway, we plan on finishing soon on Whiteface and the other day, while visiting my parents, we were talking about how they could drive and meet us at the top (they are non-hikers) to celebrate before driving back down to start the REAL celebration. My 11 y/o daughter pipes in and say's "Great, I'll just ride down with them." So I chime in and say "honey, you have to walk back down in order to count it as your 46th peak". She just gave me that ARE YOU SERIOUS look.

Now she has already hiked her little fanny up and down 34+ peaks so far, including the Sewards, Santanonis and the Dixs and never complained once. Tell her there is a road and it's like "You mean we have to walk down that one too, whats the sense in that."

I find it funny, Kids today btw, was totally robbed of "the view" on Nippletop/Dial.

 

[rhihn]

I've been up Giant four times, but the last time included Rocky Peak Ridge. The heavens opened up in the col between the two mountains and although the rain stopped, RPR had 0 views. We were met by weather of a different sort on Wright, as we literally had to crawl to the summit due to high winds. Didn't get to enjoy those summits, so I know we'll be going back.

 

[bubba]

RPR for me too, although opposite reason... it was an unexpected 80+ degree October weekend. None of us were prepared for the length of RPR, the number of false peaks seemed endless, and the hot weather on this open, exposed trail. We were out of H2O by the time we hit Giant. The best part of the trip was hitting the water tap/spring on the ridge trail below Chapel Pond. I know that I'll have to redo this one someday. You're right, Sherpa, I do feel robbed and hadn't thought of it until Dick listed it above.

 

[Rick]

About 10 years ago I was dayhiking up Cascade & Porter. At the trailhead while I changed into my boots, 2 huge busses pulled up on the side of the road just before the parking lot and burped out about 60 or so French Canadians.

I spent the next 2 hours or so trying to make sure I stayed in front of the group as I did not want to get stuck in such a long line. I went to Porter and they went to Cascade. I stayed at Porter for about an hour, hoping they'd all be gone when I got to Cascade, (it was quite foggy at the summit) but to no avail, as I cam up Cascade they were groups of them 5-6 in agroup everywhere. Some were smoking, some were drinking others were just eating and taking pictures, but I did feel I was robbed of a peaceful summit by those two busses.

As I got up to leave, they all were did the same and came down the trail right behind me.

'Course, Don't you wish all your problems in life were this small?

 

[bubba]

Rick, you wouldn't have known that you were on Cascade if there wasn't a busload of something there! Those pesky French Canadians!! (The nice ones buy lots of beer)

 

[askus3]

Cheated & cheating

Several items come to mind.

(1) In 1981, I finished the 12 - 4,000 footers in Maine. Then several years ago, they added Spaulding & Reddington to the list. I was somewhat disappointed that I would have to go back to that area. It is a long trip for two peaks. But there is a silver lining - my friends talked me into leading section hikes along the AT and I plan to go back to do the AT thru that region in 2005, so I will make a spur trek to Reddington from South Crocker next year & not just do an up and back hike up Sugarloaf so I will continue to Spaulding. Also, i look forward to hiking the ridge from the AT over to Abraham VS going up from Kingfield. Also, from what I can tell - Caribou Valley Road sounds like you can drive up in a car now. You should have seen that disaster of a road in 1979!

(2) Another Wildcat story: I am not sure if I actually have done it as I have no summit photo of my peakbagging of Widcat "D". When I climbed the Wildcats I took a summit photo of Wildcat "E". I hiked the AT (Wildcat Ridge Trail) from Pinkham Notch thru to Carter Notch Hut, so I know I went over Wildcat "D" but did I step on its summit? I am cheating (maybe?) and am counting it, so when I climb Moosilauke on August 5, 2004, I will be saying that I completed my White Mountain 4,000 footers! I do hope if all goes well in 2008 to do that AT section hike and will make a point that I stand on Wildcat "D" and take my summit photo, but I am not waiting until 2008 for the accolades.

(3) If a summit has a view, ideally I hope to stand on it and see what I am supposed to see. So far I have been lucky. Considering the distance from New York and the annual visits I have made, the only summit with a view that I have had unfortunately not seen anything but mist, fog & people was Garfield. Overall, I have been blessed with good weather and most of the summits I have only done once. Other mountains I have had dismal weather on were Owls Head, Galehead & Zealand, but to my knowledge there were no views to be had at their summits. I also had poor and limited views on Tom, Field & Willey and hope sometime to do them again also.

(4) On my trip in 1971, I climbed the Sleeper Trail to Whiteface from the Tripyramids then went out to the ledges and descended the McCrillis Trail. Later on when looking back on that hike, I feel cheated that I didn't go to the summit. But I was a young kid then and did not know about peakbagging. So this summer when I do my "South of the Kan" trip, I will make sure I bag Whiteface. Actually, it gives me a good excuse to reminisce about that hike 33 years ago when I make this outing. I am excited about climbing the north slide of Tripyramid, as I couldn't believe that trail. That was the first time I encountered anything so steep. A trail goes up that - WOW!!! It still is formidable, and I probably will still be in awe of it but not like when I was 19 and never experienced anything like that before.

 

[BrentD22]

Mt. Washington

I've chosen not to ever climb to the "summit" of Mt. Washington. Sure I've been up there, but never have I gone up into the parking lot area with the buildings and such. Once on a SAR mission we started at the top (after a drive up), but thats not the same. I always felt cheated that the most grand mountain up there has been puked on by man! When I look from a distance over to Washington from other summits I think it would be pretty cool to be up there all alone looking over here, but not possible

 

[DavidStone]

I am really particular about these things. When hiking Zealand this past March, I opted not to butt-slide down from Zeacliff as it didn't feel right. Last June, I probably came within 15 feet from the summit of Mount Lethe but under no circumstance was that close enough to check it off the Trailwrights list. I followed the trail across the summit of Porter (ADK) last July until I descended a good few humdred feet and then back-tracked and steped on every high rock outcropping on the summit until I was sure. For myself only, I gotta be sure.

 

[peakbagger]

I had an unofficial "rule" that when I was doing the summer NH 4K's that I didnt count them unless I had a reasonable view from the summit. That worked pretty well for the summer 4k's but I did get tagged with drizzle on Mendon and Dorset (long drive). When I didnt the winter 4K's, I had more than a few that got repeated due to bad views. When I id the last one on my winter list, Adams, I walked up to madison hut twice and turned around as the weather wasnt where I wanted it.