Pemi Loop, sort of

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Good stuff, nice attempt. Bivying out by the road... :D nice

I hear ya on the bonking feeling when you reach Galehead - after I stopped there (going clockwise), and when I started going up S Twin, I felt completely depleted although I shouldn't really have been.

...it's all in the mind :)
 
Cool report, makes me want to head out there today. I wonder how common the feeling of someone walking nearby or hearing footsteps is, I always get that feeling when camping....
 
I've had that feeling too, but I can usually tell the difference between my imagination and a moose going by. On really lonely nights the mice sound like skunks, the squirrels sound like bears, and a beaver swimming nearby sounds like a ten-foot-tall wolf taking a drink, but always before I've been able to verify that I really heard *something*. The feeling of something pushing on my leg was also completely new. Might have been muscle cramps, but I'm not sure.
 
I think ever seeing "Blair Witch" I've had that tingly sense a lot. :)

I do a lot of running in the woods and once came across pentagrams and upside-down crosses. I ran through the area again a few days later and someone had written on the ground "You can run (underlined), but you can't hide". I had that feeling of being watched a lot more after that.

I like the old saying "I'm not paranoid, everyone is just out to get me" :D
 
Amazing TR nartreb - I'm not sure whether you were braver in making the attempt, or in posting the results :eek:

On reflection now that it's all over - do you think you would have done better to continue up Lafayette and down the Greenleaf Trail, or would the continued ridge exposure have been too much? It's a ways down Greenleaf before you get below treeline, as I recall, but at least you're headed more in the right direction.
 
That's an epic trip for sure. Despite the obstacles, your report really had a positive, this-is-an-adventure kind of tone to it. Nice, that is what it's all about. Glad you got back safely.
 
Willoughby-
If I had known I'd be stuck walking the road for nine hours, I'd have given Greenleaf some serious consideration. The biggest real risk was that if my pace continued to deteriorate, I might not reach the summit before dark. Visibility was already lousy, so there's a chance I could lose the trail. It's not a great spot to be lost - there are cliffs to worry about if you try to get to the road by following a compass line or a stream, and I don't know that side of the mountain well at all. Most likely, I had enough time before dark to cover the distance over the summit to the hut, or at least get close enough that I couldn't get lost. But it seemed like a pointless risk, especially as it was just a choice between bail-out trails, neither of which ended anywhere near my car. I didn't want to become another "unprepared hiker caught in storm, stupidly continues to summit, needs rescue" statistic. It was a question of recognizing that I would be cutting my safety margin to almost nothing, without having a good reason to do so.
 
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Now thats an epic trip treport, you absolutely made the right call bailing out when you did. That was a TR definitely worth reading.

Brings to mind the saying "the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory" :)

Glad it all turned out fine.
 
Congrats on perservering through such an ordeal. You hiked much longer than the standard Pemi Loop distance... smart decision to bail down off the ridge, but too bad nobody picked you up hitching until the very last mile.

Just out of curiosity... what kind of training have you been doing before attempting this hike? I know from your website that you have done your homework on the route and studied the maps and trail descriptions... have you been regularly doing longer hiking days with lots of elevation gain?
 
Well written TR. You blended some humor in with the adventure. I have to admit when you wrote this, "3 AM: I've taken the North Lincoln exit onto route 3", I burst out laughing. Not because I was laughing at you. Not at all. It's just that I've read a ton of trip reports and I've never read about a hiker taking an exit on foot. Good stuff.

Hey, I could be wrong, but I believe this is a new loop. To name something is to own it. So you should name it.
 
Albee - depends what you mean by "regularly" - I live in the city and try to hike at least once a month. Previous hike to this was the Baldface-Royce traverse (There's a TR here on VFTT, started by RocksnRolls). I jog once or twice a week (usually about three miles, sometimes a bit more), and rock climb when I get a chance. I usually try to increase my effort (maybe even do a bit of stairclimbing in the gym) when I've got a big hike planned, but generally I just do stuff "off the couch". Worked for the Presi Traverse, more-or-less worked for the Great Range traverse, Pemi Loop is going to take a little more work.

dvbl - how about the Hitchhiker's Loop?
 
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