sapblatt
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- Oct 22, 2004
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Hiking on a Monday – the way life should be! Rols is on vacation and I cannot hike for the nest three weekends and I have been very aware of staying in hiking shape, so I took a vacation day and headed up to meet Rols as he embarked on completing his second round of 48 – this time in only thirteen months! The hike also allowed me to get North Twin, which had eluded me on my prior attempt in May, and I am somewhat tracking my 48 by seasons, so getting South Twin and Galehead in the summer is a plus!
As per usual…the insanely early start. Rols met me at the Gale River Trailhead at 5am for the trek over to the North Twin Trail. We got there, and got ready to hit the trail by 5:50. The daylight sure is changing. Fifteen minutes earlier we would have been wearing headlamps. I have never been on this trail, but reading about it had me concerned about the river crossings and the never-ending uphill slog the last two miles up. Well, a dry summer alleviated the river concerns and somehow another we managed to get to the summit in three hours. I do not usually beat book time on this kind of terrain, so I credit my constant hiking as improving my fitness, and I do not want to discount the importance of a nutritious start to the day with a good breakfast. On this day I ate a much of Hostess Powdered Donnettes – the breakfast of ex-champions. The only problem the of this part of the day was right after the third crossing Paul (Rols) slipped on a rock about twenty yards from the river and whacked his shin pretty hard. It was bleeding a little and it swelled up a bit, but he insisted that he was fine (and the swelling went down.)
We were thoroughly soaked from the wet trees on the upper sections of North Twin. It had rained heavily the night before and the trail is quite overgrown in some spots. This sadly was to be destined to be a “No Views From the Top” day. Which is good, because I did not bring a camera. The view from North Twin was reminiscent of my views from Imp, Passaconaway, etc. Very white and fluffy! The walk over to South Twin was very pleasant. The col between the two peaks is beautiful and a couple of tricky downhill scrambles were fun, at least after you got down safely! For information on the view from South Twin, please see above (North Twin view…)
The only real tough part of the day was the descent to Galehead hut. The Twinway gets down about 1200 feet in short order. While some of this is rock step, a lot of it is slab – and today, that is wet, slick slab. Miraculously, we got through this section without slipping or falling. It was depressing to watch two nine year olds bound down with their Mom’s like they were playing at a playground. A very brief stop at Galehead and onto the peak. We stopped along the Frost Trail to eat the few remaining raspberries – they were so sweet! We quickly made it up to Galehead and I took a pic of Paul with his camera. The view area a little below the summit had an interesting image of two giant clouds running into each other right in front of us.
We stopped back at the hut for our second lunch and I unpacked my pack for a couple of surprise, celebratory beers in honor of Rols second 48. We stayed for about a half an hour before heading down the Gale River Trail. Not wanting Paul to feel bad, I took a small fall near the top. After the steps and the steep area the descent went quite quickly. Paul took the lead for good with his second fall near the end of the day. The quads were a little beat, mainly from the South Twin descent and it was easy to lose your footing. The river crossings were uneventful and we made it out by about 3:20.
Another great day and congrats to Rols, and 45/48 for me.
As per usual…the insanely early start. Rols met me at the Gale River Trailhead at 5am for the trek over to the North Twin Trail. We got there, and got ready to hit the trail by 5:50. The daylight sure is changing. Fifteen minutes earlier we would have been wearing headlamps. I have never been on this trail, but reading about it had me concerned about the river crossings and the never-ending uphill slog the last two miles up. Well, a dry summer alleviated the river concerns and somehow another we managed to get to the summit in three hours. I do not usually beat book time on this kind of terrain, so I credit my constant hiking as improving my fitness, and I do not want to discount the importance of a nutritious start to the day with a good breakfast. On this day I ate a much of Hostess Powdered Donnettes – the breakfast of ex-champions. The only problem the of this part of the day was right after the third crossing Paul (Rols) slipped on a rock about twenty yards from the river and whacked his shin pretty hard. It was bleeding a little and it swelled up a bit, but he insisted that he was fine (and the swelling went down.)
We were thoroughly soaked from the wet trees on the upper sections of North Twin. It had rained heavily the night before and the trail is quite overgrown in some spots. This sadly was to be destined to be a “No Views From the Top” day. Which is good, because I did not bring a camera. The view from North Twin was reminiscent of my views from Imp, Passaconaway, etc. Very white and fluffy! The walk over to South Twin was very pleasant. The col between the two peaks is beautiful and a couple of tricky downhill scrambles were fun, at least after you got down safely! For information on the view from South Twin, please see above (North Twin view…)
The only real tough part of the day was the descent to Galehead hut. The Twinway gets down about 1200 feet in short order. While some of this is rock step, a lot of it is slab – and today, that is wet, slick slab. Miraculously, we got through this section without slipping or falling. It was depressing to watch two nine year olds bound down with their Mom’s like they were playing at a playground. A very brief stop at Galehead and onto the peak. We stopped along the Frost Trail to eat the few remaining raspberries – they were so sweet! We quickly made it up to Galehead and I took a pic of Paul with his camera. The view area a little below the summit had an interesting image of two giant clouds running into each other right in front of us.
We stopped back at the hut for our second lunch and I unpacked my pack for a couple of surprise, celebratory beers in honor of Rols second 48. We stayed for about a half an hour before heading down the Gale River Trail. Not wanting Paul to feel bad, I took a small fall near the top. After the steps and the steep area the descent went quite quickly. Paul took the lead for good with his second fall near the end of the day. The quads were a little beat, mainly from the South Twin descent and it was easy to lose your footing. The river crossings were uneventful and we made it out by about 3:20.
Another great day and congrats to Rols, and 45/48 for me.
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