The Feathered Hat
Active member
When, exactly, is the end of Lent? Some say Easter morning, others say not until you pass through the church doors for Easter services, still others -- Catholic optimists -- say it's all over on the Saturday before Easter. In the years when I gave up alcohol in all forms for Lent, the official conclusion was of great interest to me. This year, however (I didn't give up anything for the season; life in general has been trial enough), I decided Lent would end when my dog Tuckerman and I touched the sign at the summit of Moosilauke on Easter Day.
The weather was supposed to be good, a day mirroring beautiful Saturday. As we loaded the pack and finished off the previous night's pizza for breakfast, I noticed that the sky had grown overcast but the peaks I can see from my house, the Kinsmans, the Cannonballs and Cannon, were in the clear, so I wasn't worried. Still, the outside temperature at first coffee was 22 degrees F. I tossed the winter gear into the pack.
Our trail for the day would be the most direct route to the peak: Beaver Brook out of Kinsman Notch. I checked VFTT; no recent reports for the trail. Hmmm.
We pulled into the parking lot at about 10:20 a.m. Totally empty. Hmmm again: The smart people must've stayed home with their chocolate and jelly beans. But we geared up and got underway by 10:30. The temperature had soared to 24 degrees, and I noticed a fairly stiff breeze shooting through the notch. About 10 steps in to the hike I realized I'd left the camera at home, so you'll have to take this report on faith. But hey, would I lie on Easter Sunday?
We crunched along on a hard, frozen granulated monorail in the short flat section out of the trailhead, easily rock-hopping the two non-bridged brook crossings. At the sign-in box that's about a quarter-mile in I put on Microspikes for the climb up The Cascades section and also leashed up Tuckerman -- there are places along The Cascades where a dog (and a human) could fall a long, long ways. A couple of people had signed in and out on Saturday; we were the first name on the sheet for Sunday.
The Cascades were, well, The Cascades: very steep, icy in spots, tricky and narrow in others, with Beaver Brook tumbling dramatically and musically on the right, icicles the size of organ pipes stabbing down from the cataracts. We took it slow. There's a nasty old blowdown across an especially steep and icy section that required me to lift Tuckerman over the log. The steel hand-hold cables and the wood steps remain buried under snow.
We were lucky, however, that the day was cold enough to keep the snow hard, and the Microspikes proved ideal for the climb. I brought along snowshoes but never needed them. There was a lot of evidence that others before us hadn't been so fortunate: frequent and amazingly deep post-holes on both sides of the trail, the kind you look into and call, "Hellooooo?" Tuck became expert at avoiding them. Well, usually.
We reached the Beaver Brook shelter in about an hour and a quarter, stopping for a brief snack. On the way up breezy snow squalls alternated with occasional sunlight. Over the next section, up to the junction with the Benton Trail and with easier hiking (and Tuck off-leash), the wind picked up and the squalls, when they came, grew more fierce. Then there'd be a break, and Moosilauke's magnificent backbone rose before us in the fleeting sunlight like the hump of a huge whale cresting above water. We pressed on.
I checked my watch at the Benton junction: 12:45, two and a quarter hours from the car. The breeze was now a wind, but the scrubby spruce below timberline provided a decent windbreak. In a few more minutes of climbing we stepped out from the last trees into the bare, rocky, icy alpine landscape.
And right into an incredible, gale-force west wind. It was so windy...
Ed: "How windy was it, Johnny?"
Carson: "It was so windy that pigs actually flew in formation. It was so windy sailboats were breaking the sound barrier. It was so windy my swizzle stick blew right through Doc's trumpet and now he won't play anything except 'The Lady of Spain' on the accordion."
It was windy.
It was really windy.
It was really, really, really windy -- it was walking-at-a-45-degree-angle-windy. I got blown right off the trail a couple times, which is no fun when the trail is nothing but ice and rock. (Good ol' Microspikes, though: they held fast as long as my feet did.) Tuckerman, his face totally frosted over, whined and cried a little -- but he did not give up the lead. He seemed to be willing me up the final 100 yards: he kept looking back as if to ask, "Are you still coming?" We pushed harder and harder into the wall of wind. I wondered what it was like on the summit of Washington at that moment -- it couldn't be much windier than this. I wondered, too, if this is what it can be like on the Himalayan summits, where each step forward is its own universe of exertion. But, finally, we made the summit and the summit sign. Tuckerman, who is a week older than six months, had his third of the NH 48.
I'd love to tell you that the moment we touched the summit sign on Easter Day the wind stopped dead and the clouds parted and glorious sunlight fell all around us like a cascade of angels, but, well, no. We immediately turned around, leaned 45 degrees the other way, and headed down for the trees as quickly as we could. And once we got back down into the protective scrub spruce, Tuckerman leaped and jumped and sprinted down the trail. You've never seen a creature so happy to be going downhill.
After all that, the trip down was fairly anti-climatic. We stopped at the shelter again for a rest and a snack, and as we made our way down The Cascades -- Tuckerman back on the leash and taking it slow on the steep pitches -- the snow squalls would lift now and again to reveal amazing views toward the Kinsmans and Franconia Ridge, the vertebrae of Lafayette, Lincoln, Liberty and Flume suddenly appearing, disappearing, appearing again. We stopped briefly to sign out (no names below ours for the day) and reached the car four hours and 45 minutes after we had started.
It had seemed like all the trials and rewards we ask from Lent had been compressed into this single hike with my dog. I wondered if we unfairly punish ourselves during Lent, if we unfairly expect to be rewarded for what is, of course, an artificial construction. Perhaps it's not about denial and trial but about the moments of beauty and togetherness. There is no Lent because all of life is Lent. Be patient; the snow squalls will lift and the all beauty and glory of the mountains will be revealed.
That night, Easter dinner at home with Cindy: ham, spicy mashed potatoes, vegetables and my best bottle of Syrah. And a few tales to tell, too.
Steve B
The Feathered Hat
[email protected]
___________________________________
Tuckerman's report for dogs:
Steep! Ice! Wind! Postholes!
For once, I agreed the leash was a good idea.
Big Boss Man had wanted to clip my nails the day before but I wouldn't let him. Bet he's glad now that he didn't.
Cool water crossings. Two excellent bridges. After The Cascades, lots of room to romp on the snow. Good sticks to find. Not much poop, though.
*** Three sniffs (out of four). Tuck-Dog says check it out.
The weather was supposed to be good, a day mirroring beautiful Saturday. As we loaded the pack and finished off the previous night's pizza for breakfast, I noticed that the sky had grown overcast but the peaks I can see from my house, the Kinsmans, the Cannonballs and Cannon, were in the clear, so I wasn't worried. Still, the outside temperature at first coffee was 22 degrees F. I tossed the winter gear into the pack.
Our trail for the day would be the most direct route to the peak: Beaver Brook out of Kinsman Notch. I checked VFTT; no recent reports for the trail. Hmmm.
We pulled into the parking lot at about 10:20 a.m. Totally empty. Hmmm again: The smart people must've stayed home with their chocolate and jelly beans. But we geared up and got underway by 10:30. The temperature had soared to 24 degrees, and I noticed a fairly stiff breeze shooting through the notch. About 10 steps in to the hike I realized I'd left the camera at home, so you'll have to take this report on faith. But hey, would I lie on Easter Sunday?
We crunched along on a hard, frozen granulated monorail in the short flat section out of the trailhead, easily rock-hopping the two non-bridged brook crossings. At the sign-in box that's about a quarter-mile in I put on Microspikes for the climb up The Cascades section and also leashed up Tuckerman -- there are places along The Cascades where a dog (and a human) could fall a long, long ways. A couple of people had signed in and out on Saturday; we were the first name on the sheet for Sunday.
The Cascades were, well, The Cascades: very steep, icy in spots, tricky and narrow in others, with Beaver Brook tumbling dramatically and musically on the right, icicles the size of organ pipes stabbing down from the cataracts. We took it slow. There's a nasty old blowdown across an especially steep and icy section that required me to lift Tuckerman over the log. The steel hand-hold cables and the wood steps remain buried under snow.
We were lucky, however, that the day was cold enough to keep the snow hard, and the Microspikes proved ideal for the climb. I brought along snowshoes but never needed them. There was a lot of evidence that others before us hadn't been so fortunate: frequent and amazingly deep post-holes on both sides of the trail, the kind you look into and call, "Hellooooo?" Tuck became expert at avoiding them. Well, usually.
We reached the Beaver Brook shelter in about an hour and a quarter, stopping for a brief snack. On the way up breezy snow squalls alternated with occasional sunlight. Over the next section, up to the junction with the Benton Trail and with easier hiking (and Tuck off-leash), the wind picked up and the squalls, when they came, grew more fierce. Then there'd be a break, and Moosilauke's magnificent backbone rose before us in the fleeting sunlight like the hump of a huge whale cresting above water. We pressed on.
I checked my watch at the Benton junction: 12:45, two and a quarter hours from the car. The breeze was now a wind, but the scrubby spruce below timberline provided a decent windbreak. In a few more minutes of climbing we stepped out from the last trees into the bare, rocky, icy alpine landscape.
And right into an incredible, gale-force west wind. It was so windy...
Ed: "How windy was it, Johnny?"
Carson: "It was so windy that pigs actually flew in formation. It was so windy sailboats were breaking the sound barrier. It was so windy my swizzle stick blew right through Doc's trumpet and now he won't play anything except 'The Lady of Spain' on the accordion."
It was windy.
It was really windy.
It was really, really, really windy -- it was walking-at-a-45-degree-angle-windy. I got blown right off the trail a couple times, which is no fun when the trail is nothing but ice and rock. (Good ol' Microspikes, though: they held fast as long as my feet did.) Tuckerman, his face totally frosted over, whined and cried a little -- but he did not give up the lead. He seemed to be willing me up the final 100 yards: he kept looking back as if to ask, "Are you still coming?" We pushed harder and harder into the wall of wind. I wondered what it was like on the summit of Washington at that moment -- it couldn't be much windier than this. I wondered, too, if this is what it can be like on the Himalayan summits, where each step forward is its own universe of exertion. But, finally, we made the summit and the summit sign. Tuckerman, who is a week older than six months, had his third of the NH 48.
I'd love to tell you that the moment we touched the summit sign on Easter Day the wind stopped dead and the clouds parted and glorious sunlight fell all around us like a cascade of angels, but, well, no. We immediately turned around, leaned 45 degrees the other way, and headed down for the trees as quickly as we could. And once we got back down into the protective scrub spruce, Tuckerman leaped and jumped and sprinted down the trail. You've never seen a creature so happy to be going downhill.
After all that, the trip down was fairly anti-climatic. We stopped at the shelter again for a rest and a snack, and as we made our way down The Cascades -- Tuckerman back on the leash and taking it slow on the steep pitches -- the snow squalls would lift now and again to reveal amazing views toward the Kinsmans and Franconia Ridge, the vertebrae of Lafayette, Lincoln, Liberty and Flume suddenly appearing, disappearing, appearing again. We stopped briefly to sign out (no names below ours for the day) and reached the car four hours and 45 minutes after we had started.
It had seemed like all the trials and rewards we ask from Lent had been compressed into this single hike with my dog. I wondered if we unfairly punish ourselves during Lent, if we unfairly expect to be rewarded for what is, of course, an artificial construction. Perhaps it's not about denial and trial but about the moments of beauty and togetherness. There is no Lent because all of life is Lent. Be patient; the snow squalls will lift and the all beauty and glory of the mountains will be revealed.
That night, Easter dinner at home with Cindy: ham, spicy mashed potatoes, vegetables and my best bottle of Syrah. And a few tales to tell, too.
Steve B
The Feathered Hat
[email protected]
___________________________________
Tuckerman's report for dogs:
Steep! Ice! Wind! Postholes!
For once, I agreed the leash was a good idea.
Big Boss Man had wanted to clip my nails the day before but I wouldn't let him. Bet he's glad now that he didn't.
Cool water crossings. Two excellent bridges. After The Cascades, lots of room to romp on the snow. Good sticks to find. Not much poop, though.
*** Three sniffs (out of four). Tuck-Dog says check it out.
