Bushwhack
Member
It was pouring as Crazy Legs and I worked our way up to Bamforth shelter on Camel’s Hump. We had plans of a long looping hike up and over Monroe skyline, and then down to the ridge between Warren and route 89. My knee was sore, my achilles was starting to complain, and my pack felt much heavier than it should have been, given that it only contained five days worth of supplies. I think of myself as a fast hiker, but today we were trudging at most. It took nearly three hours to go the two and a half miles to the shelter, where we watched the rain pound away.
As we packed up the next morning, I let Crazy Legs know that I was not looking forward to the fifteen miles ahead of us. Vermont greenschist is no fun to slip and slide over in the rain, but this seemed more than just nervousness about potential bruised tailbones or twisted knees. For the first time in my life, I did not feel like backpacking. Crazy legs agreed; he had not wanted to make me feel like we had to turn around, but he was not feeling like hiking in a downpour either. We turned around, 2.5 miles into a grand journey, and slogged back to the car.
On the way down, I considered whether I was still really up for long, intense hikes. Four years earlier, I had completed the entire Long Trail in 12 days without a single stop to resupply, carrying a pack that started out at 60 pounds for around 25 miles a day. My legs now felt overmatched by the 45 pounds on my back. Perhaps my joints and muscles were no longer up for such a pounding. Perhaps this is what happens as you age- old activities traded in for tamer ones, backpacking traded for day hikes, big mountains traded in for flatter woods. The masses of retirees that one runs into in the mountains attests to the falsity of that assumption; maybe I’ve just been sitting in a classroom too much. Perhaps this is a consequence of my conditioning- periodic mountains running, almost no sustained hiking with a heavy pack throughout the school year.
I’m betting that there is a different explanation though; I was just feeling off that day. No larger pattern, no ridiculous ponderings of a long decline beginning at age 28, but simply a random bad day. Why else would I be driving from Vermont to the White Mountains to play around in the presis for a few days?
If a 4000 footer in Vermont was too hard, why go up some of the hardest mountains in the entire northeast? It may not make sense, but little we do in the outdoors for fun really makes much sense. We risk our lives to climb up a cliff and then go right back down. We hike for hours with heavy weight on our shoulders, and we don’t even get paid for it. There is little in outdoor recreation that is rational. Why should I start making sense now? A trip in the presidential range it is!
My plan was to be conservative with distances. I would head up to Valley Way if gravity was as strong in New Hampshire as it had been in Vermont, and if not, I would go up Watson Path to top out Madison before heading down to the tent site. The next day, I could hike up and over Adams, pop out to Jefferson if I felt good, and then camp out at one of the many shelters, or just Bivy in the woods further down. The third day would be for making an attempt down amphibrach for my car.
I started at 1:50 in the afternoon from the Appalachia parking lot. I was feeling great after the first few miles, so Watson path was the way to go. I made a point of stopping to rest every once in a while before I felt my legs burning so as to avoid lactic acid building up in my muscles, and also walked with a water bottle in hand. I tried to drain it as much as possible along the way, consuming 80 ounces in the first two hours and didn’t fell dehydrated once. It seemed to work pretty well- I was on top of Madison by 3:45, and was not as winded as I might have been. The weather was spectacular- clouds hustling by in the 50 mph winds, blackflies and mosquitos entirely absent. I’ve never hiked in the northern presis, so it was fun to hike around on these giant, haphazard stacks of rock. There is not really a trail to the top as much as there are a few slightly easier and safer ways to scramble to the top, boulders comically sharp and rough allowing the shoes to easily maintain grip on nearly vertical parts of the rocks along the way.
Oops. I went up Mount Adams too. Oh, well, these trips rarely go as planned. Jefferson looks just too enticing right now, and the weather is just too good to pass up, and I am feeling just too good not to keep going.
The pathway from Adams to Jefferson was a fun challenge, and I was glad this time for all the time spent trail running on rocky surfaces as I alternated running and walking from point to point of the fins of rock that make up this jagged land.
I jogged out to Clay and back after Jefferson, and then headed down toward The Perch for the first night. By the time I had made my way to The Perch, though, I did not feel like I had run enough. If I kept running back to the car, I could work on packing up my apartment before moving next week, and deal with all the logistics involved. Perhaps I really am turning into an adult. I kept running. It was a relief simply to feel light-footed again, to know that I could still knock out hefty hikes. I might have been pushing myself a little bit by running back down with an overnight pack on, subconsciously trying to prove to myself that I am still capable of hiking. My sore calves attest to that as I type. It was worth it though. After feeling confined and slow on Camel’s hump, it was freeing, even relaxing to fly down that trail.
Near the bottom, I wanted to have one last challenge, so I bushwhacked from amphibranch to airline. There are gorgeous old growth birches out here, well worth the trip if you are confident in mild bushwhacking excursions. I got the car at 8:30 PM.
Hmmph. I was supposed to be out for three days. Instead, I did a 7 hour trip. My 22-year old self would have given me an odd look for not camping out, but I had a great time anyway.
If I had known that such lovely trail running was to be had in the presis, I would have spent more of the last two years up there. I haven’t considered a presi traverse until now, but I might just have to get an earlier start and amble along that gorgeous ridge.
PS: thanks to the hut workers for the delicious support after Mount Madison. I might have wimped out without it.
As we packed up the next morning, I let Crazy Legs know that I was not looking forward to the fifteen miles ahead of us. Vermont greenschist is no fun to slip and slide over in the rain, but this seemed more than just nervousness about potential bruised tailbones or twisted knees. For the first time in my life, I did not feel like backpacking. Crazy legs agreed; he had not wanted to make me feel like we had to turn around, but he was not feeling like hiking in a downpour either. We turned around, 2.5 miles into a grand journey, and slogged back to the car.
On the way down, I considered whether I was still really up for long, intense hikes. Four years earlier, I had completed the entire Long Trail in 12 days without a single stop to resupply, carrying a pack that started out at 60 pounds for around 25 miles a day. My legs now felt overmatched by the 45 pounds on my back. Perhaps my joints and muscles were no longer up for such a pounding. Perhaps this is what happens as you age- old activities traded in for tamer ones, backpacking traded for day hikes, big mountains traded in for flatter woods. The masses of retirees that one runs into in the mountains attests to the falsity of that assumption; maybe I’ve just been sitting in a classroom too much. Perhaps this is a consequence of my conditioning- periodic mountains running, almost no sustained hiking with a heavy pack throughout the school year.
I’m betting that there is a different explanation though; I was just feeling off that day. No larger pattern, no ridiculous ponderings of a long decline beginning at age 28, but simply a random bad day. Why else would I be driving from Vermont to the White Mountains to play around in the presis for a few days?
If a 4000 footer in Vermont was too hard, why go up some of the hardest mountains in the entire northeast? It may not make sense, but little we do in the outdoors for fun really makes much sense. We risk our lives to climb up a cliff and then go right back down. We hike for hours with heavy weight on our shoulders, and we don’t even get paid for it. There is little in outdoor recreation that is rational. Why should I start making sense now? A trip in the presidential range it is!
My plan was to be conservative with distances. I would head up to Valley Way if gravity was as strong in New Hampshire as it had been in Vermont, and if not, I would go up Watson Path to top out Madison before heading down to the tent site. The next day, I could hike up and over Adams, pop out to Jefferson if I felt good, and then camp out at one of the many shelters, or just Bivy in the woods further down. The third day would be for making an attempt down amphibrach for my car.
I started at 1:50 in the afternoon from the Appalachia parking lot. I was feeling great after the first few miles, so Watson path was the way to go. I made a point of stopping to rest every once in a while before I felt my legs burning so as to avoid lactic acid building up in my muscles, and also walked with a water bottle in hand. I tried to drain it as much as possible along the way, consuming 80 ounces in the first two hours and didn’t fell dehydrated once. It seemed to work pretty well- I was on top of Madison by 3:45, and was not as winded as I might have been. The weather was spectacular- clouds hustling by in the 50 mph winds, blackflies and mosquitos entirely absent. I’ve never hiked in the northern presis, so it was fun to hike around on these giant, haphazard stacks of rock. There is not really a trail to the top as much as there are a few slightly easier and safer ways to scramble to the top, boulders comically sharp and rough allowing the shoes to easily maintain grip on nearly vertical parts of the rocks along the way.
Oops. I went up Mount Adams too. Oh, well, these trips rarely go as planned. Jefferson looks just too enticing right now, and the weather is just too good to pass up, and I am feeling just too good not to keep going.
The pathway from Adams to Jefferson was a fun challenge, and I was glad this time for all the time spent trail running on rocky surfaces as I alternated running and walking from point to point of the fins of rock that make up this jagged land.
I jogged out to Clay and back after Jefferson, and then headed down toward The Perch for the first night. By the time I had made my way to The Perch, though, I did not feel like I had run enough. If I kept running back to the car, I could work on packing up my apartment before moving next week, and deal with all the logistics involved. Perhaps I really am turning into an adult. I kept running. It was a relief simply to feel light-footed again, to know that I could still knock out hefty hikes. I might have been pushing myself a little bit by running back down with an overnight pack on, subconsciously trying to prove to myself that I am still capable of hiking. My sore calves attest to that as I type. It was worth it though. After feeling confined and slow on Camel’s hump, it was freeing, even relaxing to fly down that trail.
Near the bottom, I wanted to have one last challenge, so I bushwhacked from amphibranch to airline. There are gorgeous old growth birches out here, well worth the trip if you are confident in mild bushwhacking excursions. I got the car at 8:30 PM.
Hmmph. I was supposed to be out for three days. Instead, I did a 7 hour trip. My 22-year old self would have given me an odd look for not camping out, but I had a great time anyway.
If I had known that such lovely trail running was to be had in the presis, I would have spent more of the last two years up there. I haven’t considered a presi traverse until now, but I might just have to get an earlier start and amble along that gorgeous ridge.
PS: thanks to the hut workers for the delicious support after Mount Madison. I might have wimped out without it.
