Tom Rankin
Well-known member
Sunday, we did a Bonds traverse to bring our total to 46. That was a Looooong hike! On the way out from the Bonds, we were tired and grumpy. I didn't really think Madison and Adams the next day was a good plan. Laurie was determined to go. Eventually, we kissed and made up, and determined to get a good night's sleep, and give it a go in the morning.
The last minute weather forecast was more or less promising, but did hold a threat of showers (not snow!). But the temps were high, and the winds were low. We saw a rainbow as we drove to Appalachia! (we saw 3 different rainbows during the day). We geared up (or down! We wore shorts a good part of the day and single light layer), and began to trudge slowly up the Valley Way. Surprisingly, my legs felt pretty good. The first mile or so is almost completely melted out and not very steep. The sun was shining most of the time and the winds were calm. The brook that comes down from the ravine was not calm though!
It was raging down the hill, in a few places out of its banks. Good thing we did not need to cross that!
Not to be too mushy, but to keep our spirits up, I told Laurie that we had to kiss at least 48 times on this hike. More on that later!
After crossing the small streams around 2300', we finally put microspikes on and left them on to the hut. The trail is very wet. If you stop and listen, you can hear water flowing down the mountain everywhere. There were many places where the water was cutting thru the ice, running under the trail, and eroding the sides of the hill. There was a lot of mud everywhere. We carefully picked our way over the ice and snow, and skirted a few large ice bubbles that blocked the trail. Eventually we were walking on hard packed snow, and not postholing. It took what seemed like forever but we finally made it to the hut. We wanted to drop our packs, but the clouds were still a little threatening, so we took out what we needed for Madison and stuffed it into one pack, and left the rest of the gear in garbage bags, sitting on the porch. After the first 100 vertical feet, the trail up to Madison was just bare rock. The summit cone was almost free of snow and ice! We were passed by 2 people coming down, who were apparently British, from their accent. We discussed what direction a compass points in the Whites, and they thanked us for the information. Soon after, we were passed by a man coming up, who turned out to be a professional photographer that we had met earlier in the winter on Field/Willey. When we got to the top, we was still there, so we got our pictures taken by a pro!
So, now we were at 47! We brought the total number of kisses up to 47 here as well!
After a quick trip back down to the hut, we reloaded our packs, got some water from the spring (which is running QUITE well!), and headed off to Adams. We took the trail that heads more or less directly to the top. We passed a few more people, and they told us that again, the summit cone of Adams was bare, so again we dropped most our gear and headed up with 1 light pack. Rock hopping on Adams is tough, but we made it without incident. We summited at 2:35 PM, for the record.
48! Woohoo!
We had Kiss number 48, and a few more here as well! There were again other hikers at the top and they took several pictures of us. Thanks guys! Since they seemed to be hanging around, we left the summit fairly quickly. Not that we needed to, the views were great and the wind was almost calm. But then there was a loud rumble of thunder, so we figured we should head down soon!
The rain held off and we put snowshoes on for the descent from the hut to about 3000', then microspikes to about 1800', then bare booted it the rest of the way. We did it!
It was a funny Winter, but we did fall into spruce traps, had to break trail, wore crampons, endured high winds, braved temperatures down to -15, and walked a lot of miles. It was still Winter in many ways, but obviously, in many ways it was not. We're both very glad it's over though, and just in time, on the last full day of Winter! We drove home (6 hours), and fell asleep very quickly!
I'll post some pics when I get them together.
P.S. Thanks to everyone who helped us along the way, including Whichway, J&J, Paradox, Chip, BHSF, MBP, Hiker Ed, Cynthia, and anyone I left out, sorry, but I'm still a little tired. Thanks to everyone who may have broken trail for us too!
It was great reading all the Facebook posts this morning! This is certainly not something we did alone. It's been great making new friends, and enjoying the mountains together with my wonderful wife, Laurie. Thanks for the ride baby! It's been great so far! We've completed a W35, a W46, and now a W48 together. We hope to finish the W115 some day as well. We've done 97, so it could happen next Winter, but we shall see. We won't be making it to the AMC dinner this year, but we send our CONGRATULATIONS out to all who finished a list this past year!
The last minute weather forecast was more or less promising, but did hold a threat of showers (not snow!). But the temps were high, and the winds were low. We saw a rainbow as we drove to Appalachia! (we saw 3 different rainbows during the day). We geared up (or down! We wore shorts a good part of the day and single light layer), and began to trudge slowly up the Valley Way. Surprisingly, my legs felt pretty good. The first mile or so is almost completely melted out and not very steep. The sun was shining most of the time and the winds were calm. The brook that comes down from the ravine was not calm though!
It was raging down the hill, in a few places out of its banks. Good thing we did not need to cross that! Not to be too mushy, but to keep our spirits up, I told Laurie that we had to kiss at least 48 times on this hike. More on that later!
After crossing the small streams around 2300', we finally put microspikes on and left them on to the hut. The trail is very wet. If you stop and listen, you can hear water flowing down the mountain everywhere. There were many places where the water was cutting thru the ice, running under the trail, and eroding the sides of the hill. There was a lot of mud everywhere. We carefully picked our way over the ice and snow, and skirted a few large ice bubbles that blocked the trail. Eventually we were walking on hard packed snow, and not postholing. It took what seemed like forever but we finally made it to the hut. We wanted to drop our packs, but the clouds were still a little threatening, so we took out what we needed for Madison and stuffed it into one pack, and left the rest of the gear in garbage bags, sitting on the porch. After the first 100 vertical feet, the trail up to Madison was just bare rock. The summit cone was almost free of snow and ice! We were passed by 2 people coming down, who were apparently British, from their accent. We discussed what direction a compass points in the Whites, and they thanked us for the information. Soon after, we were passed by a man coming up, who turned out to be a professional photographer that we had met earlier in the winter on Field/Willey. When we got to the top, we was still there, so we got our pictures taken by a pro!
So, now we were at 47! We brought the total number of kisses up to 47 here as well!
After a quick trip back down to the hut, we reloaded our packs, got some water from the spring (which is running QUITE well!), and headed off to Adams. We took the trail that heads more or less directly to the top. We passed a few more people, and they told us that again, the summit cone of Adams was bare, so again we dropped most our gear and headed up with 1 light pack. Rock hopping on Adams is tough, but we made it without incident. We summited at 2:35 PM, for the record.
48! Woohoo!
We had Kiss number 48, and a few more here as well!
There were again other hikers at the top and they took several pictures of us. Thanks guys! Since they seemed to be hanging around, we left the summit fairly quickly. Not that we needed to, the views were great and the wind was almost calm. But then there was a loud rumble of thunder, so we figured we should head down soon! The rain held off and we put snowshoes on for the descent from the hut to about 3000', then microspikes to about 1800', then bare booted it the rest of the way. We did it!
It was a funny Winter, but we did fall into spruce traps, had to break trail, wore crampons, endured high winds, braved temperatures down to -15, and walked a lot of miles. It was still Winter in many ways, but obviously, in many ways it was not. We're both very glad it's over though, and just in time, on the last full day of Winter! We drove home (6 hours), and fell asleep very quickly!
I'll post some pics when I get them together.
P.S. Thanks to everyone who helped us along the way, including Whichway, J&J, Paradox, Chip, BHSF, MBP, Hiker Ed, Cynthia, and anyone I left out, sorry, but I'm still a little tired. Thanks to everyone who may have broken trail for us too!
It was great reading all the Facebook posts this morning! This is certainly not something we did alone. It's been great making new friends, and enjoying the mountains together with my wonderful wife, Laurie. Thanks for the ride baby! It's been great so far! We've completed a W35, a W46, and now a W48 together. We hope to finish the W115 some day as well. We've done 97, so it could happen next Winter, but we shall see. We won't be making it to the AMC dinner this year, but we send our CONGRATULATIONS out to all who finished a list this past year!
