This was to be the biggest hike of the year for me over 15 miles and the first 5,000 foot peak and three 4,000 foot "48 official" peaks. We left the Hudson park and ride and 4:00 and reached the Falling Waters parking lot at 6:30. The temperature in my car read 42 degrees and when we got out of the car we found out it was pretty accurate. Luckily I brought my winter hat and wore a cotton layer on the way up. While getting out gear ready, I dropped my camera on the pavement which rendered it useless and Kyle's Osprey hydration bladder cracked open right at the handle. Luckily Kyle had his iPhone to take plenty of pictures for this blog and had a gallon of water to carry. Once we got everything in order, we started on the bike path to Liberty Springs trail at 6:45. We had no luck finding the ascending Basin Bushwack I asked about on a HikeNH forum, but it was clearly visible at a big corner on Liberty Springs. We took the Flume Slide Trail off of Liberty Springs and it felt like it took forever to get to the slide portion of the trail. The trail couldn't have been any drier and the first views of the day looking back from the trail was awesome. But I felt that the slide was steeper than the Tripyramid North Slide at times and stopping to look back gave me a little vertigo.
Mt. Flume was awesome. We had to follow huge rock outcrops to the actual peak of the mountain. On the top of Flume, we met an extraordinary couple. Mike was a mountaineer who organized hikes to Kilamajaro, Everest, Macho Picchu and the money generated from those hikes went to his wife Lilas orphanage. Their website is http://www.flyingkites.org. The hike to Liberty looked to be an imposing up and down but it definitely was easier and quicker than it looked. On the top of Liberty there was a large group of younger hikers with hand tools, hard hats and safety glasses who were heading to do some trail maintenance somewhere.
The ridge trail between Liberty and Lincoln was very quiet and Kyle and I split up for a while. It was so quiet if felt like I was wearing earmuffs. I found a piece of black "fur" on a portion of the trail and thought it was bear fur and held on to it to show Kayla when I got home. It's the fur from Mordu! A few minutes later on the trail Kyle and I stopped to check out some fresh bear scat. The bear scar, chunk of fur and deafness of the trail made us a little uneasy and actually slowed down our pace as we employed our bear defense techniques. As I clapped and Kyle yelled "Yo Bear!" the silence of that portion of the trail quickly changed when we reached Mt. Lincoln. There were so many people on top of the mountain, but they were all in the background because the views were awesome. Some of the people that went up the mountain seemed so out of place and probably were dreading the way down.
We must have thought Little Haystack was Mt. Lafayette because when we finally got to the top of Little Haystack and looked to the north, the trail to Lafayette gave us a big reality slap. There was one last climb left to the top of Lafayette but that was only before another big drop off. We hung out on top of Lafayette for a while and Kyle cooked up some inedible Mountain House Jerk Chicken.
The way down Lafayette on the Old Bridle Path was pretty fast going unless someone was in our way. Usually when someone was in our way, it seemed that they didn't want to move out of the way. According to a couple of hikers, I almost got taken out by some girl that was running down the mountain. All I heard the scree scraping under her shoes behind me. It was a great day despite my new Vasques (~45 miles) ripping open at the toe as we finished at 3:30. Approximately 15 miles in 8:45 minutes including several breaks on the peaks. Great leg and cardio workout but it took a toll on my back which kept me from going back on the peaks the next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment