Rik
05-24-2009, 02:12 PM
I've known my wife, Charlene, for almost 11 years. Since she was a runner she easily took to hiking. After some dayhiking she tried some camping and backpacking. One of her first backpacking trips was a short amount of backpacking for two nights with a climb of New Hampshire's Mousilauke on the day between. That was in September of 2000. Since then we have made a couple trips each year over to the White Mountains to either camp and dayhike or backpack. We have climbed some peaks on the 4k list and some that were not. We usually let weather dictate what we climbed. Two years ago we were able to finally find ourselves with a window to climb some of the peaks in the Presidential Range. These were peaks I had climbed years before but Charlene would only do on good weather days. After that trip which included visits to Washington, Monroe, and Eisenhower Charlene found herself having climbed 46 of the 48 4k peaks in New Hampshire. Last year the weather and schedules did not cooperate and we made no trip to the White Mountains for the first time since 1999.
The last couple of nights we spent camping at the Sugarloaf National Forest campground and doing a couple of dayhikes. On Friday we walked from our campsite to the neighboring one and took a short trail up a couple of small peaks called Middle Sugarloaf and North Sugarloaf. Outstanding views from open rocks in most directions. All of the biggest peaks, however, were shrouded in clouds. A nice night at camp around a fire eating and drinking sleep called early. Up to partly clear skies on Saturday morning we made breakfast and coffee and drove over to the Appalachia trailhead. It was 8am when we started hiking and I expected more cars at the trailhead and hikers on the trail this holiday weekend. We left the same time as a group of guys we would see up on the mountains later. We took the Valley Way trail up towards the Madison Hut. We saw no one on this trail. Nice walking on a nice morning. Not much mud, only a few patches of snow, painted trillium and other wild flowers showing their colors. We finally saw our first person at the closed hut. We would see several more on Madison. Took the Osgood Trail up Madison from the hut. Light breeze and mild temps. I was in shorts all day and only had to put a shell and hat on when we were taking breaks on open summits. Quickly we were on Madison. Charlene, Dali and I shared some snacks and took some pictures. Chatted briefly with a couple of other hikers that had come from various directions. Remembered previous trips to the surrounding mountains. And looked over the Madison Hut and Star Lake to Mt. Adams, our next objective. The walk back to the hut and on to the Star Lake trail was quick and pleasant. There were again a couple of small patches of snow that was firm enough to hold us without postholing. Watching Dali navigate the climb up Adams was fascinating. She would pick routes different from mine even backing off certain ways to find alternatives. She only needed one boost and her nails won't need to be trimmed for quite some time after spending the day on the rocks. Looking back at Madison it kept getting smaller. It was a little cooler and breezier when we reached the summit of Adams. This was Charlene's 48th peak and she was a little more emotional than either her or I expected. I gave her the patch I had brought, because that's the only reason any of us have for doing these things. We took a few pictures and had a snack before deciding to get down out of the wind for lunch. We took the Airline Trail down so kept our nice views for a while. After lunch we meandered down into the woods and out to the car. Back at camp we enjoyed another fine meal by the fire. It showered lightly a few times overnight and again on our drive home. Another great trip to New Hampshire.
The last couple of nights we spent camping at the Sugarloaf National Forest campground and doing a couple of dayhikes. On Friday we walked from our campsite to the neighboring one and took a short trail up a couple of small peaks called Middle Sugarloaf and North Sugarloaf. Outstanding views from open rocks in most directions. All of the biggest peaks, however, were shrouded in clouds. A nice night at camp around a fire eating and drinking sleep called early. Up to partly clear skies on Saturday morning we made breakfast and coffee and drove over to the Appalachia trailhead. It was 8am when we started hiking and I expected more cars at the trailhead and hikers on the trail this holiday weekend. We left the same time as a group of guys we would see up on the mountains later. We took the Valley Way trail up towards the Madison Hut. We saw no one on this trail. Nice walking on a nice morning. Not much mud, only a few patches of snow, painted trillium and other wild flowers showing their colors. We finally saw our first person at the closed hut. We would see several more on Madison. Took the Osgood Trail up Madison from the hut. Light breeze and mild temps. I was in shorts all day and only had to put a shell and hat on when we were taking breaks on open summits. Quickly we were on Madison. Charlene, Dali and I shared some snacks and took some pictures. Chatted briefly with a couple of other hikers that had come from various directions. Remembered previous trips to the surrounding mountains. And looked over the Madison Hut and Star Lake to Mt. Adams, our next objective. The walk back to the hut and on to the Star Lake trail was quick and pleasant. There were again a couple of small patches of snow that was firm enough to hold us without postholing. Watching Dali navigate the climb up Adams was fascinating. She would pick routes different from mine even backing off certain ways to find alternatives. She only needed one boost and her nails won't need to be trimmed for quite some time after spending the day on the rocks. Looking back at Madison it kept getting smaller. It was a little cooler and breezier when we reached the summit of Adams. This was Charlene's 48th peak and she was a little more emotional than either her or I expected. I gave her the patch I had brought, because that's the only reason any of us have for doing these things. We took a few pictures and had a snack before deciding to get down out of the wind for lunch. We took the Airline Trail down so kept our nice views for a while. After lunch we meandered down into the woods and out to the car. Back at camp we enjoyed another fine meal by the fire. It showered lightly a few times overnight and again on our drive home. Another great trip to New Hampshire.