go hike a mountain

For those of you that don’t know Jessica (and Treeson) moved back to Florida. You can still follow what she is up to by clicking on her blog, saunter, in our blogroll. She has a few adventures already planned and many to follow I’m sure. Good luck Jess, I’ll miss you.

Now that means that all administration of this blog is up to me. Eeeeeks! The photo quality will definitely be weaker, but hopefully I can keep your interest.

As for the Mount Washington Observatory fund-raiser, we didn’t go. As things changed we decided against it. Thank you all for your contributions and sorry if we disappointed anyone. The event was a huge success we heard, that’s because of you and your donations.

Well that’s all for now. I’ve got a few hikes planned and a high point or two up my sleeves, so keep checking back.

Jesse

On July 25-26 Jessica and I will be climbing our 22nd high point, Mount Washington, New Hampshire. We picked these dates because it coincides with “Seek the Peak”, a hike-a-thon to support the Mount Washington Observatory. Now in order for us to participate in this event we need to raise a little money for the observatory. We have already sent out an e-mail to our family members so now we are reaching out to you our supporters. What ever you can give is greatly appreciated. To donate click on either: Jess’s Donation Page OR Jesse’s Donation Page . Or go directly to http://www.seekthepeak.org/ and hit “support a hiker”, scroll down to our names, click and donate. We will be posting all the pictures and success stories soon after the event. Again thank you for all your continuing support.

On Saturday, June 7th Jess and I volunteered with REI for National Trails Day. The event was scheduled for a meeting time of 9 am in West Greenwich, R.I. at a local bank. So after the traditional morning stops, bagels and Chippi, we were on our way. When we got there, there were only 2 cars but the lot quickly filled up. In fact a bank employee came out and asked us to move down the road to the Dunkin Donuts lot. We quickly convoyed down the road, had a short introduction with the folks from the Appalachian Mountain Club and the REI organizer, got our volunteer shirts and headed out.
We drove for about another fifteen minutes before coming to the a trailhead, at Breakheart Trail. Everyone (about 35 of us) piled out of our cars and filled the trail awaiting instructions. Now I had never volunteered for anything, let alone trail maintenance, so I didn’t know what to expect. A couple of older gentlemen stood over a collection of tools and wood. They began to tell us that we would be carrying this stuff 1/2 a mile and building a bridge. Some of us would be building a bridge, others would either go clip back branches in the trail or clean up the brook. It didn’t take Jess two seconds to grab big rubber boots and agree to get wet.
Once the gang reached the Phelps Brook, everyone broke into groups. You had people destroying the old bridge, people starting the new bridge, some took of in either direction to cut back trees and then you had the “river rats”. Jessica, two other girls, and an A.M.C. organizer went to work in the water way. When I say went to work, I mean it. They started clearing branches,and soon they were shoveling up the sediment and gravel. They had decided to obtain a healthier flow that this needed to be done. The difference they made in the current was remarkable. They didn’t stop all morning.
While all that was going on the bridge was being replaced. The old one cut up and the new one set and leveled, and set and leveled and leveled and set.(You get the point). For a structure that was replacing two fallen trees across the brook they weren’t taken any short cuts. After a few hours the brook was clear so Jess helped nail a few nails while I took pictures (you read correct, Jess is actually on the other side of the camera for once). The whole project took about two hours.
Once everything was picked up, we all headed back to the trailhead for lunch. REI supplied sandwich fixings, soda, chips, fruit, and those devilish Shaws brand cookies. Everyone ate and ate some more then slowly got into their cars and called it a day. Now anyone that knows us, knows we can’t go through Rhode Island without going to REI so that’s where we headed.
Over all it was really interesting and fun. We will definitely participate in future REI sponsored events.

May 25, 2008

I woke up at around 4am on this morning and still felt exhausted, so I went back to sleep until the alarm started ringing. 5:15am. I slept for 10 hours! Well, there was a little bit of tossing and turning and a little bit of battling mosquitoes, but it was pretty much all sleep. I took this picture before climbing out of my sleeping bag.

Again, Jesse slept a little later than me, but not much.

It looks like our sleeping bags are right on the forest floor…but we had a tent footprint separating us from the leaves. Notice the sun rising through the trees in the background.

After making some breakfast and repacking our bags, we began hiking and felt pretty good considering we were dragging our feet the last few miles the night before. We crossed Rt. 165 and were hoping to be able to get some water from a church at this crossing, but no one was inside. It was still a bit early for Sunday services, I guess, but they also didn’t have any spigots. The next section of our hike followed a river for a while and we decided we should find a good spot to collect some water that we could purify if we needed to use it.

There were a lot of muddy areas on this part of the hike, but with the aid of some carefully placed stones, we were able to skip across them without getting too dirty. All this rock-hopping was a little tiring, though. When we made it to this bridge, we found a good spot to collect water.

This is a view of the stream from the bridge.

Jesse hopped out on a large rock and dipped one of the platypus reservoirs in to fill it. Notice how green the water is.

And when he went to hop back off of the rock, he slipped, landed on his butt, and dipped his foot in the water. I didn’t see it happen because I was crossing the bridge and making my way over to him.

He removed his shorts so he could clean them off a little and decided he would just have to hike with a wet shoe.

We took a long break at this area while he cleaned himself up. I took a look at the time and started getting worried about our pace and evaluated the rest of the day’s hike. We had only come about 7 miles and were already feeling pain in our feet and shoulders. Jesse told me flat-out that he didn’t think we’d make it to the end. Nonetheless, we decided to gather up our things and press on. We’d walk a few more miles and consider, again, whether or not we could finish.

When coming back out of the woods and into a large abandoned parking area, I found this strange ‘cotton’ tree that was lying across the path.

Walking up this old dirt road left us out of the shade and exposed to the heat in the middle of the day.

The blisters on my left foot were making me feel like I had frozen peas rolling around in my shoe. Jesse complained a little about his knee. We were getting tired already, after 9 miles, with another 17 miles to finish the day. After this dirt road, we turned out onto a paved street called Hazard Road that the trail description said would last 4 miles. Our pace slowed some more and I was really beginning to feel discouraged.

Shortly after joining up with this road, though, we saw a man working on his yard and stopped to ask if he knew whether there were any stores nearby. He shook his head and asked if we needed water. A savior.

He led us up his driveway and disappeared inside while we unpacked our reservoirs. When he returned he had a pitcher of water and several granola bars. He walked back down his driveway with us and after some chit chat, Jesse discovered the Celtics had won a game the night before. We thanked him for his help and my spirit was lifted. I was sure I could continue walking a while.

About 2 miles into this 4-mile section we took a break on the side of the road. I gobbled up one of the granola bars and decided to finally take a look at my feet. It wasn’t good. I had a blister inside of a blister on my little toe and another on the outer edge closer to my heel. I knew that my feet hurt while I was walking, but I was trying to ignore it. I would say I made a mistake by ever looking at my foot, because I probably could have gone another 10 miles or so with the pain, but I’m glad I looked because I realized then that I wasn’t prepared for the hike.

I had only worn running shoes and very thin below-the-ankle Smartwool socks. There simply wasn’t enough padding for my feet. I wish I had the insight to buy some insoles before the hike or had at least brought socks with more cushion. I put moleskin patches on the blisters and changed my socks and put my shoes back on, but after trying to get up and walk a short distance again, I couldn’t stop focusing on the pain.

Jesse and I looked at each other and realized this was the end of our hike. We knew we had a very short window for extraction from the trail because his father had to catch a flight the next day. It was about 11:30am when we called him with our location.

We thought it would be smart to keep walking in the direction we were going with the hopes that we might hit the 40-mile mark. I think we might have walked about 1/2 a mile this way until we realized the paved street turned into a dirt road. We turned around and headed back about 1.5 miles to a part of the road with two intersections, hoping it would make it easier to find us. There were two cemeteries at one of the intersections and we rested on the stone walls while waiting for Jesse’s father to find us. I had taken off my shoes and was plodding around in the dirt and grass with just my socks on.

Eric had made it to us in just about an hour. From here, we had to drive into Connecticut to find a highway that would take us north to our car. The car was just where we had left it and had no broken windows.

In summation, we didn’t hike the length of the trail as planned, but did half of it and plan to finish the rest at a later date. We severely underestimate the trail. I think that if we had given ourselves 4 days to hike the length instead of 3, we probably could have finished, even with the gear issues we were having. We were just forced to walk at such a fast pace without stopping for many breaks in order to be able to finish on time.

We learned many lessons, however, which we will be applying to future overnighters. I think I’ll try not to focus so much on ultralight hiking and will stick with my trusty hiking boots. I’m also going to take a pack with some sort of frame when the hike is 15 miles or longer. Jesse also doesn’t want to sleep so exposed in the future, so we’re looking into lighter-weight tents than what we have now (which is technically not that heavy at 5 pounds, but was more than we wanted to make space for on this trip). Also, some sort of bug deterrent will be packed (I thought it was still too cold for bugs. Gee, was I wrong.).

Thankfully enough, I didn’t have any issues with my clothes. I had packed some lightweight thermal bottoms and a long-sleeve midlayer which I never used, but might have needed if the temperatures were about 5-10 degrees cooler. Jesse used his extra layers in the mornings, but I think it’s harder for him to warm up than me.

All in all, we’re happy with how much we actually hiked. This trip was mostly an experiment - Jesse had never hiked multiple days and camped on the trail and I had never hiked over that many days being committed to one pair of underwear. It was a great experience and I’m glad we got so much support from all of our friends. Thanks for reading!

May 24, 2008

I awoke at about 5am just before the alarm on my cell phone would have gone off. It was relatively bright out and I was able to quickly get the stove going to make some oatmeal for breakfast. Jesse remained in his sleeping bag a few minutes longer, but soon started to pack everything up.

We got dressed and finished eating and left our campsite at 6:15am. We double-checked to make sure it looked as if we had never been there.

The first few miles of our hike were through the Burlingame area which included a number of swamps we had to pass through. Some wooden walkways had been installed to make it possible to cross them.

We paused just a few times to adjust our gear, but didn’t stop for any long breaks just yet. We passed a deer stand no longer in use.

And shortly after we came upon a covered bridge with benches.

Our first real break was at 9am near a giant rock outcropping that had some evidence of rock climbing. We stayed here about 15 minutes to eat snacks.

Jesse didn’t get much sleep from fighting with the bugs all night. I think you can really see that in this photo.

Jesse found me an additional snack in the grass near the trail. I’m not sure what kind of snake it was, but it was navy blue with a yellow belly. There was a section of its stomach that was missing, looking almost like its last meal crawled back out of its stomach and through its skin.

We came upon a really buggy pond.

The trail soon took us out to a section of paved roads that was 1.5 miles long. We found some shade to take a break at and after traveling just 6 or so miles that morning, we were already starting to feel the weight of the packs on our backs and the soreness of our feet.

The roads led us to a giant cornfield with a dirt road running through it. There were a few abandoned buildings in the area which were used to mark the directions because there were no trees or rocks to paint blazes onto.

There was also no shade for this mile-long stretch through the fields, so we were grateful when the trail turned back into the woods. An old farm vehicle blocked one of the paths.

The tires were covered in woolies.

We had to leave the forest again to walk on a 4-mile stretch of paved roads through the town of Richmond. The maps we were following make note of a Mobil gas station along the way and we were really looking forward to being able to stop and refill our water reservoirs and maybe pick up a candy bar or two. Nothing on the map said whether the gas station was still in service. When we arrived there was a big “For Rent” sign in the window. We were a little disappointed, but at least we didn’t have to go out of our way to find it.

When we hit the center of town at a major road-crossing, we looked around for other stores but didn’t see anything. We asked a family selling plants in the town hall parking lot if they could think of a place nearby and the gentleman pointed in the opposite direction from where we were headed and told us about a plaza with a restaurant about a quarter of a mile down the road. We thanked them and walked that way and were delighted to find a little pizza place. We both had sandwiches and freshened up as much as we could in the bathroom.

The remaining 2 miles on roads was tough to finish, but we finally made it back into the woods. This little tugboat replica was in a pond we passed just before entering the Arcadia Management area.

I had felt myself slowing down on the roads but being in the forest again gave me a renewed energy that helped me pick up the pace again. Jesse and I found a small creek where we splashed our faces with water to cool off.

At around 4pm, we both realized we weren’t going to make it to our next planned campsite and would have to find some level ground before leaving the forest again where the trail intersected Rte. 165. Deciding where to sleep when you pass through 1.5 miles of boulder fields isn’t easy.

After leaving the boulders there was a stretch of forest that was a little bit buggy, but had a few open and flat areas where we could put down our sleeping bags. For the last 2 hours of our hike, we were both exhausted and trying to focus on getting as far as ours legs and feet would carry us because there would be a lot of ground we’d have to make up the next day. We walked approximately 25 miles this day and stopped at 6pm, about 7 miles short of our goal. We both had aching shoulders and feet and Jesse’s knees were a bit sore.

I made dinner (dehydrated pre-packaged food that was not so tasty) while Jesse adjusted our sleeping arrangement. We quickly washed the dishes and crawled into our sleeping bags at about 7pm. Although I woke up a few times throughout the night to shift, I pretty much slept through to 5am the next morning. I couldn’t believe how tired I was.