go hike a mountain

The original plan for this weekend was to hike Osceola and East Osceola, roughly 7 miles round-trip, and from what we read, a moderately strenuous hike. We drove into the White Mountains Saturday evening and found the trailhead and parked overnight to get some sleep. It went from being completely calm outside to howling winds and dropping temperatures in the middle of the night. We awoke at 4 a.m. to the car shaking so furiously we decided to wait a few hours, get some more sleep, and see if the weather got better by then. At around 7, we both shook ourselves awake and looked wide-eyed at the bleak sky and consulted our maps and guides for an alternate hike. Osceola and its sister were supposed to have a long bit of exposed ridgeline and we didn’t want to get caught out there with heavy winds. Thankfully, Tecumseh, the smallest of the New Hampshire 4000-footers, was just a short way down the road and was primarily wooded with a few views near the summit. We drove down the road, parked the car, and geared up.

Nice face.

We were completely alone on the trail during the ascent. The wind had died a little, but the mountain was also blocking most of what was coming at us. The hike uphill was very gradual and we got to the summit in about an hour and a half. This was our first view of what we believe is the top.

We snacked a little…

…Jesse called his father…

…and I admired my new hiking boots I had bought the night before when we stopped at REI.

I think this is when Eric told us the Mt. Washington had 60 mph winds and cold temperatures. It was only a little windy at the summit, by the way. But it was overall a good decision to not hike Osceola on this day.

So after a short break with bagels and peanut butter, we began climbing back down the mountain. I think we passed a total of 2 other groups hiking up.

This was our first time using hiking poles and listening to iPods for part of the hike. Well, they were modified ski poles, but still worked well.

At this point, we were just catching the end of the changing of the leaves.

We were off of the mountain and on our way home by noon. The weather on the drive back was great.