#49 Boston - Postholing - May 12, 2006

Well, by now you have seen the pictures from Franconia - hard to believe it is May and we are still zipping around in the snow, eh? Sooo, to quickly explain the headline - "Postholing" which answer.com says is a "roughening of the trail from places where boots have fallen through" - that is exactly what we did this past weekend up in Franconia, NH. We either tumbled into the holes that were there already (most of them the size of a small country) or in many cases created some new ones. Frequently sinking in almost hip-deep in snow did slow us down just a wee bit, and a planned 4 - 1/2 hour hike turned into close to 7 hours. Am I complaining? Noooo! It was fun!

Trying to get with the program and hoping to achieve my goal of climbing 10 of New Hampshire's 48 4000-footers this year, it was time to step up the hiking effort and head up the bigger mountains. None of that walking around the lake crap. HIKING. Hardcore Outdoor Stuff! Yeah! So, I packed my gear as early as I could this past Friday, loaded two birds in my car (Oscar and Marge - for both of them their first visit to the granite state) and headed up to Rick's house, where we expanded the zoo by adding Phoebe, the mountain dog, stuffed everything into the van and hightailed it up to Franconia. The birds seemed unfazed by the fact that a 70-pound black lab was staring at them during the drive, and Phoebe eventually decided that they were worthy of coming along.

So, Saturday it was time for 4000-footer #1 - Mt Jackson (http://hikethewhites.com/jackson.html). Our choice for the day was to first get ourselves up to Mt Webster (named after American statesman Daniel Webster) - with 3910 ft just a tad short of making it into the big league. Located on the East side of Crawford Notch (http://hikethewhites.com/crawford.html), Webster provides spectacular views of the New Hampshire and the White Mountains. From there it is a mere 1.4 miles across to Mt. Jackson, with 4052 ft my first 4K peak for the year! Jackson, despite the fact that it is near the Presidential Range of the Whites is not named after President Andrew Jackson as one might expect, but after Charles Thomas Jackson, a state geologist of New Hampshire in the early 19th century. Again, fantastic views, in particular of a still-snow covered Mt Washington (6288 ft).

Upon returning to the house on Saturday, our friend Kimball had just arrived and was kind enough to cook dinner for all of us, as Rick and I seriously needed to de-muddify. So off I went, and in the spirit of being good to myself, grabbed a beer and immediately claimed rights to the downstairs bathtub, which is also a Jacuzzi. Well, somebody forgot to tell Petra that you do NOT, repeat NOT, add bubbles to the water. Here I was sitting in the bath tub, when I noticed that the bubbles were increasing in volume, fast and furious, and before I knew it, the stuff was flowing over the site of the tub and threatening to swallow poor Petra. I have never hopped out of a bathtub this quickly, my friends, believe me! The next 15 minutes were spent throwing cold water on the mess to get the bubbles down, interrupted by horrible fits of laughing, and the guys must have thought I have gone completely brainsick (and that after one beer).

Sunday it was time for mountain #2, Mt Cannon, basically right across the street from the house. Starting out at Lafayette Campground at Franconia Notch (http://www.franconianotch.org/), we first headed up to Lonesome Lake, then up the Kinsman Ridge Trail, which is the route we had attempted two weeks prior but decided to turn around. This time we were determined as can be and succeeded. It wasn't easy, at times we had to hoist Phoebe up a steep granite ledge or bushwhack it around an ice wall, but we did make it up to the top (4100 ft)! I have the bruises to prove it! (http://hikethewhites.com/cannon.html) Lunch on top of the Cannon tower was a bit chilly, icicles kept falling onto our head, and the wind was not too shabby either, so off we went. Down the mountain, on the ski slopes - mostly blue trails - Upper, Middle and Lower Cannon. I can now say that I actually went down a black diamond run - seemed suicidal to me to attempt skiing down a hill like that, but what do I know, I am new at this....


It became apparent on both days of hiking that apparently even a moderate amount of altitude leads to my completely losing my brains - I could not remember even the simplest of trees (Hemlocks, Petra, Hemlocks!), and was generally giddy as can be. On our way down the ski slopes of Cannon Mountain, I also lost my eyesight, and identified a black trail as "Ambulance" instead of "Avalanche". For the rest of the day, I turned into a chuckling heap of a person, and after a while Rick and Kimball just stopped paying attention to what I was doing, which was probably a good thing. No need to encourage me.

Enough tall tales from the trails. Bottom line - it was a fun weekend! I am back in Boston, where it has been raining non-stop all week, and apparently it is not going to stop any time soon. It might be time for some indoor activities -plans are being hatched as we speak....

Happy Mother's Day!

pet:)