| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2005-06-27 17:24:20 UTC-0400 |
| Description |
A Day of Joy, a Day of Misery: Backpacking from Mt. Moosilauke across Kinsman Ridge Date: June 25-26, 2005 Participants: Chris Glazner, Nasko Pavlov, Mike Mangini, Vicky Hsu, Lidiya V, Ronnie Trip Report This trip started when Nasko emailed the list looking for people up for going backpacking this weekend. His plea was answered by 5 other hearty souls, myself included. We talked about different routes: I threw out hiking from Moosilauke to Cannon Mountain. I said it'd be stiff, and even sent out an email detailing how long it was and how much climbing it'd be, complete with ways to shorten it and remove some of the pain. Alas, no one said anything and somehow this became our trip plan. Since I wanted to finish installing some water filters at Camelot, we headed up to Camelot Friday. Once there, Mike, Vicky and I wondered were Nasko and company were. It turns out that Nasko's car was acting up, fairly badly, so they decided to bite the bullet and get a rental car. After getting the car, they made their way up to Camelot by midnight. We woke up at 6 and were out the door by 6:30--a new MITOC record! We spotted the rental car at Cannon and then all 6 of us plus packs piled into my car to go the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, our starting point. We got on the trail early, and set a nice pace up Gorge Brook Trail. Before long, we were topping out on the summit. There weren't any clouds in the sky, but there was a slight haze in the air, making the surrounding peaks seem a bit smoky. We had an early lunch up top, and chatted with a guy from the Dartmouth Outing Club up there. We made our way over to the Beaver Brook Trail, one of the steeper sections of trail in the Whites. After a stop at the Beaver Brook shelter to check it out, we began the decent in earnest, going down the steep, rocky trail with occasional stairs and handholds. We were rewarded by awesome views of the brook, and an awesome waterfall. The trail ended at NH 112. Spying the map, there was an unnamed pond just off the road a little ways west on 112. We took the detour, hoping that the pond was swimmable. It definitely was! The pond at the bottom of Beaver Brook is nice, large, and open--very swimmable. There was a nice big rock in the middle that several of us swam out to, and we were able to dive off of it from several feet up into the nice, cool water. It was really, really hard saying "it's time to leave," so we didn't, for several hours. Had the trip ended here, this would have been an awesome, awesome trip. But, alas, it didn't. Our original (audacious) goal was to make it to the Eliza Brook shelter to camp, which was 7 miles beyond our nice pond. When we finally reluctantly pulled ourselves away from the pond, it was 5 PM. My little thermometer on my pack was reading in the low 90s--which we later found out was record heat for the area. We started out way up the Kinsman Ridge Trail. Out objective changed; we assumed that we wouldn't be able to make it to Eliza Brook in time to set up camp and eat before nightfall, so we changed plans and aimed for Gordon Pond, just off on a side trail about 3.5 miles in. We started up Kinsman Ridge Trail, which is really steep initially. About a half mile in, Mike started feeling ill. As a seasoned backpacker with experience in similar situations, he realized that he wouldn't be getting any better, and really couldn't go on. After discussion, he decided to head back down and get a ride into town. We discussed plans to meet the next day at the Kinsman Pond Shelter, discussed backup plans, and made sure that he was well prepared for all continencies. With that, we parted ways, a bit bummed that Mike couldn't join us for the rest of the trip. As it turned out, though, he made out pretty well. We pressed on over undulating terrain....up, then down, back up. No views...just lots of elevation change and oppresive black flies. I was looking over the trail....there really weren't any decently flat places available to pitch a tent if we needed to. It was Gordon Pond or bust. We rolled into Gordon Pond a little after 7, well worn from the day's hiking. upon arriving, we met two other guys who just snagged the only established c campsite on the pond (they had just taken off their packs and were setting up their tent). We said hello, and then explored the area around the pond for a decent place. Since the pond was really boggy, that wasn't easy. The brush came up almost to the water's edge. We eventually scouted a spot big enough for two tents and got to work setting up camp. Ronnie and Nasko jumped in the pond, only to find that it was only 3 feet deep, with about 3 feet of mud for a bottom. The blackflies were absolutely oppressive. It was bittersweet: the pond was picturesque, framed by the ridge above, but was basically an insect infested bog. Dinner was a highpoint. Mike had organized a large taco dinner, with all sorts of things, from lettuce to salsa and cheese and veggie taco meat and beans and rice. We ate pretty well, and after the ritual of filtering water, we jumped inside our bug free tents to start a night of itching our bites. We relectantly woke up at 7 and broke camp....slowly. The enthusiasm level wasn't really high. When someone asked for the map, my response was "you really don't want to see that." We had two big climbs with massive elevation loss ahead. We started hiking around 9:30 and set as fast a pace as we could manage without getting separated. First over 3500 ft. Mt. Wolf, and then we plunged down to 2000 ft, only to climb back up again. We made Eliza Brook a bit before noon. Eliza Brook is a really nice place....awesome brook, nice shelter. We had lunch in the stream, cooling off our feet, while Lidiya changed into her switsuit and took a dip. We had planned on meeting Mike at the Kinsman Pond Shelter at 1, and we were nowhere close. We told Mike to wait there for us until we got there; if we took a while, the backup plan was to meet at the car. Since people seemed to be enjoying the brook, Vicky and I decided we'd set a fast pace and race to meet Mike. We grabbed our packs, and I tried valiantly to keep up with Vicky, a member of the MIT Track team. I had no hope! After an hour of keeping up with Vicky, I began to crash. I slowed down to a turtle's pace as we started up the "stairs," the big vertical push up South Kinsman. This section, we all agreed, was misery. It was long and relentless. In parts, it was a Class IV scramble. Vicky's comment: "wow, I always wanted to try rock climbing! I had to stop at a level spot and rest for a while, eating and drinking and waiting to get my second wind. We pressed onward, a much more slowly, and gained the summit of South Kinsman (after thinking that we were at it a few times). We didn't linger too long, since it was already about 2. We pushed on to North Kinsman (I swore I remembered that part to be only like 15 minutes!) now that I was on my second wind. We hit North Kinsman, and bypassed it heading down to the shelter. We arrived at the shelter at exactly 3, just as Mike was tying a note to the signpost for us, telling us that he was going to head down. We just caught him! He had left his pack at the bottom, and come up with just the essentials: water, snacks, and bug spray. After resting and chatting a bit, we hiked the 20 minutes or so back up to the summit of North Kinsman to properly take in the view and wait for the others, who came by arounnd 4. We all had a lighthearted chuckle about the unexpected difficulty of the tail (actually, it wasn't that unexpected: I read the trail description out loud the night before we started, and the sign at the beginning warned that it was Very Difficult and often underestimated). I'm just glad they hadn't formed a lynch mob and were coming after me. By this point, we threw out our original plan to go over the Cannon Balls and down Cannon to the car. We were just going to head down to Lonesome Lake, get a swim in after the day of record heat, and walk around Cannon to the car for three miles or so (we parked at the base of the main area, not the tramline, stupidly). When hearing that the car would be three miles away from the bottom, her response was "it's just three miles. We can just run it!" The rest of us looked and each other and laughed. We made our way down to the Lonesome Lake Hut, with Vicky waiting for the rest of us to catch up. We got to the bottom, got some un-iodined water in the Hut, and stared at the very clean and non-grubby looking guests at the Hut that had paid $77 each to stay in the backcountry hotel for the night. We headed down to the lake and hung out with some friendly grubby looking folks. One guy was section hiking north, the other was the 4th southbound thru-hiker of the season. Here's where Vicky became our new hero, if she wasn't already: she volunteered to run down to the bottom, and around the mountain to get our car while we swam. Wow! She started off, and then we took a dipped and chatted with the other hikers. A few minutes later, Vicky just popped through the woods on the other side--she had run AROUND the lake, missing the turnoff to Lonesome Lake Trail! After getting a good chuckle in, we took her pack from here, and Mike went with her to show her the turnoff that she had missed. We took a little while longer, chatting and relaxing. After what seems to me like not a very long time, we put our shoes and headed down, with Mike carrying Vicky's pack most of the way. When we got to the bottom, there was Vicky, talking to some people in the campground at the bottom, where she had been waiting for us for 15 minutes! She is absolutely amazing. We all crammed into the small COMPACT, packs and all, and drove back to my car. We grabbed dinner at the weird place that serves lobster and pizza in Lincoln, after they said that they could get a pizza right out to us, as we were in a hurry to get the car returned in time. Well, I guess a hurry is 45 minutes to them (the last time I was here, they also took an eternity). At least it was tasty! With that, we parted ways, and our trip came to and end. |