| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-06-18 23:36:02 UTC-0400 |
| Description |
Friday: Osceola East Peak & Osceola The weather on Friday was great: sunny and warm enough to make me want to get out of Cambridge. Grabbing an Intervale key and packing a backpack or two, I took a half-day and started cruising up I-93 around 1pm. I got a few crazy looks and odd comments from other hikers for starting at 4pm, but with sunset scheduled for 8:30 there was plenty of time for a quick Osceola ascent. I had been up Osceola once before with the Gilbertsons (see Fall Circus 2005) in the rain/snow, but only from Tripoli road and I never got to the East Peak. James told me in the office on Thursday that the Mt. Osceola trail from the Kanc. is a non-trivial ascent and he was definitely right. The first 1.3 mi. was flat and went real fast, but then the trail shot straight up for a little over a mile. Sweating like mad, I reached East Peak in just about an hour. Despite the wooded summit there were some awesome views of the Tripyramids and Mt. Kancamagus. With ample daylight remaining I scooted over to Osceola, took some pics of Waterville Valley Ski Area (still no snow ) and headed back towards the car. At the base of the Mt. Osceola Trail I took a small detour to look a North Greeley Pond and I was bummed that there were no moose. If only I had known what the future held That night at Intervale we were expecting three more folks who were headed for a Presi-traverse at 4:30am. When they didnt show by midnight I decided to go down to the parking lot and see if they were lost. This plan, however, was thwarted by two bear on the side of the road just below the old platform. It turns out that the same bear convinced our Presi-traverse friends to find lodging elsewhere for the evening. It was a little scary at the time, but in retrospect it was kind of funny to hear a bear sliding down a tree |