Superverse

Summary
OwnerMITOC Gallery Administrator
Creation Date2006-07-09 20:17:52 UTC-0400
DescriptionSuperverse

7.8.06

Steve Block, Ben Kennedy, Catalin Loghin, Dan Walker

g: where you guys headed?

d: Madison.

g: hmmm.

This is such a terrible idea.

So you have the "Presidential Traverse". Well, Lincoln was a president too. since he's over in the Franconia range, you might as well hit all of those too, with patriotic names like 'Liberty' and 'Flume' and all. Enter the Superverse. A Flume to Madison traverse of the White Mountains.

We drove up Friday night to shuttle cars - one at each end and one in the middle on 302. After some gettings lost, we crashed back at the Flume parking lot. (1am). tip: no one comes by that late or that early, so just sleep on the parking lot.

4am. time to get up and wander around confused. we start up the Flume slide trail at 4:40. Standing around cunfused takes up a lot of time. The slide is ok, I only get us lost once. we're up on the ridge just before 7 and we're cruisin. the trail is beautiful and weather is good. Catalin decides to ease up the pace and only go halfway. We get to Lafayette at 8:45. 10 miles and 5000 feet of climb in 4 hours. a good start. Then down off the nice ridge into the crappy section of trail between Lafeyette and Pierce. it takes a while to get to Garfield, about 3 miles and 1000 feet. Then another stretch of long stuff to Galehead hut. halfway there! for the first half. after a nice rest, up up up south twin. Definately warm out at this point. Ben claims it isn't as bad as garfield, and I agree, because it is straight up constant grade for 0.8 mi and 1200 feet. It doesn't wind around or anything, so you can just turn your brain off. here we also discovered how incredibly delicious lemon cliff bars are compared to mint cliff bars.

Next is a super nice flat section to Guyot and Zealand. really haulin here. then down the zeacliff trail. steeeep. By some ranger babe with a 8" diameter trail signpost. then into some Jurassik Park ferns halfway down. more steep down. we hang out for a while at the river at the base. Then up on the Ethan pond trail. super flat and graded with a slight uphill. then these crazy dudes in polo shirts and khakis come by. they pass us (and we're movin pretty fast) without looking up or saying a word. we run into Manny at some point. thats weird. he's on his way into Thoreau Falls I think. well, we get to the edge of the plateau, and time to go down. pretty dang steep. I get us lost again, and go down the kedron flume trail. at least it gently goes diagonally down instead of straight down. then we hit the train tracks. decision time: follow the tracks, or take the road down to where we should have come out. we take the tracks. after some mind-numbing train track walking, we come out. hmm where is that car? about a mile back up the road where the kedron flume trail comes out. willey station house site, not silley station house. or something like that. well, we start walking, then holy crap its mike kokko. he gives us a ride up to the car to restock and eat. we kill an hour or so, then mike drives us back to the webster cliff trail. holy crap its catalin. he wasn't very far back at all, even considering the detours. we drive him back up to the car.

now up the webster cliff trail. I was afraid it was gonna be steep, like Twin or Garfield. it kept going up, but it would wind about here and there, so it never broke you. we get up in time to see the sunset on one of the overlooks. by the time we are back in the woods headed to Jackson, it's dark out. everything seems to take longer in the dark. wish I hadn't set my big headlamp on fire. then to mitzpah hut. we stop and crash for a while. I barf, but still feel like crap. (usually you feel much better after). I sort of half-barf some stomach acid. ok, twice is the limit. I stay at the hut and crash on the table for another couple of hours, while steve and ben go on ahead.

I wake up around 4:30 and leave (don't wanna get charged the $50 for sleeping there) and head down to the crawford notch center. it takes a while, but I feel a bit better. final diagnosis is something between headlamp-induced motion sickness, bacteria in my water bladder from never cleaning it, and being a bitch.

steve and ben get to washington to around 3, and desparately need some sleep. all the shelter is locked, so they crash outside. steve pulls up a bench to the vents of the mechanical room. good thinking. They get up when it gets light out and finish off the northern section. super rocky. They manage to get down to the cars by noon. after some minor push starting of sven-the-stevemobile, they come over my way. I tell them about the showers on the second floor that are free (if you are staying there) and even have soap dispensers. fortunately there are no signs expressly forbidding their usage for vagrants like ourselves. They crash a bit, then we get some food and drive home.

the damage:

Catalin: 30 mi 9000 ft, 15 hrs

Dan: 41 mi 12000 ft, 22 hrs

Ben + Steve: 57 mi 17000 ft, 30 hrs.
-dw