| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-07-16 19:22:05 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Isolation / Boot Spur Backpack: 7.15-16.06
Saad Zaheer, Peter Wong, Mirjam Geibel, and Mike Kokko Saad: Is this the trail or a brook? We embarked on Saturday morning for what was to be both Saad and Peters first backpacking trip. Mirjam was new to the Whites, but shes been hiking for 15 years in some hill country she calls the Alps... I was afraid that our planned Isolation / Davis / Stairs loop might leave our trekkers with an unfavorable impression of my native land, but an unexpected route change gave us some great Sunday morning views. Arriving at the Rocky Branch parking area shortly before 10:30am, we organized our packs and started up on the first part of the loop. It was really hot, and since the Rocky Branch and Isolation trails were completely soaked, Id say the first 6ish miles we hiked qualify for the term slog. The view off of Isolation was an unexpected (yet very welcome) surprise. This humble 4004 peak sports a rocky ledge at its summit from which you can see all of the southern prezzies, Washington, Wildcat A, the Carters, Baldface, and a few other peaks. Hot, tired, and lacking authentic wildebeest-tail flyswatters (yes, another hiker had one), we decided it was time to make camp. We learned from a VFTT post that there are several signed but unmapped campsites along the Isolation loop, and we headed back to the last one we saw near the Isolation / Davis Path junction. While the rest of the crew was setting-up tents, I tried to start dinner and was quickly foiled by a very stuck valve on our MITOC canister stove. After an hour of taking turns fiddling and devising crazy engineering solutions, Mirjam saved the day and got it turning with an MSR pot gripper. Lesson for next time: dont leave the Leatherman at home Dinner consisted of rice and chicken supplemented with various items from Peters enormous cache of food. Although it was his first trip, Peter made sure to travel in gourmet style. We turned-in after dinner around 10pm and were lulled to sleep by the local frog choir. Although most of us were a little groggy on Sunday morning, Saad had great enthusiasm as he roused us at 5:15am to hit the trail. After breaking camp we headed North on the Davis Path rather than around our planned loop to avoid several miles of wet trails we were warned about on Saturday. The views were intermittent above treeline as fog engulfed much of the area, but we got an occasional glimpse of Washington as we trekked between cairns. The sky got clearer as we headed down the Boot Spur ridge and we had some beautiful views of Tuckermans Ravine. We reached Pinkham at 11:30am, and I retrieved the car after a quick 4.3 mile jog down Route 16. The temperature was nearly 95°F at 1pm when we hit the road, so we decided that a Dairy Queen stop was in order before returning to Cambridge. This was a fun hike with good company, and the views on Sunday morning certainly made Saturdays slog worthwhile. - Mike |