| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2004-11-28 12:18:15 UTC-0500 |
| Description |
Southern Presidential Hike Date: November 26-27, 2004 People: Manuel Balderas, Jose Espinosa, Pavel Gorelik, Peter Russo, Lidia Pictures and Trip Report: Manuel Balderas It's a fairly mild November, you think 6 miles is a piece of cake. Three hours max, no problem. First, you forget there's ice; second, you forget not everyone hikes that fast; third, you forget it's actually getting cold. We started on the parking lot in front of the fancy, new AMC megaplex in Crawford Notch. Our pre-cooked itinerary included a stay at the Dry River Shelter #3, then summit Mt. Washington, camp at the shelter again, and hike out early on Sunday. First, we forgot there was ice all over the trail. Ok, it sucks. Half of the trail is ice, half of it is rock, and that extra 20% you always get for free, is water. It never crossed our minds that one would in fact use crampons all day: from waking up to back in the car. If you want to work on your endurance, add a lead sole (with little spikes on the bottom) to your boots. You'll be an Olympian in no time. Second, we forgot we had friends among us that prefer to enjoy the views than hike above the posted speed limit. A mile and half took an hour and a half. And guess what, it's pitch black at 5pm. Certainly, showing up at the trailhead at 1:30pm didn't help. Instead, we altered our plans and stayed at the Nauman tent site (next to the Mizpah hut) and settled for the night. We had a grand dinner gala and went to sleep around 9. The next morning, we reconsidered the trip objectives for the next day. After much argument, predictions, and hypotheses, we decided to split into two groups. Both groups were to start hiking up to Mt. Pierce. One group was going to attempt to reach Washington, the other just aimed to be back at Pierce no later than 4:30pm from wherever they were in the ridge. This was the day, from 10am to 8pm, of non-stop crampon agony. Rocks, ice, water, some shrubs... it all got cramponed. My poor babies, they are so dull now. Views on top of the ridge were spectacular. The sun did it's golden-orange part in the morning. The clouds contributed to a myriad of lighting conditions and effects. Amazingly, the temperature was awfully "balmy". My guess is upper 20s or maybe even just 32F. The winds were hungover from feasting on turkey, so they were mostly not present. Now and then a gust to dry the sweat from my forehead. Besides basking in jaw-dropping, early winter, scenery. The trip turned out to be quite educational in issues of survival, leadership, and group management. Around 2pm, both groups met each other (group one went up to Franklin, and decided to head back early). Now as one unit of 5 people, we started our hike back to Pierce and shelter below tree line. However, some us ran into a potentially distrasrous incident. Our group, by accident, diverged at a trail junction. Three people went one way, the other two went another. LESSON LEARNED: always wait for the person behind you at every trail junction REGARDLESS of your views on that person's common sense. To give you some context: Lida was wearing mostly all black, Peter was wearing a yellow jacket. Coincidentally, two other hikers on the trail we wearing similar colors, a black jacket and a red jacket, respectively. So what happened was that the last two people in our group reached the Einsehower Cutoff/Edmunds Path junction, the rest of the group wasn't there waiting, and by pure chance "spotted" them at the distance traveling down on Edmund's Path. From a distance, the colors matched! One all black person, and another wearing "orange". It had to be the rest of the group. After all, we were all hiking together not too far from each other. However, that "spotted" group, turned out to be the other group of hikers we met on the trail. It wasn't until 15 minutes later, that I actually caught up with those hikers and realized it wasn't our buddies. Incidentally, we later learned, that our group was waiting for us around a bend, shortly after the junction. The other group that was waiting, started to get worried, and went back a few minutes on the trail for us. However, we were already down another path and out of eyesight. Their search came up empty, and thus, they thought we might have headed up to the Einsenhower summit instead of using the cutoff path. Thus, they decided to continue the hike and meet us when we "finally" descended. However, their 20min hike to the other junction, was my group's 20min back to the Einsehower Cutoff/Edmunds Path junction. Naturally, the lead group started getting more and more concerned. It had been at least 40min since they last saw us. It was getting dark soon, it was about 3pm when my group went back to right trail. As if the Gods were amused, crampons decided to falling off every 10min. This made hike to the next junction even longer, and cause more stress to the lead group. We are all above treeline. The lead group hasn't seen us in about an hour now, it's getting dark, and crampons are giving up. It's frightening to think what would have happened if the weather had deteriorated. I'm sure my group would just have continued down Edmund's Path and down the mountain. But what about the lead group? Would they have stayed up there looking for us, costing them time and energy until they themselves decide to bail out? LESSON REINFORCED: never leave your gear behind, no matter how heavy you think it is, and how much you "think" it will speed up you hiking. That morning, we considered the option of leaving behind tents, stoves, etc in camp for a quick run to the summits. In the end, we decided to pack up everything anyway since we decided not to stay another night, and opted to hike until late on Saturday. So, now that some us of are facing potentially hunkering down somewhere above treeline, maybe even lost, at least we did have all the gear we needed: good 4 season tents, plenty of stove fuel, and lots of food (definitely "way too much" which might have been just right if we had to stay hunkered down for a while). One cannot predict every emergency scenario in the backcountry. This is one place it doesn't pay to take shortcuts. We always think it's not going to happen to us (since we are "good, careful" hikers) Ha! But it did! And it's just as likely to happen again in different conditions, in new contexts, in different situations. Thus, never part your gear, no matter how trivial the decision might seem. Anyway back to the story, eventually, my group made its way to the next junction, after many crampon failures, and met the lead group. An hour and a half was how long our two groups had last seen each other. We had originally built-in a 30min safety margin into our return time. Of course, by now we were a full hour behind schedule and we had to do our hiking above treeline by moon light and head lamp. The weather cooperated nicely, the full moon on the rigdge was superb as well. No casualties, no frostbite, it all went well in the end, and we reached our cars by 8pm. And we left, perhaps with some new white hairs, and bits of wisdom. |