| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-02-15 00:43:26 UTC-0500 |
| Description |
Pierce-Eisenhower Loop. Up Crawford, down Edmunds. Old Clinton Road. Arrak Bhattacharyya and Benjamin Bau. Trip Report After some curious bushwhacking "climbing" on Webster Saturday, Ben and I did the Pierce-Eisenhower ridge-line on Sunday, Feb.11th. We started around 9:30 and took the Crawford path up Mt. Pierce. We decided to take the road-less traveled and followed the Mitzpah Cutoff to the tent site. It was a rewarding decision - the trail was fairly packed in, but recently untouched. Nice, pristine wood hike. We reached the summit around 12:30? We rested briefly and watched a pretty golden retriever pose for pictures. After donning goggles and tougher winter gear, we headed to the ridgeline. There wasn't much wind on a beautiful day - 20-30 mph at most, and the views were amazing. Washington opened up occasionally and we could see Carrigain to the south and into Franconia to the west (at least, I think it was Lafayette, LincolnÂ…etc..). The hike up the summit dome on Eisenhower was exhausting. It was clear that we had pushed ourselves hard this weekend. I gasped for breath on the final steps. The wind had blown snow over the trail so it was difficult to follow at times. The views from the summit were nice as the sun started to set and clouds moved in. The trip down off the dome was icy and tricky. On the north-west face of Eisenhower we dealt with at least 1-2 feet of unpacked snow on Edmunds Path. Ben tirelessly broke trail for most of this time and we went thigh deep often. The trail soon descended steeply and we flew down the mountain sliding for most of it. A final 3 mile hike on the Old Clinton Road was boring, but we were both thrilled to see the car and take off our packs. All in all, a solid hike and a rare, clear day in the mountains. Distance: ~ 11-12 miles. Time: 8 hours. Results: exhaustion. happiness. ~Arrak (shamelessly copied html tags) |