This weekend we finally tackled Mt Washington. While it took us a bit longer than we expected (about 12h round trip). In the end it was a rewarding hike, with some nice views on the way up and down. The top was in clouds… It was interesting to go from high 50s to low 20s and back in a day. This was also our first taste of winter this year, looking forward to skiing! We took Glenn Boulder/Davis Path/Crawford Path approach. Some Pictures!
The new season of Diablo kicking off last Friday’s night made us change our routine of hiking on Saturday and instead hiked on Sunday. We have noticed that usually we hit more traffic on Sunday’s compared to Saturday’s and we decided to wake up at 4 AM to see if that would make our drive back better. I think it did, it was not perfect but better than our previous experiences on Sunday’s hikes. We hiked the North and South Twin peaks. The first half up was mostly flat, with three easy water crossings. I still needed my walking poles to help me balancing the jumps between rocks though. The second half was really challenging, most of the elevation gain was in that second half, very rocky terrain as anyone should expect in New England. We found out on our way back that our downhill muscles were not tired and once we passed the rocky steep part we started trail running most of the trail on our way back to the car. Surprisingly no mosquitos, maybe the mosquito season is ending?
Back on the East Cost, we jumped straight back in and did one more of the missing 4000s: Galehead. Surprisingly enough, it seems the mosquitos were on some other mountain, pestering the hikers there. We had a nice day, no rain, not too warm. Enjoy some pictures:
This weekend we hikend Mt Garfield. It was a really enjoyable hike. Compared to other hikes in the whites it has a surprisingly little amount of rock scrambles. The trail up was beautiful and mostly in the shade. Albeit a 11.5 mile round trip, it was very enjoyable. Apparently it’s Liz’ new favourite trail now ;)
Another one down on the list. Nice little scramble on top between Osceola and the east peak. Nice view on top:
Sean and Elaine joined on on that one, which was a nice addition :)
On Saturday we went up Moosilauke via the Glencliff trail. While there were quite a lot of mosquitos attacking us, once we got a little bit higher they were all gone and it turned into an enjoyable hike. Even still found a little bit of snow :)
This past weekend had the perfect weather to be outdoors. Sunny, not warm, not cold. More importantly, almost no mosquitos! We both got a couple of bites though. We decided to check off two more of the 4K footers from the list and hiked Flume and Liberty.
We now understand what the fuss is about avoiding the Flume slide trail in wet weather/conditions.
At the end of the line we both agreed that it was a good decision to do the loop, totally worth it. The in-out route via Liberty Spring Trail would have been boring :)
The Flume -> Liberty ridge line still had some snow :)
This weekend we decided to give a try to skinning. Fab was right on guessing I would love it. It is like hiking and the sliding movement reminded me of the elliptical machine I used to use when I was going to the gym. Word of advice, just go as far up as your level of skiing will leave you comfortable going down. I would have easily traded the way down for another 3 or 4 hours of skinning up. Fab enjoyed the way down way more than me. Maybe next time I will take my snowshoes or a butt slide ;)
(post by Liz)
