Little hike up to Giant Mountain

Wed, June 19th


Me and the dogs took off on an adventure to Upstate New York today. Weather forecast was calling for sunny skies and upper 60- low 70s.

When we got to the parking lot there were several cars parked alongside the road. I think i counted around 11 groups of people in the register book. I was eager to start the hike, over 4:30 hours of driving was enough to get you going. 

Trail started with couple water crossings and muddy spots, but everything was easily avoidable/crossable. There were many, very interesting sections at the beginning, we were very happy to be able to hike during the week with less people around. Trail took off steep pretty quickly and we were panting heavily right away. I was glad there was plenty of running water for the dogs to drink along the hike. 
Whole approach to Giant was pretty steep and involved a lot of rock climbing and boulder crossing. There was wonderful section of the ridge walk. Something i like the most!!

 Couple view spots were occupied by some people so we did not spend much time around there. When we got up to Giant there were 5 people there. I took couple pictures and we headed off for Rocky Peak. 
Kappa slowly started to get tired and i started worrying if he could make it through. The decent of Giant was a little tricky with several big rocky slabs that you could slide down on, a lot of roots sticking out and rocks allover. I started thinking how i was going to get the dogs back up all of that after ascending Rocky peak. 
After we got to the flatter section we could catch some breath. Ascend to the Rocky Peak was fairly easy and we had the whole summit to ourselves. We spend probably around 30 min up there. It was beautiful. Amazing views and weather. 

We decided to get going when first couple of people came to the summit. The whole way back from Rocky was very tough on Kappa and i had to help him out in several places. While MIsha was flying by he was struggling. I tried to help him as much as i could, but we had to slow down a lot.
 I stopped and talked to several people who were on their way to Rocky. It was so nice out and i was so happy to be out there. 

It was amazing hike and worth repeating. Its going to be Kappas official last hike up the mountains. He has to stick to the low land from now on. Its sad that i wont be able to take him with me on any more adventures, but hopefully he can still join me on my morning runs.

Huntington - bring it on baby!!

Tuckerman Tr
Huntington Ravine Tr
Bald Crag Tr
Tuckerman Tr
Alpine Garden Tr
Nelson Crag Tr
Old Jackson Road Tr

It was another Meetup hike with Random group of hikers. We met at the Pinkham Notch Center and started a little after 8:30. Weather was doing us a favor and let sun up for all day. We started off pretty quickly, moving with fast pace, cutoff to Huntington Tr showed up unexpectedly. First part of the trail delivered some pretty views of the river, couple of crossings weren't to bad. After that it was just a walk to the final section which i started to dread a little.

I wasnt exactly sure what to expect so when i saw "the wall" i got a little scared. Half way there the group split, with 3 of us going of much faster pace. Thats how it lasted till almost the end of the hike. The rest of the group as i later turned out decided not to summit Washington and head back home by Lion Head Tr.
The approach to the main section of Huntington was fairly easy with few scrambles and tight spaces. The main part was, what was making me nervous. It looked so intimidating from the distance. When we finally approached it i wasnt as scared any more. We werent going to go through the parts that looked impossible, those are for those with experience in rock climbing, especially in the winter when the section is filled with ice, the "fold" in the rocks is a place where people test their abilities. We took off slightly to the right and climbed steadily through several ledges and slab of rocks.

There were couple little sections with wet rock that were easily avoidable. I had to stop and rethink my steps two times, the rest of it was not that difficult at all and i was very relieved. Did i mention that the views were amazing? All the way to the top you could admire the scenery. Whole Huntington Ravine is something you dont see on a regular basis. I have not been in this section of mt Washington before so it was very special for me. That was also the last time we saw the rest of our group.

At the very finish of the climb there is a section called chimney where you have to pull yourself more up with your hand without perfect footing, but even that wasnt that hard as is it turned out.
We rested at the big cairn for a minute but i was more interested in catching some more views, in that section you can take a little cutoff to the mount washington road, and on that day there was road race happening on top of the biker week!!! I saw some runners going down after the race and some motorcycles getting their way up to the summit. It was loud and busy.

I took a look on some of the north presidentials and short after we started our final push through the Bald Crag the summit. The wind picked up and we layered up. As we later found out some of the wind gusts were up to 49 mph!! Ina few places i had to try hard to keep my balance and not being pushed off the rocks.

When we finally got up to the summit we saw many people. Race was already over but there were still tens of tens of visitors. It was much cooler at the top but still sunny. I got to try some of the food items that were served in the visitor center. I was getting cold and decided it was perfect timing for a bowl of chilly!! And what more it was a bawl made out of bread!!

It was delicious and helped me keep warm fora little bit more. We hung around the summit for about an hour thinking that maybe the rest of the group would join us, but after a while we figured that it was time to head back. We took couple of shots at the summit sign and headed down. There were a lot of people on the rocks and it was hard to go by. I had to go around of several groups of people to avoid getting stuck. From now on it was more of a rock hopping than regular walk. To keep warm we had to move fast. But also that gives you different feel of completion when you know you had to put some effort in your moves. I kept focused and only slipped couple times, for the most of it it looked like i knew what i was doing. We lost one of the members on out way to the Alpine Garden Tr, he decided to go down Lions Head Tr instead, not being able to keep up with our fast mountain goat pace.
Alpine Garden Tr was a little disappointing, there were almost no flora in blooming left. I had hard time regulating the body heat.

It was still very windy also i was warm from jumping and running. We got to the Huntington Ravine tr in no time to see if anybody there saw our group. But whoever we met on our way did not see them. We talked to the guy that was resting on top of the wall for a while, he treated us with some fresh strawberries. Oh they tasted deliciously!! We moved on a little while after, i was getting chilly. From then on we only had to get to the Nelson Crag summit to be finally able to go down.
Nelson Crag trail is a continuation mostly of rock hopping. Going down you could see auto road and we even got to be photographed by some of the crazy folks in the car as a "real hikers".
Old Jackson road takes you to the tree line and gives a impression of more of a private feel, trail is very narrow and surrounded by tall trees. With still a lot of running up and rock hopping it didnt take us long to get to the flat spots. And from there it was an easy walk to the beginning of our hike.
It was pretty exciting hike.

It allowed me to be able to move fast and keep my reflexes in check. Also it was my first time going up mt Washington not in Winter! I was able to see everything from a different point of view, and event though i loved most of the surroundings i still prefer to see the summit cone covered in snow and shared privately with  hikers instead of masses of families with kids, motorcyclists and random people who drove up in their cars.

Getting fried in Catskills

June 23rd '13
Long Path Tr(0.95m)
Devils Path Tr(3.9m)...not really sure bout the mileage...


Since i did not feel good yesterday i decided to run up to NY state today and hike up couple mountains in Catskills. 

Today it was going to be Indian Head and Twin Mountains. Drive up was very nice and only around 3:15hrs. I had a little trouble locating the trailhead but mainly cause i wasnt paying attention on how long i was driving on the Platte Cove road. When we parked i quickly got ready and we headed out right away.
The trailhead for this hike was a little down the road. I registered at the beginning of the walk and we went quickly into the woods. 
It was hot! Much warmer then i expected. Right before we left i checked the weather and it said 67-70 degree day. It was already much warmer when we started. I was sweating right away and Misha started panting. But i tried not to pay too much attention to that and soak in as much of the surroundings as i could. It was very pretty. I am amazed how Catsklills differ from White Mountains. The trail was wide and open. There was nobody around. There was no hard intersections, everything was marked visibly, and we were moving pretty quickly. 
When i was reading trail reports yesterday there were suppose to be some very difficult spots ahead of us but everything turned out very easy. I am not sure if people who tackle Catskills are not experienced hikers or what but i would not call anything from todays hike, extremely difficult. One spot involved a little thinking but it was not hard to find a way to climb it at all. I helped MIsha in a few spots where she could not climb but even for her it was not hard, it was the heat that got us more than actual difficulty of the hike. 
We got some pretty views on the Indian Head summit, and almost missed it because i was going so fast. Big thank you to MIsha who made me stop and rest a sec . 
From Indian head to Twin mountains it was like a breeze, fast and easy. Sweat was pouring down my forehead, and you could hear MIsha puffing, from the distance. We met 4 people at the summit of Twin mountain and one of the hikers took the picture of both of us. We passed some more hikers along the way and everybody was hot and tired. It took us much quicker than i thought to reach both summits so thats when i decided to add the third one, on the same ridge, the Sugarloaf, it was only around 2 miles away. 
I was a little worried that we would have to turn around or do some road work. At the end i opted for road walk, i did not want to walk back up the mountain.
HIke up Sugarloaf was the hardest, we were very hot and i was rushing it to get up to it,and it seemed like we would never get there. I ran out of water for Misha on top of Sugarloaf, so i was hoping that there was some sources of water down the mountain. I need to admit that i did not research that part of the hike, since i did not plan on doing it. Thankfully there were many. The hardest part for us was a little over 3 mile road walk, it was so hot, around 90F,way too hot for MIsha. But we made it and were really happy to get to the car. It was very beautiful hike and i would love to repeat it on a cooler day and with actual camera, not a phone camera. 
The whole Trip turned out to be around 14 miles.

Socializing Time

June 9th, 2013
Beaver Brook tr

Todays hike up mt Moosilauke had one goal, to meet some of the people from facebook hiking forums. We talk on facebook pretty often about our hiking plans but many of us didnt really know each other. Today, we were hoping to change it.

We started around 9 o'clock. There was 7 of us: me, Allison, John, Erick, Dan and Bill and Kimball. Most of us haven't seen each other before so it was pretty exciting to be finally able to put face next to the name. We all were sicked to do the hike together and couldn't wait to get to the summit to meet the rest of the people coming from different directions.

Even though we came to socialize, we started at a pretty fast pace and it turned out everybody could keep up pretty easily.                            

Slowly, we got to know each other and shared a lot of stories from our previous hikes and other interesting facts from our  lifes.

 It could not have been nicer out. The sun was shining and temperatures were slowly getting higher and higher. And the scenery......ahh....hard to describe. It was absolutely beautiful.

For most of the hike the trail follows Beaver brook with tons of cascades and little waterfalls. It starts out steep pretty quickly, but that couldn't  slow us down.

Most of the trail was covered with rocks and boulders and 90% of it was wet from yesterdays rain. We had to be very careful and watch our steps because one wrong move could have send you down the brook and believe me it would not have been pretty experience.

We took one long break at the Beaver Brook shelter to kill some time, we expected everybody to get to the summit near 1 o'clock. It was slowly getting chiller and i actually had to put additional layer on. We decided that on our way up we were going to look for a little herd oath on the right going to nearby mt Blue, unofficial 4k peak. I tried to find that peak one time before when i was hiking with my dogs but with not much luck. This time we didnt have much trouble locating it at all. The path was very visible and easy to follow. It was amazing scenery, ground covered by thick layer of moss, a lot of  deformed trees and ferns everywhere.
The peak was marked by the canister hanging on one of the trees, inside which we found little notebook and couple of pencils.

Each of us wrote their names carefully on the paper and we took our first group photo. I was very excited about that, i think more than hiking the Moose again!! I loved the fact that everybody wanted to find the summit and that we all could enjoy something new together.
From then on we met several people going down. It started to become colder and the sky was covered by layers of clouds. A moment before we hit the Benton trail intersection we met one of the hikers that we were suppose to see up top. She and her friend decided to head back down because of cold up top. They said that some of the people went back down already and that most of them were on the summit at least around an hour waiting for us. That was not good news!! If we knew we would not have taken all the extra time to do other things! We thought we had a lot of time and didnt wanna get to the summit too early.
From then on we wanted just to get up top to see if there was anybody left waiting.

When we got to the beginning part of the broad summit there was no views, clouds were all over and the wind was fierce. I went fast ahead and after couple of minutes i could see shapes of people. Thankfully there were many on top still waiting for us. Everybody got an invite hug from Mike and started to introduce to the rest of the group. It was really cold, i put all my layers on and was very thankful that i had my gloves with me.

We spent some time at the summit but not  nearly as much as everybody was hoping for. Weather was not cooperating and there was no point on staying any longer in the strong wind. There were still no views so i was a little disappointed. We snapped couple of pictures and said our goodbyes.
Right before we hit the treeline, clouds moved a little and we were able to catch some of the panoramic views.

Half way down the skies cleared and we were able enjoy the rest of the hike back down. A lot of rocks were driy now so it was a little easier to walk down. I was worried about that on a way up but i was relieved to see the path much dryer than in the morning.

Our way down went very quick and in no time we were hitting the parking lot.

To our surprise, Kimball offered us some of his beer which he stored in his cooler. It was very refreshing to have, after the hike.
We stayed for a while at the parking lot before heading home.
It was great hike with great new friends. We all hoped to hike together more in the near future.