Andy and I started out on the Guinea Pond Trail from Sandwich Notch Road at 16:00, planning to head in a ways and set up camp wherever we found a good spot. We'd also decided to try to go as light as possible, and we used medium-sized packs instead of our big heavy full ones. The trail followed an old railroad bed and was easy going, so we moved along quickly. It got dark at 17:00, but we felt good and continued on. Andy got out a pair of night vision goggles that a friend had loaned him, and he used those while I used a headlamp. At one point, he saw a large black thing moving, and he thought it was a bear. It quickly disappeared, though, so we weren't 100% sure. We continued on, and eventually I took the night vision for a while. Things were going well, when suddenly I saw a big black bear running down the trail! I yelled "There's a bear! There's a bear!", not sure which way it was moving, but a moment later realized it was headed away from us. It was probably at least 30 meters away. It turned into the woods and as we listened and could hear it crashing along its way. We waited another moment, then quickly made our way down the trail past the sighting, making lots of noise as we went. We continued on and on, deciding to go all the way to the shelter.

It was pretty wet along the way, and though we were very carefuly for a while, eventually we ended up getting both of our feet soaked. There were a bunch of tricky spots too, where because of the darkness, we had trouble finding the trail after crossing a stream. But we did continue to make pretty good time, and to our surprise, the trail followed and old railway the entire distance to the Flat Mountain Pond Shelter, where we stopped. We got there at just before 20:00, having hiked a total of about 8.2 miles from where we'd started. We got changed, got some water, and cooked tasty broccoli and cheese soup for dinner. We saw a very brazen little mouse running around trying to find crumbs to nibble on, but otherwise it was a very peaceful place. We got to be around 22:00, though thoughts of bears and other wild animals were still on both of our minds.

I was sleeping pretty well, but then suddenly at 01:39 there came the Scream of Terror. Andy jumped up screaming, and I immediately did the same, assuming he was being harrassed by a bear. I yelled "Ahhhhhhhhh! Get out of here!!", or something along those lines. There was a fair bit of moonlight that night, so I could immediately see that there was no bear, to my relief. Andy then started laughing. The stupid mouse had crawled along his sleeping bag and then, to his surprise, jumped on his face! We had a good long laugh about it all, though neither of us was able to fall asleep again for a long while. Finally I did, and slept well until about 07:30.

Jon B. and I headed up to the Grant from Hanover and arrived at Alder Brook Cabin at about 15:00. On the way in we stashed our gate key near the gate in a pre-arranged location for Jim and Dan to find on their way in. It was a good thing I'd picked up a second gate key in the morning because I left the first one in my apartment! Jon and I brought our stuff inside, then went for an afternoon walk. There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground from the recent precipitation and the ground was pretty wet, but it easy walking. We headed west on the road in front of Alder Brook Cabin, then took a right and headed north on the road that goes toward Chase Mountain. Since I'd been that way before, we decided to cut right and cross Alder Brook on another old logging road. We followed that for a while and at one point encountered another old logging road which had yellow trail blazes. We followed that north a bit, and eventually decided we'd try to bushwhack our way up to Rand's Rock. We made it up to the ridgeline without too much trouble, but once up there the trees were so incredibly thick that it was extremely difficult to make any progress towards where we thought the expoed rock itself was. We made our way along, slowly, getting scraped up by the trees. I somehow got turned around several times, and would've gone the wrong way if it hadn't been for Jon being on top of things. We did eventually make it to what we thought was Rand's Rock, though we're not absolutely sure.

We then headed back down from the rock in a westerly direction, eventually intersecting the yellow-blazed trail from earlier. On a hunch, we headed south/east on that trail, thinking it might just lead right to the back of the cabin. It was real sloppy going--snow and a lot of water--and it went on and on, beyond where we thought the cabin should be. We were getting a bit nervous, but decided to keep going, even as it was starting to get darker out. After trudging down this lousy road for a long time, we finally came out at a main Grant road. We turned right (south), thinking it was one of the side roads that connected back with the main road that follows the Swift Diamond River. It turns out that it was, though it took a while before we got to that intersection and confirmed our hunch. That was a pretty big relief. So we walked west along that road until we finally made it back to our cabin. We then made a fire, got warm, and cooked beans and rice for dinner. After filling up on the tasty meal, we just hung out by the fire and rested and waited for Dan and Jim to arrive. When 21:30 came and they still weren't there, we drove out toward the gate to look for them and found them with a flat tire not long before the gate. They threw their stuff in our car and we all drove back to the cabin, leaving their car to be dealt with tomorrow. They ate the remainder of our food and we all hung out and stayed warm by the fire until about midnight, when we finally all slept.

Kevin and I headed up to Stowe to meet Sean, Joe, and Somu. We all then drove up to where the LT crosses Route 15 and left Kevin's truck there, cramming into Sean's pickup and driving back to Smuggler's Notch. We finally started hiking at about 16:00 up the LT (formerly the Elephant's Head Trail--same place I hiked out of with John and Andy this past winter). It was wet out, and rained more heavily the further we got along. It was steadily quite steep, though it switchbacked somewhat. Sean's dog, Kira, ran off up a rock slide at one point and didn't come back. We waited and waited, expecting her to come out any minute. Sean, Somu and I went back a ways to look for her, with no luck. Eventually we continued on, thinking maybe she'd gotten ahead of us somehow, but we never caught up to her. It was really windy once we got up toward the top of the notch. Almost to the pond, Sean and I decided to go back to the car in hopes of finding Kira there. We headed back, mostly in the dark, while the others continued on. Sure enough, we found her under the truck, happy to see us. We set up a tent in the little picnic area where we'd parked, and had a fairly comfortable night there. The rain had slowed, and we had dinner on a picnic table.

Got up bright and early, packed up, and drove down the road to the little tourist info area, near the old route of the Long Trail up to Sterling Pond. We hit the trail early to try to catch up to the others, since this was a much shorter and easier route. It was a steep climb, but well-maintained with lots of stone steps built in. We got to the shelter on Sterling Pond at about 09:00 and found the three of them still asleep. We hung around, ate, and chatted with the caretaker from the nearby Watson Camp, who gave us some Long Trail stickers. (I'd told them about how nice Watson Camp was, but they'd missed it on the way in last night, and were too exhausted to look for it for very long.) Eventually we got our stuff together and headed off. Before long we reached a ski trail, part of the Smuggler's Notch ski area, and we stopped for a snack. We then wound our way along the trail, often overlapping with ski trails, to the summit of Madonna Peak and the warming hut. We then continued from there through Chilcoot Pass anad over Morse Mountain to the Whiteface Shelter, where we stopped for a break and a snack. From there we followed the trail up past the summit of Whiteface (I don't remember going down the short spur trail to the summit proper, or seeing any views) and then down the long descent toward the Bear Hollow Shelter, with occasional breaks along the way. We finally reached the shelter in the early evening, with plenty of time to hang out and relax. Sean finally let Kira off her leash for the first time in a long time, and though she wandered around a bunch, she always came back. I played with her for a while, and was told by the others that I was insane; they were a bit worn out, to put it mildly, but apparently my hiking legs were in good shape. We made dinner and basically just hung out a while. No other hikers showed up, and when it got dark, we slept.

We slept in pretty late, and took our time getting going. Eventually, though, we headed out again, continuing the descent towards Route 15. We passed through some lush green undergrowth, and walked the last mile or so on dirt roads, past some other interesting features, such as a beaver dam and a small stream with a deep time-worn rock basin. Eventually the road led back to Kevin's truck, and we wrapped up another successful "Clarkson reunion" LT hike.

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Jamie, Katia, Lance, Jack, Kath, their three little dogs, Sherry and I went for a short outing before Jamie's graduation party in Franconia. We hiked in the directon of Wolf Mountain on the Reel Brook Trail, and Sherry and I took lots of photos of interesting mushrooms along the way. Once we reached point where the trail met some power lines (and a wide swath of treeless land to accommodate them), we bushwhacked around through some of the thick brush, picked some blackberries, and then headed down the power line road, turning off of the trail and heading back in the opposite direction. We saw some well-preserved bear tracks in a patch of mud, plenty of bear scat, interesting flowers, and more blackberries. Eventually we encountered a little side trail on our right, and we suspected that it might connect us right back to the trailhead where we parked, so we decided to try it. (The alternative was to make a much longer loop involving a (paved) road walk.) As luck would have it, we came right out exactly where we'd hoped we would. After a mildly challenging stream crossing, we were back at the cars.

Sherry and I got a fairly early start on this cloudy, damp day, and headed up Moosilauke on the Gorge Trail. We didn't see too many people on the way up--a couple of hikers and a handful of shirtless guys running (probably the cross-country team, we thought). We took lots of pictures, mostly of fungi. As we reached the summit, there were several more people. We sat down for lunch, and chatted for a bit with the DOC guy who was working up there--he vaguely remembered us from a few weeks ago when we were here. We eventually headed off to the east on the AT, planning to take the longer Asquam Ridge Trail back to complete a loop. We chatted with a sorta-grumpy older AT hiker along the way, and gave him a bit of advice about the trail ahead. The loop was a bit longer than we expected, but it was a really nice walk and very quiet--no other hikers. We eventually joined part of the Merrill Loop Ski Trail which brought as back toward the Ravine Lodge. We made it back at about 17:00, having enjoyed a peaceful, if a bit damp, trip.

Coming soon ...

Sherry and I took the Glencliff Trail, which I'd never been on before, and had a little trouble finding it. Once we did, we started hiking around 11:00, and took lots of pictures of plants and fungi. We only saw a few people along the way (a couple of trail runners and a ranger/maintainer) until we got up near the top, and then we saw a bunch. It was incredibly hot down below, but cool and breezy at the summit. We got to the top at 14:00, and spent a while eating and chatting before heading back down. We also talked with a Dartmouth student who was working up there to educate people about the alpine tundra. The trip down went fairly quickly, and we verbally worked on some NPR puzzles as we went. We got back down at about 17:00, and headed home.

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John, Andy and I hit the road from Hanover at just about 17:00 in my car and John's. John was sick of driving, so I drove his car and Andy drove mine. We kept in touch with my new two-way radios, which was great! We drove quickly up 89 to Stowe and up Route 108, leaving John's car at the south end of Smuggler's Notch where they stop plowing 108. We then took my car around to Beaver Meadow Road, as close as we could get to the trailhead for the Beaver Meadow Trail. We got packed up and finally got on the trail at about 20:00. We had some trouble finding the right way to go, but eventually figured it out. We made quick time along the trail, which was already well broken. For the last half mile, though, the trail wasn't really broken, as most people had continued straight onto the Beaver Meadow Bypass Trail. We had some trouble following the unbroken trail through the woods, but it was a good challenge and we made it to Beaver Meadow Lodge at a little before 20:00; no one was around at the moment but it had definitely seen some winter use. Andy built a fire in the woodstove on this bitterly cold night (-20F), though it didn't seem to really get going very well and eventually we gave up on it. I cooked dinner and after we got some hot food in us, we headed to bed at a little before midnight.

I had a rough night, at least for a while. I slept OK for a bit, then woke up shivering around maybe 02:00. I didn't actually feel all that cold, but I couldn't stop shivering, and I started to really worry about it, because it was such an incredibly cold night. I feared the worst--that my body couldn't keep itself warm and hypothermia would onset soon if something weren't done. I ate a Snickers and that helped a little. I broke open chemical hand warmers and put them in my feet, which were a bit cold. I lay there a while and eventually got up when I heard mice running around by our food. I covered some pots and stuff and went back to bed. I was still cold and couldn't sleep. Eventually I started having really painful indigestion, from the pepperoni I think. That sucked. I got up again and got some Rolaids, which helped a little. I went back to bed, but soon realized that my Thermarest was pretty flat. Dang! All those repairs and it's still got a hole. I blew it up, and then suddenly felt warmer--I think it was the lack of insulation between me and the floor that was causing my shivers. I fell asleep and slept much better the rest of the night. I got up first, at around 08:00 I think. It wasn't as cold outside any more, though it was definitely still cold. I made oatmeal and those guys got up and we all ate. I used the outhouse, which was a bit of a challenge, and we hit the trail at about 09:20. We had trouble right away, losing the trail in what was probably a swampy area of Beaver Meadow, but eventually we found it again on the other side, along with some ski tracks. A moment later we found the junction with the Whiteface Trail, and we headed up. There was no longer any sign of human tracks. We took turns breaking trail, and a little ways up we thought we heard voices back by the lodge--maybe someone had skied in already. We chugged away on our way up, finally reaching the Whiteface Shelter nearly two hours after starting. We took a short break there, had a snack, and decided not to make the 0.5 mile side trip to the summit of Whiteface/Sterling.

We continued on, and quickly encountered the hardest trail breaking we'd seen yet. Andy was unlucky enough to be in the lead when a really tough stretch of steep trail with deep snow came along, but he plowed his way through it. We fought our way along for a while, and though I was getting frustrated and thinking we'd never make our destination, eventually the terrain flattened out and the trail breaking got easier. I was really enjoying the gorgeous snow on the evergreens. Unfortunately, we soon started encountering trail-finding problems. We spent a lot of time looking for signs of the trail, and got stuck for many minutes in a few places. We found our way along every time, though, and eventually made it to the top of Morse Mountain. We didn't hike to the true summit, but were a stone's throw away. To my amazement, we found footprints up there. We followed them as the trail started back down. It was steep in a few places, but never too bad. We made it to Hagerman's Outlook, and continued down to Chilcoot Pass. We stopped for some food there, and it was around 15:00. We soon realized we were really close to a Smuggler's Notch ski run. We started to hike up the trail, but soon decided to cut to the ski run and follow it up in order to save time since we were so far behind. Lots of skiers passed us, many of them probably surprised at the sight of snowshoers with big packs on. We reached the summit before long, and were pleasantly surprised to find a warming hut, which we gladly utilized. We talked for a while with the two guys that were in there, and they gave us some tips on finding our way along the trail and to Sterling Pond. I melted a lot of ice off my stuff, and tried to thaw out some of our water bottles (with limited success on the latter).

Eventually we continued on, but it was getting late--after 16:00. Thanks to another helpful ski patroller, we found where the Long Trail separated from the ski slope and followed it down into the woods. We struggled to follow the trail from here toward the pond, and nearly gave up and just cut down through. Thankfully we didn't, as there was a deep valley we would have dropped through which the trail skirted around. We did eventually make our way, though it was slow and difficult. After another extremely difficult short uphill climb (handled by Andy again) over a knob called the Sawtooth, we were disappointed that the pond was still not in sight. We were all exhausted, and John was feeling really depleted. We found a flat area, and he and Andy decided to start making preparations to set up the tent. I knew we were really close, so I decided to go off on my own, without my pack, to try to find the shelters. By luck, I quickly found the trail again (which we'd lost) and with a lot more luck, wandered along without knowing exactly where the trail was (I'd lost it again soon after finding it) until stumbling upon a path well-broken by others. It went right to the Sterling Pond Shelter, but it was a disappointingly poor shelter in a windy location. I knew the other shelter was really close, though, so I stopped briefly to read about it in the LT Guide and then set off. I spotted the Elephant's Head Trail right next to the shelter, and took it. It was unbroken, and I had trouble in one spot following it, but that was it. Soon a spur split off to Watson Camp, and some footprints appeared, which I followed right to the shelter. It was awesome--a fully enclosed camp with a deck too! I started hiking back and called John and Andy on my two-way radio (which I'd been using a lot--they were great) and told them. I was feeling really tired and dehydrated, and they had food and water ready for me when I returned. We all put our packs on and followed my tracks back to Watson Camp. We were so happy to have found it. We quickly settled in and started melting snow and making dinner. I was cold, and didn't do much of the work. Slowly, in phases, I changed into warm, dry clothes, many of which were provided by John and Andy. Next time I have to remember to bring more than I did this time. We had a great meal, hot soup, and hot cocoa before going to bed. I had the luxury of using a nice cushion that was there for the caretaker. I slept well, though woke up once and talked with Andy for a while, who was running a bit of a fever, he thought.

We slept in a bit, since there wasn't much light coming into the camp. We got up around 08:30, ate a quick cold breakfast, packed up, and hit the trail. It was snowing steadily, and beautifully, outside. The deck afforded a really nice view of the pond, and I saw a few skiers crossing it as we were getting ready to go. Due to my own carelessness and a misleading trail sign, we thought we only had a short distance to go to get back to the car. We headed back down the spur trail and started down the Elephant's Head Trail. It followed along the shore of the pond, but it was so much easier to hike on the pond that we did so in places. We came to a wide clearcut heading away from the pond shore, and since we saw no trail blazes crossing it, we thought we'd follow it until we met up with the trail again. Unfortunately, there was in fact a crossing, we'd just missed it. So we lost some time hiking down that and back up again. We continued along the trail, having a fair bit of trouble following it. The snow was beautiful but very deep and tiring to hike through. We eventually reached a service road crossing, and found a sign that said we were back on the Long Trail. I panicked for a second, but then we read the sign and found out they'd rerouted the trail to follow the old Elephant's Head Trail down to Route 108. We probably could've gotten to this point a lot faster had we followed the Long Trail around the pond and then up the service road to this point, but oh well. We also figured out at that point that we had a long way to go still--about 3 miles in fact. A skier was hiking up along the road, and we chatted with him briefly before continuing on our way.

It was tough going. We lost the trail frequently, and were contouring along the side of a steep slope, which made searching for the trail even more difficult. Eventually it got a bit easier, and we followed ski tracks for a while. Those finally disappeared, though, and we were back to the grind. At one point we came upon a viewpoint, but there wasn't much to see--the falling snow prevented us from seeing very far. We continued along the way, but John was having more and more doubts about staying on this trail all the way. It was going really slow, and was already past noon. We could just turn back and take the former Long Trail down to 108, which one of the ski patrol guys had said was regularly used. I really didn't want to, though--I thought we'd be fine continuing on, even if it did take longer than we thought. So we pushed on. The trail got really tough in spots--on the sides of fairly steep slopes, squeezing under and between small pines with low branches. After deciding to give ourselves 30 more minutes before possibly turning back, we hit a good run and made pretty good progress for a while. We were getting hungry, so we finally stopped for a bite to eat--at maybe 14:00 or so. We decided to continue on. It wasn't long before we finally we got going steadily downhill. We crossed some kind of a narrow chute-like run that appeared to have ski and/or snowboard tracks. We crossed it and kept going down, finally crossing and recrossing the rock slide that I'd read about in the guidebook. It was still tough going as the trees turned back to deciduous and opened up, so we switched the lead often. Down we went, and as the bottom of the notch came into sight, a rivet on my left snowshoe broke. It was still together enough that I could continue, though, so I did. A moment later we crossed a stream, passed a small log structure, and were at Route 108. We saw a skier and two other snowshoers, who we chatted with briefly as we made our way south to John's car. It was a pretty quick last 0.5 miles. The snowshoers were nice enough to take our picture, and then we threw our stuff in the car and drove into town. We went to Gracie's Restaurant, where I've been a couple of times before, for burgers for dinner. I changed in their bathroom, and Andy drank a mind-boggling amount of Coca-Cola. We exchanged lots of stories and talked a lot about this trip, then drove back up to get my car. It was still snowing pretty good, and was pretty cold out. We hit the road, and they followed me in John's car. It was a scary drive down 89 since it was pretty well snow-covered, but we eventually made it back to Hanover at around 20:00, our most incredible winter mission to date now behind us.