2005-01-09: Moose

Sherry and I started off for a walk in the area of Moose Mountain at about
13:15.  We headed in on the Appalachian Trail from Three Mile Road, then turned
left and followed an old logging road and some snowshoe tracks.  We'd decided
to just go with boots since the amount of snow we'd gotten was still pretty
minimal this winter, despite several fresh new fluffy inches received
yesterday.  We crossed a brook and then decided to turn right onto an old DOC
Ski Loop trail that we'd explored once back in the fall.  We headed up the
pristine snow-blanketed trail, thinking we'd eventually meet up with the AT
again, though we weren't sure, since we'd never gone very far on this trail.
We kept going and going, the snow getting deeper and the trail rougher,
following a brook or two and having some down trees across it.  We stopped at
one point and sat down to eat our sandwiches for lunch.  The sky was overcast,
though no more snow seemed to be forthcoming.

After the meal, we continued heading upward, all the while debating at what
point we should turn back, since the AT didn't seem to be crossing our path
after all.  Since we were enjoying the quiet walk in territory that didn't seem
to have had any travelers in a very long time, we kept going longer than we
might have.  Eventually we passed another Ski Loop sign, and thought maybe
there was some kind of junction at that point, but could not detect any sign of
it.  We continued, and soon the increased elevation led to trees frosted with
rime and snow, and we stopped for some photos.  The trail seemed to have
narrowed considerably, going from the width of an old logging road to just a
wide path.  Before long the trail seemed to disappear altogether, though we
could see some brightness through the trees, so we pushed through and
discovered a nearby clearing, a trail sign marking the summit of Moose
Mountain, and views to the east.  We were both a little surprised to have come
out on the summit, but very pleased as well, considering the effort we'd put in
to come so far on the unbroken trail.  To our surprise, there were no fresh
tracks in the snow, just one day-old set, partially covered with the fresh
snowfall.  We spent just a moment at the summit, then headed on down the trail,
bopping along at a good clip.  It didn't seem long before we were right back at
the junction where we'd first turned off the AT, and only 10 minutes after that
we were back out at the road, having completed a slightly more ambition stroll
than we'd planned.


2005-01-30: Madison (almost)

Sherry and I, along with Keith and Jelena and Rob and his brother-in-law Aaron,
started hiking up the Valley Way from the trailhead parking lot on Route 2 at
about 10:15.  Two other guys headed off just before us, and there were a number
of cars in the lot, but we didn't actually see many people along the way.  The
weather was fairly nice--only a few clouds in the sky--and it was a bit warmer
than it had been recently.  We started gaining altitude pretty quickly, and
Jelena led the way with a very speedy pace.  The others were moving right along
too, though Sherry and I stopped a number of times for gear adjustments, sips
of water, and snacks.  We also ran back down the trail twice in search of
dropped items--Sherry's hat and one of her YakTrax boot traction strap-ons.  It
took Sherry a bit of time to hit her stride, but eventually we were keeping
right up with the others.  The trail was snowy and easy going most of the way,
with occasional icy sections that we navigated carefully alongside of,
including a couple which required grabbing roots and trees to pull oneself up.
Early on there were several trail junctions too--there's a maze of trails in
this region.

Eventually, Jelena's quick start began to catch up with her, and her legs were
hurting.  We weren't too far from tree line and the Madison Hut [sic], so Aaron
and Rob continued on ahead as the rest of us took a break and tried to
determine whether it was better to turn back, of if Jelena was merely a little
dehydrated or needed some sugar to get her legs back in shape.  In the end, we
pushed on, not pushing ourselves too hard, and we made it along the final treed
stretch--which got quite steep--and out in to the open.  We crossed some ice
and slush and arrived at the Hut to find Rob and Aaron waiting, with the heavy
winds howling across the barren saddle between Mounts Madison and Adams.  I
took a brief detour on the ice to look under the cabin, which appeared to have
totally flooded and then frozen--water, now frozen, was pouring out some of the
window-like openings in the crawlspace.  I didn't quite figure out if this was
a normal occurrence or something atypical before rejoining the others.  As we
rested up next to the hut (which was locked up for the winter), I put on my big
puffy Feathered Friends jacket and was toasty warm, though others were quite
chilly.  We all took a break and ate lunch and snacks, then debated whether or
not to continue the last, but steep, 0.3 miles to the summit of Madison, as was
the original plan.  We could see a party of at least four making their way up
slowly, and the two guys we'd seen back at the parking lot came by too (they'd
come up the Air Line trail and decided to head for the summit).  With our late
start (it was perhaps 13:30 by now), we decided instead to hike up to the high
point of the saddle, near a little pond, and take in the views from there.  We
made our way across the ice and still exposed alpine flora to get our views,
including Mount Washington.  It was extremely windy, and I was nearly oblivious
to the fact that others were getting really cold as they waited for me to set
up my camera for a timed group photo.  After getting it, everyone disappeared
almost immediately, scurrying back down to the hut.  I came along behind after
taking a few more photos, and we hurriedly headed back on down the trail.

We moved cautiously down the initial steeper spots, but then got moving more
quickly.  Some of us made attempts a sliding down on our butts to give our legs
a rest, though the sliding wasn't quite as good as I'd hope it would be.
Jelena had brought some bubble wrap, and after Aaron cut it into an appropriate
size, she used it as a sled and did a significant amount of sliding herself.
Her legs were still hurting on the way down, and at times she seemed to be in
considerable pain.  Eventually, though, she felt much better, and reverted to
her usually speedy self.  In the end, we suspect that she had been a victim of
muscle cramps, which had eventually worked their way out.  We took breaks here
and there on the way down, but mostly kept right on moving.  Sherry found the
YakTrax she'd lost on the way up, and expected to find her hat at the end of
the trail, too, as we'd passed a gentleman on the way up who said he'd grab it
for us if he saw it on his way down.  Rob, Aaron and I took a very slight
diversion on the way down to see a set of (frozen) falls in a stream that ran
parallel to the Valley Way.  The side trail was very short and only about 10
meters away from the main trail at any given time, it turned out.  The frozen
Tama Fall was quite pretty, though the trail was slippery and a bit dangerous
near some of the steep banks by the falls.  After just a few minutes, we
rejoined the main trail and continued the hike out.

We finally made it back out to the cars at about 16:15.  To our surprise, we
found no hat.  Having only passed one other guy after the hat disappeared on
the way up, I was rather disappointed that someone had walked off with it.
Hopefully it was just accident (forgot they'd picked it up or whatever).
During the hike, I'd lent Sherry my hat, and Keith lent me a spare lightweight
one he'd had, so we got by just fine without it.  I also had my big hood on my
down jacket.  Despite the loss and Jelena's leg cramps, everyone seemed to have
really enjoyed the trip, and perhaps even gained a new appreciation for just
how tough the weather--particularly the wind--can be up above tree line in the
winter.


2005-02-13: East Osceola

With a long-needed snowstorm a few days previous adding to the paltry
accumulation so far this winter, Sherry and I were excited to get out into the
mountains.  We started hiking at about 09:30 or so from the trailhead on the
Kancamagus highway down what I thought was the Greeley Ponds Trail.  There was
a sign indicating that the trail's primary use was for cross-country skiing,
though, and I thought that was perhaps the hiking trail's winter designation.
I felt bad using it, but after starting out breaking through the snow next to
the ski tracks and realizing just how difficult that would be, we decided to
just snowshoe in the ski tracks, which looked like they'd been snowshoed before
anyway, so we weren't really wrecking them.  We chugged along the rolling
trail, perhaps gaining a slight bit of elevation, and after maybe an hour we
reached a junction with the Osceola Trail.  Somewhere along the way I noticed
there weren't any of the usual hiking trail blazes, and it occurred to me that
maybe we weren't on the actual hiking trail.  The signs at the junction
confirmed that, as we realized that this was in fact a dedicated ski trail
running roughly parallel to the hiking trail.  Oh well, at least we ended up in
the right place.  We'd passed just one skier and his dog along the way.

It was a bright and sunny day with blue skies and a few fluffy white clouds
moving by overhead.  We turned up the Osceola Trail from the junction and began
to climb steadily.  We stopped frequently for little water breaks and to dress
down.  Though I'd thought we might be breaking trail through the fresh
snow--and in part that's why I'd chosen this hike--there were definitely at
least a few snowshoers that had come in before us.  We may not have made it all
the way had the trail not been broken, so that was OK with me.  It turned out
to be plenty hard enough work as it was.  The trail got steeper and steeper,
and we gained elevation rapidly.  We passed a huge rocky cliff on a nearby
mountain to our right early on, and at another point passed by some large
boulders with semi-caves underneath them that were an interesting curiosity.
We debated using crampons, but stuck with our snowshoes, though in a few places
we slid back while clawing and scratching our way up a slope.  We crossed a
narrow slide at one point, and took in the views to the east and north.
Eventually we reached a long, steep, chute-like section, which we surmounted
with some difficulty, and found ourselves on something of a ridge.  Neighboring
Mount Osceola came into view, and was beautiful in it's wintery white coating.
Views through the sparse trees gave us peeks at other nearby mountains too,
including what I think were the Bonds to the north.

The trees themselves were coated with rime and snow, which may just be my
favorite thing of beauty in this world.  I snapped photos and then we continued
along the ridge toward the summit, which we'd been able to see through the
trees.  A few minutes later we passed two women followed closely by two men,
with whom I chatted for a bit.  We made quick time of this last stretch of
trail up to the summit, which is somewhat heavily treed and marked by a lowly
cairn.  We found a few partial views through the trees and took them in, then
sat down in the snow by the cairn and had our lunches--PB&J sandwiches.  It was
quite cold, and my hands cycled between freezing and merely cold as I
repeatedly took off and put on my gloves for various reasons, not the least of
which to take photos of the amazing snowy trees and blue skies.  I took tons of
shots, and was loving it all the while.  We briefly debated continuing on to
Osceola, but because the trail was unbroken, and we'd enjoyed ourselves plenty
already, we decided not to push it.  Before long we gathered up our things and
started back down.  As we got to the steep sections, we sat right down and
slide on our back sides, which worked really well.  The snow was dry so that it
didn't stick and prevent sliding altogether, but resistant enough that we could
keep from building up too much speed.  It was a blast.  Once past the steep
parts, we marched right along, making pretty quick time of the hike out.  We
stopped back at the junction for a photo together, balancing the camera on a
trail sign.  Then we hiked out on the actual hiking trail, which was
well-beaten, coming out at a parking lot down from where we'd hiked in.  We did
a short road walk and got back to the car at about 15:00, having made
surprising quick work of the mountain.


2005-03-11--2005-03-13: West Royce (almost)

As seems to always be the case whenever John comes up for a winter trip, there
was snow to greet us.  And this time there was more than ever.  He drove
through some of it on his way to Hanover, but then he, Sherry and I saw very
little as we headed further north.  Until we got almost to Gorham, that is, at
which point we hit the blizzard head on.  Driving was a bit slower from that
point, but we entered Maine and headed south on Route 113 before long, reaching
the parking area a couple miles south of Route 2 where they stop plowing in the
winter.  We'd gotten our packs totally ready before leaving, so we pretty much
just changed boots and put on our packs and skis.  I was a little surprised to
see another vehicle parked there, with evidence of skiers having headed down
the road in the same direction we planned to go.  I wondered if perhaps we'd
see them over the weekend.

We got going at around 22:00, skiing off into the darkness of Route 113.  The
snow on the road was somewhat packed, as there had been a few snowmobiles on it
recently.  As we headed along the road, our skis--or mine, at least--slid
around on the hard pack, which was frustrating and tiresome on the feet.
Within the first hundred meters from the parking area, there were a series of
tracks leading from the hard pack of the road and into the shoulder.  It looked
as if a person had ventured out, sunk way down into the snow, and then returned
to the road, only to try again 20 meters further along.  It was repeated a
handful of times, and  I couldn't make much sense of it.  Perhaps it was a
moose, though it didn't look like it.

We skied along in the darkness, wondering what lay beyond the reach of the
beams of our headlamps, which were limited considerably as the light reflected
off all of the falling snow.  Once in a while we'd see a distant reflective
sign post that would give us something to aim for.  We looked to our right as
the occasional guard rail post peeked through the deep snow, and at the
shoulder which frequently appeared to drop down and out of sight, presumably to
the Wild River, which we were following but could neither see nor hear.  Ski
tracks in front of us were occasionally visible, but were getting buried deeper
every moment by the fresh snow, and it was not clear how old they were.  Our
packs were incredibly heavy, what with our snowshoes and plastic boots on them
in addition to everything else, and I found myself stopping frequently to
adjust and try to tighten my waist belt.

We encountered not a soul, and after nearly an hour, reached a bridge over some
mysterious waters, still neither visible nor audible.  Shortly after crossing
we found the junction with Wild River Road.  We turned right onto it, and
crossed what appeared to be a more heavily used snowmobile trail.  The ski
tracks ahead of us also turned this way, and became more apparent with the lack
of further snowmobile tracks.  We passed a speed limit sign that wasn't
sticking out much above the snow, and then encountered a gate, blocking
vehicular access to Wild River Road.  We took the opportunity for a break,
sitting down on the gate and resting.  I was feeling the beginnings of a
blister on my left big toe, so I got out some duct tape and wrapped it up.
The temperature must not have been much below freezing, because my exposed hands
and foot did not cool down very quickly.  I was very happy about that, as
bitter cold winter trips can be miserable.

John headed off again before Sherry and I did, and went fairly far ahead.  We
stopped for a drink and some adjustments, and kept wondering when we'd catch up
with him.  We were feeling ready for a snack, a little sugar to boost our
energy level one last time before stopping for the night.  We didn't seem to be
as close to the river any more, but still couldn't see much of what surrounded
us.  Sometimes it seemed like dense forest, occasionally we thought we might be
in a field.  It's always strange not knowing.  Finally we caught up with John,
who had turned off his headlamp and made us jump by being silent until we were
nearly upon him.  We stopped for one last short break before continuing on.

According to the map, it was about three miles down Wild River Road to the
Burnt Mill Brook Trail where we hoped to start snowshoeing.  Our pace was
perhaps about 1.5 miles per hour, but I couldn't be sure so I kept a careful
eye out for the trailhead, since passing it would have really screwed us up in
the morning.  As midnight approached, I noticed a post along the road that said
"New Hamps".  I didn't think much of it, figuring it was a local marker of some
kind.  Just after passing the post, though, we found a gated side road, and I
wondered if maybe this was the trailhead.  We skied onto it a bit and looked
around, but found no signs other than a faded old "no camping" marker.  It
seemed like a perfect place to set up the tent, and since the sign doesn't
apply in the winter--and we were getting tired--we did.  It was a flat, open
area, perfect for us.  So we stomped down a circular area with our snowshoes
and then began to unpack.

The relentless snowfall coated everything, so I tried to cover up some things
as I took them out of my bag.  We worked on getting the tent up, which didn't
take too long.  Then Sherry sat in the entryway and we passed all of our gear
to her, and finally all got in ourselves.  We cozied into our bags and pushed
on the snow beneath us, molding it into more comfortable contours.  It was
actually a very comfortable temperature in the tent, and both John and I fell
asleep pretty quickly.  I'm not sure how long I slept before waking again--it
may have been 30 minutes or a few hours.  The temperature in the tent had
cooled consirably, and Sherry, who hadn't fallen asleep yet, was chilly.  I
helped her get her mummy bag adjusted to be more effective, and then tried to
return to sleep again.  Sherry eventually said she was warming up, and that
helped ease my conscience.  I slept on and off, hoping Sherry would be able to
get some sleep too.

Eventually, the light of morning came.  I'd slept fairly well overall, although
Sherry had not been so lucky in her first winter night out.  All three of us
lay in the tent a while longer, and then John got up and looked outside,
finding that the snow was coming down as heavily as ever.  He made some
oatmeal, which we all enjoyed for its warmth, and then got up and moving.  It
took some time to finally get changed, break camp, and pack up again.  We
were finally ready to go at 10:15.

We skied from our tenting area 10 meters back over to Wild River Road, then
proceeded to follow the pre-existing ski tracks up the road, just as we had
last night, though they were covered by inches of new snow.  It was really
refreshing to finally be able to look around and see our surroundings, having
been deprived of them in the dark of night.  The road made for an open corridor
in which to travel, and though the snow was still falling in force, we could
see pretty far ahead.  The road was pretty straight, following the Wild River,
which itself formed the base of the mostly linear Wild River Valley.  We were
surrounded by a mix of deciduous and evergreens, all blanketed in snow, though
not as burdened as I would have expected given the recent conditions.  The
trail couldn't really be considered broken, what with the several inches of
fresh snow since last night, so we took turns in the lead.  The previous tracks
were still easier to follow than the open powder, though, since they had packed
the snow down somewhat.

The wind was blowing up in the treetops, sending occasional globs of snow down
to the ground around us.  I noticed it more because of the movement in the
trees--once thinking there was an animal moving around--than because of the
additional precipitation.  After less than 30 minutes of skiing, we saw
movement far up ahead, and realized there were two skiers coming toward us!  We
slowly approached each other, each somewhat surprised to see the other.  They
were two friendly gentleman, and had skied in yesterday, all the way to the
Wild River Campground, and now were on their way back out.  We had a friendly
chat with them for a few minutes, sharing our plans to snowshoe up to the Basin
Rim.  They wished us well, and were happy to have some broken trail ahead, as
were we.  We continued on, and soon found that the gap between the road and the
river became smaller.  We could finally see the wide waterway, though it too
was thoroughly blanketed in snow, and only once in a while could it be at all
heard.

The road opened up a little more as well, brightening up our pathway for a
time.  Soon we had a pleasant downhill stretch, crossed a bridge, and just a
short distance further, encountered a parking area on our left.  It was the
trailhead for the Burnt Mill Brook Trail, as the trail sign--partially
underneath the snow--proclaimed to us.  We skied just into the woods from the
parking area, packed down the snow, and began to change out of our skis.  We
deposited our boots into a big plastic garbage bag and set it down next to our
skis, which we'd stuck vertically into the deep base of snow.  Having now
donned our warm plastic boots--lightening our load somewhat--and taken in a
snack, we were ready to snowshoe.  It was about 11:30 when we set off.

We each took turns breaking trail, and though it was difficult right from the
beginning due to the depth of the snow, I was still hopeful that we might make
it to our planned destination--a shelter along Basin Rim about 5 miles away
(the Blue Brook Shelter).  We followed the trail along the buried brook,
stopping frequently at first to make adjustments.  Though there weren't
terribly many trail blazes, it was pretty easy to follow.  Before long we
realized that we were walking through a forest under attack--"snow bombs", as
we dubbed them, would suddenly start falling all around us whenever the wind
picked up a little.  We'd shout to warn each other and then just duck and
cover--it was the best we could do.  It was cold enough, thankfully, that the
falling snow wasn't really a problem.  Instead of melting readily and quickly
soaking our clothes, as it would have in warmer temperatures, it just
accumulated on us, or rolled off.  We continued on the trail, slowly, as it
gradually headed uphill.

Before long, we reached a point at which the next trail blaze could not be
found.  There seemed to be an obvious swath where the trail could be going,
though as we found out, it was also a small streambed and we didn't want to
accidentally follow that instead.  John followed it up for a while, looking for
the next blaze, while I turned back and looked around for possible turns we
might have missed.  Sherry started following John, and some snow collapsed
underneath her, dropping her another couple of feet down until she was
surrounded by snow almost up to her shoulders.  That was how we found the
brook.  Luckily she did not get wet and was able to climb out without too much
trouble.  I then spent some time looking around through the woods for trail
blazes in a different direction--an arduous and frustrating task in the deep
snow--and John continued on through the apparent clearing.  Eventually we
talked on our two-way radios, and he said he'd still seen nothing in the way of
yellow, which was the blaze color we'd been following.  We decided to take our
chances and hope that John was going the right way, as it appeared to be our
best option.  In its favor, the narrow clearing was still following the brook,
which we knew it was supposed to.

Sherry and I caught up with John, who was exhausted from having broken trail
for quite a stretch, including one of our first significant stretches of
uphill.  I took over, and we continued following what we hoped was the trail,
looking carefully at both sides of every tree in hopes of a blaze pointing in
one direction or the other.  We hiked for some time, the "trail" still apparent
before us, but still saw no blazes.  We continued to struggle as the snow
became deeper--it was still snowing hard--and the slope gradually increased.
Now and again we'd stop for a snack, or water, to take off a layer of clothing,
or to duck from snow bombs.  But we continued to plod along, without blazes.
I'd long since given up on them, and was keeping an eye on the brook in the
ravine to our left, hoping that simply following that would take us to the
junction that was our next milestone.

As we struggled through the ever-more-difficult conditions--dropping down and
back up tiny valleys carved by tributaries feeding the brook was far more
difficult than one would imagine--I began to wonder just how far we'd really
get today.  I checked the time, estimated our progress, and estimated how long
it would take us to get to that shelter.  Early estimates put us there at
18:00, which was already late enough.  That assumed a rate of progress of 1
mile per hour, which was not overly optimistic, or so I thought.  After
figuring that we'd come about a mile up the 2-mile long Burnt Mill Brook Trail,
and realizing it had taken us a good 2 hours, I was forced to readjust our
expectations.  The loop we planned to do along Basin Rim and back down to Wild
River Road was no longer feasible, even though it was by far the shortest of
the several possible loops I'd considered when planning the trip.  I reset our
goal, in my own mind at least, to be the summit of West Royce Mountain, which
was 1/2 mile beyond the junction, only 1.5 miles from our current location.

As we followed the brook, John and I, who were the primary trail-breakers,
began taking shorter and shorter shifts.  Sherry diligently kept the second
spot, which was still no easy task, giving John and I good breaks in the third
spot during our off shifts.  John and I, even with our height advantage, were
still often unable to lift our snowshoes above the surface of the powder, and
had to kick into it.  This would have been doubly exhausting for Sherry.  We
also didn't want to discourage her from winter trips by overworking her on her
first one!  Finally, and for no apparent reason, we finally came upon another
yellow blaze.  Although it felt as though we had been going the right way all
along, it was reassuring to know we were doing so, and hadn't gotten
sidetracked on some old logging road.  I'd also remembered reading that we were
supposed to cross the brook 0.3 miles before the junction, and was afraid the
terrain could get hairy at that point, especially if we weren't on the trail.
The blazes continued to be regular once we found them again, and John and I
took shifts in which we'd struggle past one or two blazes--perhaps one- or
two-hundred feet altogether, then switch.

The woods had been pretty wide open for most of the hike up, with occasional
denser groves of evergreens blocking more light and limiting our visibility.
At this point, though, we began to enter a region in which the brook to our
left had started to break up into smaller tributaries, the side of the mountain
contained more irregularities and protrusions which blocked our view, and more
evergreens began to appear again.  This combination of factors made it all the
more important that we have blazes to follow, and luckily, we did.  Only on a
few occasions did we really have to stop and look for the next one or hike a
short distance without knowing where the next one was.  Even then, we never
really got off the trail, which was very important to us, since we were getting
exhausted enough as it was.

We were reaching a point where each individual step was a struggle, both
physically and mentally.  At one point, I was in the lead going up a slope, and
Sherry was right behind me, with John right behind her, both waiting for me to
chop through the deep snow in front of me.  I reached a point on the slope
where the snow was slippery, and I was sliding back even as I tried to kick
ahead into the wall of snow.  I was getting frustrated.  I slid one snowshoe
back in preparation for a hard kick into the snow, but the back of my snowshoe
slid into the snow and got stuck, and I was unable to easily lift it.  I was
short-tempered and impatient, and yanked hard to free my snowshoe.  I was
successful, but at the same time I flung a pile of snow directly into Sherry's
face.  She yelled so suddenly and loudly that I thought I'd kicked her with the
snowshoe, and though I was relieved to find that I had not, I felt terrible for
having been so careless.  She was OK, though, and was a good sport about it.
In the meantime, I redirected my frustration at the snow ahead, yelling "DIE,
SNOW, DIE!" as I kicked furiously at it, deriving a brief spurt of energy from
my anger and surging past the difficult spot.  Everyone was a bit surprised at
my outburst, myself included.  I love snow, it's beauty and it's ability to so
uniformly blanket all of the physical variations of the earch, and found myself
in strange territory as I fought so hard against it, physically and
emotionally.

Luckily, that was the only real outburst of its kind.  As we zigzagged through
this new terrain, crossing what seemed to be a few different small streams, I
wondered if we were indeed crossing the main brook.  In fact, I felt fairly
confident that we must have been, and mentally I started to envision how the
terrain ahead would begin to flatten as we covered the final 0.3 miles to the
junction.  I was able to visualize this in part because John and I had been at
this junction before, back in 2000, on a weekend traverse that included Basin
Rim and West Royce Mountain.  By now, though, even summiting West Royce
Mountain was starting to seem out of the question, due simply to a lack of
energy for the climb.  But I figured if we got to the junction soon, we might
be able to rest a bit and do a side trip to the summit to get some views, since
at this point it was still somewhat early, perhaps around 15:00.

As we continued along, slowly as ever but fueled by the anticipation of the
ever-closer junction, I kept looking ahead, envisioning how just over the next
slope must be the flatter terrain of the col in which we'd find the junction.
But after each slope came yet another, and another, and another.  Despite our
extremely slow progress--practically a crawl--I was sure we'd gone at least 0.3
miles by now, and I began to realize that the actual brook crossing was not
where I'd thought.  We had in fact gone through some more short up-and-downs
since I first thought we'd crossed the brook, and surely one of them must have
been the actual crossing referred to in the guidebook, but I can't say that I
knew when that was or can remember it.  So with this realization, suddenly, I
no longer had an accurate idea of how close we might be.  I certainly thought
that we were still getting close, but really wasn't sure any more.  By this
point it felt like we'd travelled 10 miles, considering the amount of effort
we'd put in, so my mental odometer was all out of whack.

As luck would have it, we were in fact not so far from the junction.  As we
struggled through one section of somewhat dense evergreens, we encountered a
double-blaze on a tree trunk.  I knew immediately that this was to alert us of
the upcoming junction.  The trail behind the tree with the blaze, however,
appeared daunting.  I took over the lead from John at that point and peered
between the tree with the double-blaze and the one next to it, through which
the trail appeared to go.  Ahead the trail turned either left or right, both up
somewhat steep slopes which appeared to be buried in huge piles of snow that
apparently had been falling off of the evergreens.  After a short rest, we
steeled ourselves for the battle.  I took one step past the blaze, then heard
John announce, "Hey, another blaze, to the right!"  I cautiously began to back
out from between the two trees, as moving in reverse in snowshoes is not easy.
Looking to the right, sure enough, there was a blaze not 10 meters away.  The
double-blaze, of course, was there to signal this sharp turn in the trail.  I
was too overcome with the thought that we must be just about to the junction to
have even considered that possible interpretation.  So it was a bittersweet
moment--the way to the right was much less daunting, but still no sign of the
junction.

We proceeded as usual, taking short, exhausting turns at fighting our way
uphill.  Occasionally we'd encounter short, steeper sections where every few
steps forward would result in sliding back a step.  John was the first to make
the smart decision to cut switchbacks into these steeper sections to avoid the
sliding.  I readily adopted this strategy myself, and it worked well.  After
one such short climb, we three looked back and pondered how we'd just spent a
solid 5 minutes switchbacking up a 15 meter section of trail that, in the
summer, one would have hiked up easily in under 30 seconds.  We laughed.  Tired
though we were, we still had our senses of humor and were enjoying what we
could.  I'd say we were enjoying the challenge of it, too, and to some extent
we definitely were, though the difficulty of the climb so exceeded our
expectations that it became hard to appreciate it.  I think, though, that if
we'd had a few more days with which to complete our planned loop, I would've
been considerably more encouraged; the prospect of simply going two miles and
then turning back made the expedition seem somewhat less meaningful.  Still,
the goal of the junction was becoming a bigger and bigger goal for us, and we
definitely weren't going to stop until we got there, even if the idea of
continuing on to the summit of West Royce was rapidly evaporating.

On we pressed.  Soon we returned from evergreens to hardwoods, and visibility
increased somewhat.  We passed trailblaze after trailblaze, some of them just
barely peeking out above the snow.  The steepness of the slope started to
decrease slightly, and I was once again very optimistic.  I looked around at
the lay of the land, trying to coerce it into my vision of the col that I
remembered from last time.  Suddenly, it looked as though it might fit.  There
was a slope to our left that appeared to rise quickly--that could be East Royce
Mountain.  On the right, a much steeper slope extended upward as far as I could
see--that could be West Royce.  Ahead I could no longer see the ground
extending upward--we'd reached a flatter section, at least for the moment.  We
wound our way through the more sparsely treed section, with blazes slightly
more tricky to find because of the openness.  It was still slow going, but I
think we all felt the anticipation that the end was near.  The snow, meanwhile,
continued its furious pace.

A sign!  Just as I was starting to wonder how wide the gap between the
mountains was, and how long we'd have to hike through it before encountering
the junction, it appeared!  And with it, all of the aches and exhaustion of the
strenuous climb disappeared, at least for a while.  I jokingly suggested that
we drop our packs and hike to the summit of West Royce, but everyone, myself
included, knew that that was totally out of the question.  The last 0.3 miles
along took us nearly an hour, so even though it was only 16:15, getting up the
steep slope to the summit would have taken ages, even without packs.  We stood
around for a moment at the junction, looking at the signs as they poked just
above the level of the snow, then started looking around for a good place for
the tent.  We found a suitable spot just a few meters beyond the junction
itself, which was perfect, since we didn't feel like spending any more energy
looking around.  There was a very steep slope buried in snow alongside the
location we'd chosen, and though the thought occurred to us that the snow could
come loose and bury our tent, it seemed extremely unlikely so we didn't worry
about it.  I was pretty sure there was a rock wall under the the surface, and
that the amount of snow there wasn't as large as it appeared.

We wasted no time in packing down a large area for our tent, as well as a path
off into some trees for our rest room.  Since we had time, we packed it down
solidly so that we could walk around in our boots without sinking in.
Following that, we got right to work in setting up the tent and getting moved
in, working as efficiently as possible so as to minimize the amount of snow
that accumulated on the gear as we unpacked.  I noticed that as we used our
hiking poles to stake down parts of the tent, the poles never actually reached
solid ground even as I shoved them into the snow all the way up to the grips.
I knew the snow was deep, and this indicated that it was no less than four feet
in depth, and that was in the area where we'd packed down the snow for the
tent.  Wow.  As we unloaded our gear, Sherry was the "inside" person--she took
off her snowshoes and crawled into the entryway of the tent, sheltered by the
vestibule cover, and sat down facing out, just inside the door flap, with her
feet extending out of the flap.  John unpacked his gear and I unpacked mine and
Sherry's, handing things in one at a time to Sherry, who laid things out inside
the tent.

Once everything was handed in, each of us in turn, starting with Sherry, went
through the little ceremony involved in entering the tent.  First you sit down
in the tent, feet sticking out the door so as not to bring in snow.  Then you
remove your gaiters and plastic boots.  The warm "bootie" liners are then
removed from the boots--they'll stay in the sleeping bags with us during the
night so that they aren't freezing cold to put on in the morning.  Gaiters are
stuffed into the plastic boot shell, and boots are left in the vestibule off to
the side, out of the way but out of the snow.  Then you crawl or crabwalk your
way back into the tent, work your way around the congested mess of gear and
finally manage to wriggle into your sleeping bag to stay warm.  Once you do
that, you then pull out your dry clothes for sleeping in, and slowly work your
way out of your wet ones and into your dry ones.  It's a slow process, but
since it's already getting dark and is only around 17:00, there's plenty of
time, Luckily, the body heat from three people keeps the tent relatively warm
inside as long as the temperatures aren't extremely low.  Otherwise, the
getting set up and getting changed would have one additional element of
difficulty added on.  By the time we did finally all get in the tent, clothes
changed, and sitting with the lower halves of our bodies inside our bags, the
time was still only around 17:30 at the latest.

By this point, I'm usually much colder than John is, so he does the cooking.
In this case, I wasn't too cold, and neither was Sherry, but John offered to do
the cooking (and snow melting) anyway, and we weren't about to refuse.  So
Sherry and I lay back and slid into our bags for a short while to warm up some
more.  Then I came out again to help John, getting out food and pots and
handing him things as he needed them.  We weren't terribly hungry, so we
decided to replenish our water supply first.  Before getting into the tent,
John and I had used our snowshoes to shovel a significant pile of snow in the
vestible, but off to the side a little so as not to be in our way too much when
entering.  Now John scooped big chunks of snow from that pile into his cook
pot, which he'd set up on top of his tiny camp stove in the vestibule.  Always
keeping a little water in the bottom of the pot, he continually added snow
until the pot was full, then poured it into an empty water bottle.  We added
chicken noodle soup mix to the first full bottle, so we had something nice
and hot to drink in the meantime.  In fact, it was much too hot, so we had to
let it cool down.  So that bottle, along with a few more bottles of hot water
that followed, went right inside either Sherry's sleeping bag or mine, and they
were great for giving off warmth.  Eventually we drank the soup, but the hot
water bottles stayed in our bags all night, and didn't lose all of their heat
for hours.  After that, we kept them in our bags so that they wouldn't freeze.

Melting snow takes quite some time, but eventually we got to cooking, perhaps
at maybe 18:45 or so.  We had two packets of freeze-dried meals, and
preparation was simple.  We boiled some water, poured it in the bags that the
meals came in, sealed them shut (they were zip-lock), and waited about 10
minutes.  After that we stirred them up and dug in.  One was kung pao chicken
and the other was beef stew.  Both were good, though we unanimously agreed that
the beef stew was our favorite.  We had two spoons between the three of us, and
took turns taking scoops out of the bag as we huddled around it, sitting
cross-legged.  In atypical fashion, we actually did not manage to finish all of
the food--usually we gobble it all up and wish there was more.  I guess because
we'd been snacking considerably during the afternoon and also as we waited for
dinner, not to mention we'd filled up somewhat on the soup.  In any case, we
were satisfied, and ready for some sleep, so we put the extra food to the side
and cleaned up from dinner.  We then each realized that we'd better make one
more run outside to go to the bathroom--to make sleeping easier--so we took
turns scurrying out there, then cozied into our sleeping bags for the night.

I wanted to make sure that Sherry was plenty warm enough, so we went over the
various ways to stay warm during the night.  For the most part, though, we'd
already done them all--dry clothes, down booties, warm water bottles, chemical
hand and foot warmers if necessary, and of course, tighten the mummy sleeping
bag down around your head and face as much as possible.  Sherry did all of
these things, and was warm, as were John and I.  As we lay there trying to get
comfortable and fall asleep, the constant patter of the ongoing blizzard could
be heard on the outer surface of the tent.  It was a soothing sound.  John fell
asleep right away--not surprisingly given our hard work today, but the fact
that he doesn't get as much sleep these days with little Sarah and Christopher
at home.  I took a bit longer to fall asleep, and slept soundly for quite some
time.  Eventually I woke up, as I would a number of times during the night, and
checked on Sherry.  Sometimes she was awake, and sometimes asleep.  Most times
we spoke, though, she was warm and doing fine, and I was always glad to hear
that.  She did get cold from time to time, and felt a little claustrophobic
being bundled up so tightly, at which times she came out of her bag briefly.
After we'd all gone to bed, the temperature in the tent dropped significantly,
I guess because our bodies slow down during sleep, and we weren't radiating as
much heat around the tent, keeping it more trapped inside of our bags now.  So
when Sherry popped out now and again, she cooled down quickly.  For me the
night went fairly quickly, even though we'd gone to bed so early (around
20:00).  John slept great, and Sherry slept better than the night before, but
still only so-so.  For a first winter trip, though, one can hardly expect to
sleep as well as at home.

In addition to talking to Sherry on occasion during the night, I also noticed
fairly early on that I could no longer hear the snow falling on the tent.
Apparently it had finally stopped!  A few other times, I thought I heard very
distant motor sounds.  These seemed to me to be very late at night, though I
didn't check the time.  I suppose maybe they were snowmobiles far below, though
I figured even those would have stopped by the wee hours.  I'm always happy to
see first light in the winter time, because the nights are so long--it was more
than 11 hours between when we went to bed and when we finally got up, at around
07:30!  We rose slowly, in no hurry, and Sherry got a little more shuteye as
John and I got up to use the bathroom and then get breakfast going.  Amazingly,
none of us had had to get up during the night--always a dreaded thing to have
to do in the winter.  I guess we'd all been pretty low on fluids, so even
though we drank a lot before bedtime, our bodies were able to absorb and use
most of it.  John did the cooking again, making another batch of hot oatmeal.
We sat around the pot and shared it in the same fashion as we'd eaten last
night, but this time getting ourselves warmed up and ready to face the day.

Since we'd be hiking out today, we didn't need to change back into our damp day
clothes as we normally would, saving the dry clothes for the next night.  We
did, however, have to put our outer layers back on, and those were in fact
considerably damp.  The snow that had been accumulating on them had melted just
enough to permeate our snow pants and jackets with moisture--moisture which
then promptly froze during the night.  I'd kept some of my outer layer clothing
underneath my sleeping pad in hopes that my body heat would dry it out a
little, or at least keep it from getting frozen solid, and it did seem to help
a bit, but not much.  I had been wearing a fleece jacket as my outer layer,
since the zipper on my normal jacket shell had recently broken.  Instead of
putting on the fleece jacket--which was now crusty with ice--I stuffed it into
my pack and put on my fluffy down jacket instead.  I crawled outside to find
that I could finally see around without being blinded by the snowfall.  It was
still overcast, but there was some blue sky visible, and I could just see
some distant mountains in the Carter Range through the trees to the west.  I
walked around and snapped some pictures of the nearby snow-covered trees before
returning to the tent to start packing up.  Sherry handed stuff out to John and
I, and we reversed the procedure we'd performed last night.

After emptying the tent, we dismantled it quickly and I stuffed it into my
pack.  In no time we were back on the trail again, starting out at around
10:00 and looking at a much easier day than yesterday as we backtracked down
the Burnt Mill Brook Trail.  It wasn't quite as easy as it could have been,
since several new inches of snow had fallen the night before, but
realistically, that was nothing compared with what we'd faced yesterday
afternoon, and we were going downhill to boot.  We alternated in the lead,
though I think John had it the majority of the time.  The sun peaked out here
and there early on, though it seemed to become more overcast as the day wore
on.  As usual, we took breaks now and again for water, snacks, and to dress
down or up.  We noted various fresh animal tracks in the snow as we went, and
even heard some birds chirping from time to time.  Needless to say, the trip
down seemed like a breeze.  I sidetracked a few meters over to the brook at one
point to take some photos at a spot where I could see some water running, but
otherwise we stayed the same course all the way.  I think we reached the
trailhead and our skis around noon, about two hours after we'd started off.

We made the change back into our skis--the boots, though they'd been out in the
snow (in a plastic bag), were not as cold on our feet as we had expected--and
attached our snowshoes and boots back to our packs.  I'd forgotten just how
much heavier our packs felt this way, and I felt like a mule carrying such a
huge burden.  Before putting my skis on, I'd walked over to the trail
sign, which yesterday had been just barely above the snow.  Today the part of
the sign containing trail names and mileages was completely buried, with only
a road-sign style hiking symbol that was above it still visible.  I dug it out
and took a picture.

Skiing started off good, but the goodness didn't last.  We followed our old
tracks, which were of course buried under inches of snow.  However, despite
that we were getting good glide at first, which was very beneficial.  But then
we reached some parts of the road that had been exposed to the sun, and found
that the snow was stickier, making gliding nearly impossible.  Clumps of snow
stuck to the bottoms of our skis, and breaking trail was tiresome.  John led
for a good deal of the way, and we were all anxious to be out, though we knew
that the five miles of skiing ahead would be no easy task.  I wobbled along
with the overweight pack, moderately steady but with occasional near-falls.  We
went down one gentle slope and then back up another, and then had flatness
after that.  The skiing seemed to drag on and on, since we couldn't stop
thinking about the finish.  I counted as many milestones as I could along the
way, giving myself small goals.  Not as small as the goals I'd been setting
during yesterday's snowshoe up (I was inspired by Touching the Void for those),
but as small as my memory of the landmarks would allow.

We passed places where the river came close to the road, occasional markers
along the side of the road, some recognizable trees, and various other things
that I remembered.  I also noticed the hundreds of pock marks in the snow on
the ground from globs of snow that had been blown out of the trees above.  The
marks varied in size from quarter-size to foot-wide craters.  I hoped not to
get caught in any snow bombs myself on the way out.  I also took note of
several animal tracks that crossed the trail, mostly small animals, and some
which indicated that the animal had burrowed under the snow in some places,
too, which was neat.  The long, straight sections of road were the worst,
because it seemed like forever that we were looking ahead at the same thing,
until finally a turn in the road was reached.

Eventually, we reached the spot where we'd passed the other guys on the trail.
Then it wasn't much further until we passed our tent site from the first night.
Just moments after that, we encountered a state line post in the snow,
indicating that we'd camped just inside New Hampshire Friday night.  I saw
"Maine" written vertically on the side of the post facing me, and then realized
that this was the post that I'd seen on the way in.  It had said "New Hamps"
from the other direction, the "hire" buried under the snow, and I was too tired
and/or clueless at that point to figure it out!  John and Sherry moved over to
the post for a photo on the state line, and then I came over to try to join
them for a self-taken photo of the three of us.  With the skis in the deep
powder, the heavy pack, no poles (I'd set them down), and a camera in my hand,
there were just too many factors conspiring against me ... I fell, of course.
I ended up falling into the state line post, leaning on it for a moment, which
helped prevent me from being fully engulfed by the snow.  But I buckled under
the weight of my pack and slid down the post, coming to rest lying in the snow,
clinging to the wooden marker.  John and Sherry were laughing it up, of course,
and I couldn't help but laugh myself.  John grabbed the camera from me and
snapped some pictures before I could right myself.  Once I did, and everyone
finally stopped laughing, we got going again.

I had a harder time remembering the landmarks for the next stretch.  The final
half-hour or so from our late night hike Friday was kind of a blur.  We went
through one section that we'd thought was a field on the way in, but was in
fact a snow-covered pond or marsh.  Sherry and I spotted a funny disturbance in
the snow which looked to me like some kind of heavy, squat, waddling creature
had been wandering around.  It was just a groove in the snow, but much larger
than any others we'd seen from small animals.  Perhaps a raccoon?  At one
point, it had even dug a little tunnel under the snow for a few feet and then
popped back out in a different place.  We weren't close enough to it to look in
and see what kind of tracks were in there, so I guess I'll never really know.

We stopped briefly at one section where we could hear the river, which we
remembered passing in the dark too.  I began to feel pretty weary at this
point, ever the more anxious to be done.  Around every turn and wiggle in the
road, I hoped that the next big milestone would appear--the gate at the end of
Wild River Road, where we'd stopped for a rest on the way in.  I kept stopping
for more adjustments to my uncomfortably heavy pack, and once to scrape the
accumulated snow off of my skis.  Sherry and John got a little ways ahead of
me, but finally they reached the gate, which was not much above the snow any
more, and sat down for a break.  I arrived soon afterward and joined them.  We
had a snack, made some adjustments, and all in all had a pretty solemn
breather.  Sherry and John headed back down the trail first.  I had trouble
getting my skis back on, and so had to play catch-up.

Leaving the gate, I crossed the snowmobile trail that ran through the
intersection and headed into the woods.  It appeared to have been used
considerably since the fresh snow, though there was no sign of any snowmobiles
around, nor had we heard any in the distance all day long.  The intersection
was surrounded by several fairly large evergreens, and thus well-shaded, making
the snow excellent for skiing.  I zipped through, thinking maybe the last 1.5
miles or so back up Route 113 to the car might not be so bad.  I stopped for
another brief adjustment, then hurried along to try to catch up with the
others.  Unfortunately, the snow soon became just slightly sticky, and skiing
again required more effort.

Soon the road crossed a bridge over a small tributary to the now quite wide
Wild River to my left.  Now visible out over the river was a suspension foot
bridge, quite long in order to span the waterway.  There must have been another
trail going into the woods there, though I didn't remember it from the map.
Just after the bridge on the right there was a rock wall.  I'd remembered
passing it in the dark Friday night, but had no idea just how large the nearby
river was.  Because it was so heavily blanketed with ice and snow, it still
could hardly be heard.  Looking past the suspension bridge and upriver, I could
see a hill or small mountain back in the direction we'd come from.  It was
still overcast and even somewhat misty it seemed, so not much more could be
discerned.  It was about the only such views we'd gotten on the whole trip.

A short distance up the river, I noticed some interesting ice formations and
some exposed water.  I stopped for a few photos.  Continuing on, trees began to
come between the road and the river again, and I started thinking about
milestones once more.  A sign here, and notable tree or landform there.  One by
one I slowly ticked them off of my mental checklist.  Eventually the three of
us were back together again, and I finally relieved John from trailbreaking
duty.  He'd been going at it for quite some time.  It was pretty tiring, and we
took turns from there on out.  I was beat, but knowing how close we must have
been getting gave me motivation to press on.  We passed some White Mountain
National Forest signs, include the main welcome sign (or "leaving" sign, as
viewed from our direction).  Not far now.  To my surprise, at that sign there
appeared out of nowhere some snowshoe tracks.  Someone must have come in,
breaking trail on top of our old tracks, turned around at the sign, and gone
back out.  This was good news for us, as it made breaking trail considerably
easier.

Still, the last stretch seemed to drag on.  Around every turn I thought maybe
it would be our last.  We were ready to be done.  Thankfully, the going was
fairly easy and there were no last-minute surprises.  As I skied around yet
another bend, finally I saw that John up ahead was approaching a gate and some
huge piles of plowed snow.  We were there!  Sherry and I were close together,
and wouldn't you know, after having calm weather for the last hour or so, a
gust of wind picked up right then and there that created a white-out of snow
from the trees just in front of us.  It swept fiercely across the road, but was
just behind John, thus missing all three of us.  It was over in a matter of a
few seconds.  Sherry and I hustled on through that section hoping no more gusts
would come up and spoil our ending.  None did.  I skied around the gate and
looked back past the "road closed" sign at Sherry, who was just a handful of
strides back.  She came in around the gate, joining John and I back at the
parking area, and the hilarious scene of John's Subaru covered with almost two
feet of snow.  It could've been an SUV under there.  We all let out sighs of
relief, dropped our packs, and shared high-fives all around.

2005-05-28: North Kinsman

Sherry and I, after having a brief bit of trouble finding the unmarked
trailhead on Route 116, started hiking up the Mount Kinsman Trail at about
10:15.  What we original thought would be a cold, dark, overcast day was
turning out to be quite sunny and warm.  The "entrance" of the trail, just a
few feet from the main road, was marked by a pair of two-meter tall stone
markers a few meters apart, with a chain hanging between them.  The trail
started out as an old road and stayed that way for perhaps a mile.  It was
still in good condition and we could see that vehicled had indeed driven on it
in the not-too-distant past.  We saw two other power-walkers just as we started
out, and they confirmed that we were in the right place.  We took our time,
observing nature and enjoying in particular a stretch of the road that was
blanketed with the rustiness of fallen pine needles.  The trail went up
gradually, with occasional steeper sections.  We dressed down into our shorts
to keep from overheating.  There were a few stream crossings, and they were a
bit more challenging than usual since the water levels were pretty high, with
snow still melting and lots of rain lately.  At one point we passed a waterfall
in one of the many streams and brooks that crossed the trail--it was a 15-foot
cascade just a few feet of the trail, and very pretty.

We saw a few hikers here and there on the way up, but not many.  We eventually
passed the same two from the beginning again after about 1.5 miles, and in
chatting with them they pointed out to us a feature we'd not known about--a
flume just off the side of the trail up ahead.  We thanked them and continued
on.  Just a few minutes later, we crossed a stream and found the side trail to
the flume.  We dropped our packs and hiked down for about a minute before
finding the thin chasm that the stream had plummeted into.  It was really cool,
but we had to be very careful when leaning over the edge to look down.

Continuing up the main trail, just a moment later we reached the side trail to
Bald Knob.  We started down it, dropped our packs again, and went a few minutes
to the open rocky knob, which had excellent views.  We looked at some bushes
with amazing dark red leaves and bright white flowers, and watched some tiny
blue-grey birds flitting around.  We took a couple of pictures, then returned
to the main trail and continued upward.  It soon became steeper, and we started
to encounter snow and ice in ever-increasing quantities, which made the going
trickier.  We pushed along at a good pace, though, despite also keeping an eye
out for anything interesting that Mother Nature might have put along the way
for us to see.  I took some photos of interesting plant and fungus growth here
and there, as well as some cool ice formations.

We were getting pretty worn down, and despite having a couple of snacks, we
decided we couldn't wait for the summit to eat lunch, so we planned to eat at
Kinsman Pond.  It was almost 13:00 by now.  We worked hard to get to the
junction with the Kinsman Ridge Trail, but then the sun seemed so much brighter
that we started to think maybe we should get to the summit in case the weather
changes.  We also were now well above the pond, and didn't want to hike down
and back up.  So with new-found motivation we pushed the final half-mile to the
summit, encountering a bunch of people struggling down the steep, icy trail as
we worked our way up.  It didn't take us long, and soon we were out on an
exposed rock by the summit, taking in the fine views of the Franconia Ridge
across the notch.  One group of three guys was also there.  We ate our
sandwiches in no time, and then had some of Sherry's homemade cookies for
dessert.  The other guys suggested we hike out to another rock for better views
down to the pond, so we did, and were happy they'd suggested it.  We stared at
the pond for a long time, took a bunch of photos, and watched as some tiny
people down on the shore moved around.

Before long we returned to the first ledge, and our packs, and had a bit more
to eat as a different group of three sat nearby.  One guy started smoking as we
lay back resting, and that kind of annoyed me, but I tried to ignore it.
Having relaxed at the summit for quite a while now, we decided to head down to
the pond.  We decended carefully but expediently, and were at the pond, and the
Kinsman Pond Campground, before we knew it.  We sat along the shore for a while
and looked up at the mountain we'd just been on.  We could see some folks
standing up there looking around, their silhouettes contrasting with the sky
and making them easier to see despite being so far away.  After taking in this
peaceful place for a short while, we returned to the trail again to head back
down.  It was around 15:30, and after a brief friendly exchange with a couple
of backpackers that seemed to be new to the area, we made our way back up to
the Mount Kinsman Trail and began our descent.

Going down was tricky with the steepness and all of the ice and snow, but we
made pretty good time.  We slid here and there, and had some close calls, but
managed to catch ourselves pretty well each time.  Eventually, though, about
halfway down, Sherry slid and in falling tried to catch herself with her hand
and hurt her wrist.  It wasn't serious, but she was in a lot of pain for a few
minutes, and it made the rest of the trip down much more stressful.  She had no
more problems, though, and although it seemed like an awfully long walk out
because we were so tired by this point, we actually hiked out pretty fast.  By
the end our legs and feet were very sore, since we hadn't hiked in a while and
were out of shape.  We got back to the car at around 17:30, and despite our
exhausted conditions, we'd really enjoyed the trip and the great weather that
had come with it.

2005-06-04--2005-06-05: West Royce (the return)

As we were driving south on Route 113 from Route 2 in the morning,
Sherry and I were kee to see what things looked like in this area
without all the snow of winter--this was exactly where we'd gone on our
winter hike with John not quite three months ago.  It was quite amazing
how different things looked, how much wider and more open without the
huge heaps of snow on the sides of the road.  We turned down Wild River
Road and I was on the lookout for recognizable spots from the winter
hike so I could make mental comparisons.  I saw several, many of which
amazed me with the amount of snow there had been, but the one that got
the most attention was what we'd thought was an open field back in
March.  As we approached I remember the spot, and it turns out that it
was a wet, swampy around.  As we drove past looking at it, I saw a big
moose on the far side of it wading in the water.  We stopped and got out
excitedly to look at it, and I took a couple of photos, but by then it
had gotten nervous and was exiting the pond and disappearing back into
the surrounding brush.  It was a huge, dark creature with horns, and
we'd wished he'd stayed longer.

We continued up the road and dropped off Sherry's bike (hid it in the
woods) at the trailhead parking area near the Wild River Campground
where we planned to come out, then drove back to the beginning of the
Burnt Mill Brook Trail, got our things together, and headed up, starting
at around 12:20.  We moved steadily but not too hurriedly, taking
several photos, enjoying nature, and recognizing things from the last
time.  The bugs (black flies and mosquitos) soon got bad, though, and
bothered us the rest of the way.  I took lots of photos in places I'd
remembered from the winter hike, and was pretty impressed at how much
snow there'd been then.  After two or so hours, we reached the col
between East and West Royce where we'd stopped and camped last time.  We
spent only a moment there before continuing, as the bugs were really
driving us crazy, particularly Sherry.  From there we headed to the
summit of West Royce, which was a short but steep and very narrow and
overgrown trail.  We stopped at the summit, which was treed but
partially open, and took in some of the views while having a snack and
sitting on some open rock.  We didn't stay long, soon continuing
southward along the rim of the basin to our east, a trail which John and
I had hiked in October of 2000 on a loop trip in the Evans Notch area.
It remained narrow and overgrown much of the way, and though the bugs
eased up now and then, they were always there, especially when we
stopped.  The footing wasn't great at times either, as the path was
little-used.  We moved along for a few miles, fairly tired and sick of
the bugs, but still enjoying many other aspects of nature around us.
One flower which we'd seen a number of on the first part of the hike
started to show up in ever larger cluster--the painted trillium.  I took
a number of pictures of them along the way.

Eventually we passed two lookouts to the east, down into the basin
itself.  We didn't stop for long, though we did have a brief chat at the
second lookout with a couple that was there--the first other hikers we'd
seen all day.  Just a moment later, we reached Rim Junction and took the
Black Angel Trail a few tenths of a mile to the Blue Brook Shelter,
arriving at about 17:00.  No one was around, and we found a tent
platform that we liked in a shady but open area among some larger trees,
and set up camp.  We set up our tent on the ground, as it was softer,
and before long got dinner going.  I'd forgotten foil for a pot cover,
so we tried out some birch bark but it was getting in our food so we did
without a cover.  We ate our meal of beans and rice inside the tent for
bug protection.  While eating we met a young couple that had arrived at
the shelter, and talked to them briefly.  They were a bit peculiar, but
friendly.  Later on I lent them my multi-tool so they could use the can
opener.  After eating we walked to Blue Brook and enjoyed the prettiness
of it, the water flowing over wide expanses of solid granite.  Returning
to the tent, talking briefly with our neighbors again at the shelter on
the way, we played a game of cribbage until there was no light left, had
a quick snack, and went to bed at maybe 21:30.

I slept pretty well, though woke a bunch of times.  There was a chipmunk
trying to get to our food, which was in the tent, and I scared him off a
few times by whacking the tent.  He seemed to have been running right
along the sides of the tent a couple of times.  Sherry didn't sleep much
for several hours, but finally did and so I was up earlier.  I got out
and walked around a bit and took some photos, at maybe 08:00.  She got
up and we made and ate oatmeal, then packed up and hit the trail at
09:40.  We headed straight on down the Basin Trail, following Blue Brook
past some attractive sections, and stopped to dunk our hats in the cool
water a couple of times to fight the heat, which was becoming more
intense.  The bugs were still bad, but getting thinner as we dropped in
altitude.  We passed a number of short-distance hikers along the way,
presumably from the Wild River Campground just down below.  We made it
out to the car around 11:30, and Sherry rode her bike the 3 miles down
the road to the car, then drove back to pick me up.  While waiting I
walked around a bit to see the campground and the nearby Wild River.
After Sherry picked me up, we stopped for a photo at the NH/Maine border
signpost along the dirt road, and then continued home, happy to have
gotten to see the Wild River Valley in the summertime.

2005-06-25--2005-06-27: Connecticut AT

Sherry and I drove down to New Milford, Connecticut the night before the
trip (and just hours after having closed on our house) and met with
Becky, Nancy, and Jim at a hotel.  The next morning we got up and the
ladies all started hiking together from the NY/CT border, where the AT
crosses Hoyt Road, at 08:30.  Jim and I dropped them off there, then
drove north to leave Sherry's car where Routes 7 and 112 intersect,
about a 45-minute drive north.  We returned almost to where we'd dropped
them off, but instead parked in a lot on Route 55, cutting off about 0.7
miles from the CT border.  We had a lot of catching up to do and every
bit would help.  We quickly got ourselves ready and were soon on the
trail, starting off at about 10:15.  We passed a pair of hikers that
were just starting out, and a couple of people videotaping them.  We
hiked at a quick pace, and chatted a bunch.  We made good time up and
over Ten Mile Hill, stopping once for a breather, but otherwise trying
hard to make up time.  As we went, Jim pointed out a number of bird
songs that he recognized, and I actually began to remember them!  On the
way down the hill, we found a note on a tree at a sharp and easily
missed switchback.  I spotted the note and suspected it was from the
women, as they'd said something about "leaving breadcrumbs".  It
indicated when they'd passed this point--over an hour ago--and helped
make sure we didn't miss the turn.

We continued on, soon passing two older gentlemen and then finding a
younger guy and his son at the river at the bottom of the hill.  It
seems they all had missed the switchback turn, and had gone quite a ways
out of their way.  As it turns out, most everyone else we talked to
along the way had also missed that turn.  We hiked briefly along the
river and took a stop at a shelter on a short spur trail that was next
to a beautiful big meadow.  It was awfully hot in the sun, though, so we
didn't stay long.  In fact, the weather was supposed to be incredibly
hot for the few days--in the mid-90s Fahrenheit--which was not something
we were going to enjoy.  The shade of the forest did provide
considerable respite from the beating sun, though.  Soon we crossed a
bridge over the river (Ten Mile River) and found another note on
it--suddenly we weren't too far behind.  We followed the trail along the
river, a new spring in our step since we realized we were close to
catching up.  We passed two guys hiking together who were talking loudly
and practically oblivious that we were there, but friendly enough.  We'd
see them repeatedly throughout the day.  A few other people went by in
the other direction, and told us we were close behind the others.  Not a
few minutes later, we reached them, waiting for us in a shady spot under
some pines along the trail.  We took a short break, chatted a bit, and
then hiked off together.



2005-07-02--2005-07-05: Hellgate Hilton

...


2005-08-12--2005-08-17: Glacier NP

Travis and I both arrived in Bozeman late Thursday evening, and got to
bed at Kevin's house around 01:15 in the morning.  After a meagre 2
hours of sleep, we got back up and started packing up the car.  I asked
about a glass of water that was left out on the counter "last night",
and we laughed at the fact that it was merely two hours ago.  We left
early because we wanted to get to the ranger station early since permits
are first come, first served.  Kev drove a while, then I did, speeding
along the dark, quiet highways northward.  Kev's car's shocks seemed to
be complaining about all the weight around the sharper turns, but
otherwise we had no troubles.  Actually, one deer in the headlights in
the middle of the road nearly caused a problem, but I swerved around it.
We watched for shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower, but only
saw a couple.  We saw a huge elk in the early dawn light passing through
one of the small towns--maybe Choteau--but otherwise there wasn't much
of interest along the way.  We finally got to the town of East Glacier
around 08:00 and drove past the train station that we'd return later.

We continued up and into the park at Two Medicine and found the ranger
station.  We couldn't get the exact route that we'd wanted to--others
had reserved some of our desired camp sites in advance (which you can do
if you pay, apparently), but we settled on a good route that was
basically the reverse of that one.  We talked to the rangers for quite a
while--they were much friendlier and more helpful than last year--and
watched a video about backcountry rules and information.  Then we went
back to the train station, got all of our stuff out and under the
(outdoor) shelter of the station roof, and started packing things
up--mostly the food.  It was raining steadily, though not heavily, and
was pretty cold out.  We finally got packed up were ready to go.  We had
decided to call to hire a shuttle to drive us up to our new starting
point--the parking area at Jackson Glacier Overlook--and it had arrived
and was ready for us.  We threw in our gear and the driver took us on
the hour-plus trip up to the starting point.  He was a nice guy, though
hard of hearing and I had a bit of trouble conversing with him at times.
He took our picture for us once we arrived, then I tipped him and we
started off down the trail at just after noon.

We hiked along the Gunsight Pass Trail, which started with a long
downhill stretch.  The trail was overgrown with weeds much of the way,
and the water they held soaked our legs.  At times we passed by nice
sections of the Saint Mary River and at least one of its tributaries,
and took photos of some sections where the bedrock had been carved out
into big bowls and narrow slots.  Kevin pointed out beargrass plants to
us, which were everywhere along the trail, often bent into peculiar
shapes.  Apparently they only flower once every seven years.  We
continued along the wooded trail towards Gunsight Lake, stopping for
breaks here and there and taking in limited views of the foggy mountains
surrounding us.  We spotted a big salamander with a bright yellow stripe
on the trail at one point, but otherwise so no wildlife, though I was
keeping a keen eye for moose in the swampy parts of river valley as we
passed them.

Eventually the trail rose up out of the valley more and more, and we
began to get some longer views out toward the Blackfoot Glacier, roughly
in the direction we'd be heading later on.  There were tons of
differently wildflowers and other interesting plants along the trail,
and I took many photos of them.  Gunsight Pass finally appeared in the
distance ahead of us, and as we approached it we passed a few hikers
going the other way--the first we'd seen since the very beginning.  The
terrain flattened out as we reach Gunsight Lake, which lies before the
pass, and we dropped our packs on the shore for a break and some snacks.
They rain had stopped a while ago and it seemed to be drying up a bit.
Trav broke out the new compact fishing pole he'd gotten and gave it a
try in the lake, where we'd seen some fish jumping.  Kev and I also
tried, but had no luck at all.  We were clearly amateurs!  At one point
the line got caught out in the water and I pulled up my pant legs and
wore Trav's new neoprene booties to go out and get it--the water was
surprisingly warmer than expected, considering the coolness of the air.
I retrieved the line and after a short while longer we continued on our
way, though not before shooing off a habituated deer that clearly wanted
our food.

We crossed a suspension bridge over the lake's outlet stream and made a
steep uphill climb on an old trail to the Jackson Glacier which
eventually dwindled out as we were traversing the low part of the
mountain.  We ambled over lumpy grassy meadows filled with streams and
soggy ground, eventually reaching a moraine described to us by a ranger.
We climbed up it and could see another moraine and the branching runs of
a water flowing down from the Jackson Glacier above.  We'd been told to
camp out of sight, preferably beyond the second moraine, but wanted to
take a look around between them first, partly to look for a good spot to
camp, and partly because it was very pretty.  The glacial runoff came
down to the grasslands over a wide expanse of bedrock, with broken
strata that were each 10 or 20 feet thick and various shades of yellow
and brown.  Boulders were littered here and there in the flat area
between the moraines, and we found one which was perfectly flat on top
and just big enough for a tent.  Climbing the boulder was a bit of a
challenge, but the location was unique and in a beautiful location (not
to mention out of sight from the trails), and after little debate we
settled on it.

We took a break, explored the area a bit, and then found another nearby
boulder, mostly flat on top, on which to make dinner.  We had a tasty
meal of fettucini Alfredo.  Though it drizzled a bit more, the skies did
seem to be clearing up, thankfully.  We set up the tent after dinner and
stowed the bear canister that had our meats and cheeses directly in the
cold water, carefully placed among rocks so as not to come loose and
float away.  Then we spent some time just relaxing before heading to bed
soon after darkness fell.

The next morning I got up early--around 06:00--probably because of the
time zone change.  It was COLD!  There was frost on the tent, and a fair
bit of ice in some of the slower moving water around us.  We had heard
there was snow during the night just before we arrived, too.  If it had
precipitated last night, it certainly wouldn't have been rain.  I
bundled up and wandered around a bit, noticing that the water level was
much lower than it had been yesterday, because the glacier melts more
slowly in the cool of night.  Then I hung out on the rock and watched
our three thermometers as they settled at just below freezing, and
waited patiently for the sun to come up.  It's warmth was a wonderful
thing when it finally came.  We made some breakfast, then reshuffled our
food.  The food that wouldn't fit in the bear canisters (which I think
we just kept in the tent with us last night, or maybe hung off the side
of the tent rock) was packed into a red stuff sack which we hung over
the side of a cliff between the rock strata as we started our way up
Jackson.  We'd decided to keep our camp in the same location for a
second night and make a day trip to attempt the summit.

The hike up the thick layered rocks from our camp toward the glacier was
beautiful, and Kev pointed out white hardened accumulations of powdered
rock in the cracks on the bedrock, which are known as glacial flour.
The first long stretch of the climb consisted of walking along a huge
slab that had occasional rivulets zipping down them, either
well-contained in cracks, or spread thin and wide across the slab; such
spots could be pretty slippery, and we were careful when we had to cross
them.  Overnight the sky had cleared up completely and it was becoming a
beautiful day.  Eventually the slab started breaking up, and we had to
climb up some of mini-cliffs formed by the the broken strata.  We soon
had good views of the Jackson Glacier itself, and started noticing
helicopters flying in, circling over the glacier, and then leaving
again.  We'd see a lot more of them before the trip was over, and they
didn't do much to enhance the wilderness experience.

We veered away from the glacier, though, to the right, looking for a
good route up Jackson.  Soon we reached the first of a few snow fields,
and Kevin suggested that we find a good pointy rock or two to hold as we
crossed the field, which can be used to self-arrest should you start to
slide down uncontrolled.  The first field was tame, though, and we
crossed it easily and reached a shoulder that led up to the main spine
of Jackson.  It look climbable from further back, but up close was
somewhat more formidable, starting out very steeply.  Kevin did a bit of
reconnaissance and determined it was too difficult, so we traversed
around to the west a bit, in the direction of Gunsight Pass, and found a
different route to the ridgeline.  On the traverse we crossed another
huge snow field, which I opted to hike below, Kevin went across, and
Travis went halfway across before having a fun (but controlled) slide
down on his rear end.  Beyond that was terrain which I'm coming to
loathe more and more each time I encounter it--steep scree.

For every two steps up we slid one step back, but luckily time was on
our side and we had very little to carry.  The loose rock and dirt
rarely yielded a good foothold, and the lack of decent places to stand
comfortably and rest tired my ankles out too, as they were always at a
sharp angle.  Kevin led the way most of the time, and we spaced
ourselves out just in case of rockfall.  Slowly we scraped and scratched
our way up, eventually pausing for a lunch break on a small but stable
little outcropping.  The views by this point were certainly outsanding,
and the temperature had warmed up significantly.  We munched on packaged
salmon and other goodies a while before finally resume the ascent.  We'd
been following a long, steep snow field on our left, but soon were above
it where the steepness let up a bit and we found some smaller, more
friendly snow fields.  We walked across and around them, sometimes in
the gaps between the snow and the occasional boulders abutting them on
the side where the heat of the rock kept the frozen monster at bay.
Another brief steep section across some larger rocks and we'd reached
the ridgeline.  From there it was a fairly level walk for a short while,
but a daunting sight was ahead.  There ridge took a sharp upturn and a
there was a section with a small cliff face which it was clear we'd have
to either hike above--but it looked awfully difficult to get to the top
side of it--or below, where the ridge sloped down too steeply for comfort.

So we took a third option.  It was almost 14:00 and we had expended
considerable effort to come this far.  We had fantastic weather, great
views, and a very nice spot to sit down and relax, so that's just what
we did.  I found a few different wildflowers that managed to grow in the
insufferable conditions at this altitude, and busied myself trying to
get some close-ups of them.  Directly below us, not far from the
glacier, was what appeared to be huge broken chunks of snow, as if
someone dropped a large snow field--dozens of feet thick--from 100 feet
off the ground and let it crack into pieces on the bedrock.  It was
surrounded by wide open bedrock, and looked out of place to me.  It
clearly wasn't a snow field, so perhaps it was the remnants of a
glacier--possibly even the Jackson Glacier.  As we would discover
tomorrow, the glaciers in the area had been shrinking considerably,
especially when compared to how they were indicated on our quad maps.

In the other direction we could see over Gunsight Pass and almost down
to the lake too; the cliffs on the far side revealed amazing purplish,
curving strata.  In the distance, roughly east (in the direction we'd be
hiking tomorrow) I spotted one wide mountain that really was purple,
which I guess was an example of what inspired some of the lyrics in
America the Beautiful.

After hanging out a while in this amazing spot on an amazing day, we
started to head back down the way we came.  We recrossed the smaller
snow fields, and this time Trav and I were a little more daring, walking
and boot-skiing down them, whereas we'd walked around them more on the
way up.  Kevin's a lot more comfortable on them, and he seems to go out
of his way to cross them whenever he can!  On one of them we saw what
almost certainly had to be butt-slide marks from previous hikers, who
knows how recently.  Shortrly after getting below that snowfield I
realized I'd left my hiking poles behind, so Trav and Kev sat down and
waited for me while I reluctantly hiked back up.  Luckily we hadn't come
down far, and I felt energetic enough to keep a good pace going back up.
My poles were right on the ridge where we'd been, and a snatched them
and was back down with them in a jiffy.  From there we moved back onto
the steep scree slope, which, as always, is much less annoying in the
downhill directly.  We scree-skied a lot, taking care not to stay in
each others' lines because of the rocks that we were loosing on the way.
I remember that there were enough fixed rocks interspersed with the
loose ones to make the sliding a bit hairy, unlike past ones we've done
which can be a real blast.

We were back alongside the long, steep snow field before we knew it, and
as usual, Kevin couldn't stay away.  He walked out onto it and was
testing it out to see if he could boot-ski down it.  He looked pretty
stable, but the slope still made me nervous.  Travis was over near the
snow but not on it.  I was still a ways above them, but coming down
quickly.  As I was sliding down some scree, I skipped onto a pretty
large rock, weighting at least a few hundred pounds I'd say, that
started to roll out from under my feet.  I knew right away it was going
down, and I jumped off and screamed "ROOOOOOOCCCKKK!!!!" pretty loudly.
We'd been yelling "rock" regularly on the way up and a bit on the way
down, and though we always take it seriously, usually it's just a
precaution.  But this time it was serious, and Travis and Kevin could
tell immediately by the tone and volume of my voice.  They were well off
to the side, though still far enough below me that if the boulder had
bounced to the side a few times instead of going straight down, there
was an outside chance it could find them.  Right away they jumped
further to the side and took a few more steps as they looked up at me
and the boulder started to pick up speed below me.  They realized after
just a few seconds that they were safe, and at that point we just
watched in awe as the geological hunk bounded faster and faster,
eventually smashing into smaller deadly projectiles which continued to
rocket down the slide, eventually out of view.  Our pulses quickened, we
looked at each other and shared a laugh.

Continuing on, Kevin did some great boot-skiing down the snow, and Trav
and I continued via the scree route.  I went ahead a ways and took some
cool photos of Kevin coming down the snow.  Not long after that snow
field ended, we traversed slightly over to the high end of the next snow
field, which was as wide as the last one was high.  Instead of hiking
below this one as I had on the way up, I went out onto it, as did Travis
and Kevin, and we each slid down on our backsides, with a rock or two as
our emergency stop mechanisms.  Before beginning our slides, we noticed
another hiker down near the bottom.

The ride was great, and we went over a little hump or two and made sure
to wind our way around a rock or two that were sticking up through the
snow.  Once at the bottom we chatted with a woman who was apparently
backpacking by herself.  She was very friendly and confessed to be doing
some stealth camping (without a permite).  She was hiking with another
group and was going to meet up with them again, but for now she had
decided to make a day trip (tomorrow) to attempt Mt. Jackson.  We reste
and chatted for a bit, and shared as much info as we could about the
ascent (curse the scree!).  She mentioned that there was another group
of hikers in the direction we were heading (they were going up to the
glacier), and that they'd watched Kevin coming down the steep snow field
and thought for a minute that he was actually skiing!  It's kinda cool
that they saw us from so far down below.  Soon we wished her good luck
and headed off, skirting back along below the snow field the way we'd
come.

As we neared the draw below the Jackson Glacier again, we debated hiking
in closer to the lower part of the glacier itself, but in the end we
decided it was unlikely that we'd be able to get very close due to the
difficulty of the terrain.  As we continued toward the runoff, we passed
some gear that had been dropped by some hikers (probably the ones we'd
heard about) who were heading up toward the upper, flatter part of the
glacier.  We saw them up above us, then kept moving on back toward our
camp, angling more and more downhill after this section of horizontal
traversal.  Going back down along the runoff was fun, and soon we
crossed over to the far side of the flow, for a change of pace.  Getting
across was a little tricky, with a few wide spots where we had to leap,
but there were no major challenges.  As we got further and further down,
we passed some violent sections of whitewater shooting up into the air
just alongside our route.  On the high side, to our right, we passed a
snow field or two whose bottoms had melted up and away from the rocks in
some places, leaving huge gaps and caves underneath them.  In some
places our route was narrow, with water on one side and rock wall on the
other, which made it all the more fun.  Soon enough, though, we were
back down to the bottom and at camp once again.

The sun was still bright and the temperatures comfortable.  I had very
pruny feet, though I don't remember getting very wet during the hike.
It was approaching dinner time so we soon got to work on fixings for
sauteed peppers, onions, and sausage.  Mmmm!  After eating and cleaning
up we sat around a bit, but soon the sun got behind the surrounding
mountains and we got cool quickly.  We prepared for sleep and not long
after it was dark outside, it was lights out for us.






2005-09-24: Sandwich

Sherry and I met up with Keith and Jelena on Route 118 and drove
together to the trailhead for Sandwich Mountain on Route 49.

...


2005-10-29:  California Peak (almost)

Jon and I got up at our camp site in the San Isabel National Forest in
Colorado around 07:00 and spent quite a while getting our gear together,
getting water, and eating, before we finally set off around 08:45.
There was a fresh dusting of snow on the otherwise bare ground.  We
walked a short distance down the dirt road to the head of the Zapata
Trail, then started up.  We climbed slowly up the sometimes wet trail,
reaching some pretty hanging meadows, with the ridgeline visible above
us, the higher part of it still engulfed in clouds.  The meadows had
fences around them, but the trail went through a space in the fence and
traversed parallel to the ridge a while before resuming switchbacking up
toward i.  We took a break for a snack shortly before reaching the
ridge.  We did so among some trees to block the wind that was starting
to pick up.  We soon reached the ridge, and more snow than what was
fresh today.  I spotted a large animal a little ways along the ridge
(Jet may have spotted it first), and we think it was a big-horned sheep,
but were not totally sure.  We looked around a bit in the saddle where
we reached the ridge, got used to the high winds, and then started
uphill along the ridge.

It was a tiring climb at first, but later leveled out a bit more.  I
worried about Jet now and then, as he was getting close to the edge,
which had some small cornices.  I took a bunch of pictures, and we
trudged slowly up, avoiding the patches of deeper snow.  Most of it was
so wind-blown that it was not deep enough to be a hindrance to us.  We
both were hoping that the clouds would blow through and the skies would
clear up.  Now and then it opened up briefly and we got some restricted
views--which were quite good nonetheless--but it never opened up
completely.  We reached a point where visibility became minimal, and we
may have been at a high point around 13400', or perhaps shortly before
that point.  We found a cairn, got a few photos, and then turned back,
abandoning our original goal of summitting California Peak.  Jet, who we
worried might be cold, seemed to be doing great, except when we stopped,
at which points he would cry.  We proceeded downhill rapidly, and
although the last stretch of the ridge back down to the saddle seemed
longer, overall we got down very quickly.  We kept going down off the
ridge, but soon stopped among some trees again to take a more formal
lunch break.  We ate cheese, crackers, kielbasa, and other snacks, and
filled ourselves up.

We eventually continued on down, stopping again only just before the
meadows where there were still some good views of the valley and the
mountains at the end of the valley.  The skies above were clearing up,
and we wished it had happened earlier in the day.  We went through the
meadow again, and on down from there.  All of the fresh snow from last
night had completely melted.  We were back out to the trailhead in no
time it seemed, concluding our hike.  We were a bit disappointed not to
have made the summit, but I enjoyed the excitement of the ridge walk
anyhow.