Category: Hiking

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Walking, A Lot of Walking

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David and I are planning to walk across England this summer with a group of friends.  We’ll be doing Wainwright’s Walk,  a coast to coast, 192 mile path in Northern England.  To get ready for two weeks of walking between 10 and 25 miles a day, David and I have started training by doing long walks, so far walks that we can start out our door.

Yesterday we walked up roads to the top of Blake’s Hill, a rise to the south of our house.  From there we took a five-mile hiking trail created by the Northwood Area Land Management Collaborative, or NALMC, a local organization “working together across our stone walls.”  NALMC was created in part through inspiration from Aldo Leopold, a pioneer in the conservation movement and a proponent of a  “land ethic,” a holistic consideration of our actions as humans on the entire system of the environment, not just the land itself but all the animals and plants connected to it.

Getting ready for the walk, I pulled out an article I’d saved from the local free paper that announced the opening of the trail, along with a map.  It was dated July, 2008.  I’ve been waiting a long time to hike this trail.

I wasn’t disappointed.  The trail crosses beautiful open fields of Harmony Hill Farm then crosses into Northwood Meadows State Park.  The open fields rise up and down, then the trail passes through pines and hardwoods, loops around Betty Meadow Pond to the main road of the State Park, then finishes on old Mountain Road, crossing over a stream that flows out of the head waters of the Lamprey River.

When we got back to our house we had logged almost 10 miles.  I was happy to sit in the sun on the porch and enjoy a beer, getting ready for this same sequence three months from now in England.

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Holiday Hiking

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What a quirky collection of beings we were, 10 humans and 5 dogs, coming down from the summit of the south mountain in Pawtuckaway State Park.  We had started with 7 dogs, but 2 immediately ran into the woods at the beginning of the hike and “won’t be back until tonight,” Mark said.

David, Sam and I had planned to hike Pawtuckaway with Will and his family the Friday before Christmas, but the boys ended up playing basketball all morning, followed by lunch at Johnson’s where Sam and Mike (also home in Northwood visiting for the holidays) worked for years, then decided to forego the hike and play disc golf instead.  But yesterday we did get the hike in.  Marianna had arrived from Knoxville the night before, and Will lives with Sam and Marianna in Knoxville, so it was also a chance for all of us to see the house where Will grew up.

We drove a long dirt road in from Rte. 107, past various trail heads in the State Park, all the way to the end, in front of Will’s family’s garage.  Hordes of dogs bounced around our car.  Will’s mother was just back from a ride on one of the 10 horses (4 hers, the others boarders) and needed to change to come with us.  Will’s sister was wearing her new boots, and was ready to hike.  Her recent move home, awaiting the next step in her veterinary career, increased the already large number of dogs living there to 9.  Mark, Will’s mother’s boyfriend, accounted for the cleared acres bounded by stone walls, a serious excavation playground for a serious machine man.  Sam says the land looks nothing like it did when he and Will were in high school together.

The top of Pawtuckaway has a fire tower, and from the top I was able to easily pick out the other small mountains we hike in this area — Nottingham, Parker, Fort, Saddleback.  The humans took turns going up the fire tower, so there would be a group at the bottom to keep the dogs from trying to climb the steep, open steps.  On our way down from the ledgy summit, we ran into Frank and his girlfriend, who had arrived late for the hike.  They’d driven part way up one of the roads, Frank got out to get his boots out of the trunk, realized they weren’t there, and hiked in his slippers.

Ten people, 5 dogs, one pair of slippers.  It was a lovely afternoon outing.

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Moon Camp Fire

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It started in September.  A group of us went for a full moon kayak on Pleasant Lake.  Then in November Anne, Alison and I hiked up Neville Peak in Epsom during the full moon.  While we sat at the top, the moon in and out of racing clouds, Anne had the idea of planning an outdoor adventure for every full moon.

Yesterday eight of us gathered in the late afternoon and hiked up Parker Mt. in Strafford.  Last weekend David and I had done the short hike to the summit, then across the ledgy ridge to the cliffs that overlook Bow Lake.  On our way back, we saw two young men starting a fire in a stone fire ring right off the trail.  “Perfect full moon hike gathering spot,” I said.

We brought wood and paper and matches with us, as well as snacks and tea and wine.  Soon a camp fire was crackling and we watched the moon coming up behind the trees.  When the moon rose high enough to clear the trees, standing out on the open ledges was like standing in a shower of silver.  We stood around the fire and welcomed the light, marking the coming solstice with talk of change, wishes, intentions and the fun of being in just that place, with a group of other like-minded people, the moon bathing us in luminescence.

We needed our headlamps to follow the twisty trail back, when our cold feet started to take over our delight in being outdoors.  At the open summit of Parker we paused, turned off our headlamps, and looked at the lights of Portsmouth on the horizon, the sprinkling of street lamps in the small village below the ridge, and the big circle of open moon now high above us.

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Presidential

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The Presidential Ridge of the White Mountains is as spectacular as its name implies.  Encompassing 11 peaks (including the highest in the Northeast — Mt. Washington) and 23 miles, the ridge for the most part is above tree line, wide and open, with the rest of the White Mountain ridges falling off in folds along the horizons on every side.  Many NH hikers at some point do a Presidential Traverse, with most, like me, doing it in sections.  I did it in 1998 with Adrienne, Alison and Anne, staying at two of the Appalachian Mountain Club huts, and covering 9 of the peaks, in three days.  It was so much work for my body, no matter how much I ate for two days afterwards I was still hungry.  Then there are those who do a Presidential Traverse in a single day, usually around the summer solstice so they have maximum light, even still having to start and finish in the dark.  I can’t even imagine doing it.

A much easier way to experience the Presidential Ridge is to do a day hike to one of the peaks.  Yesterday David, Betsy and I climbed Edmand’s Path, a remarkably even-footed and easily ascended trail, to Eisenhower.  For a November day it was amazingly still and warm.  Having been to Lake Willoughby earlier this summer, for the first time I could look to the northwest horizon and recognize the notch of Willoughby, and the higher Green Mountains beyond.  The close view was equally beautiful, with a small scrubby bush having turned purple in the cold weather and creating a carpet of color on the open ridge.  The day was a treat we gave ourselves.

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Yes and No

David and I hiked to Flat Mountain Pond on Sunday, with Betsy and Cathy.  It was a lovely hike, to a long, remote pond in the White Mountains, made more delightful by the chance to spend time with our friends — they enjoy being active and outdoors, like we do, and they are also among the most intentional people we know.  They pay close attention to how they spend their time, where they’re putting their energy, how they’re living their lives, and make sure all of that is lining up with what they really want.  As a couple who “dropped out” for a year and traveled across the country, they were among my most enthusiastically supportive friends when I told them, over a year ago, that I was going to be leaving my job at the Coalition.  They thoroughly supported my willingness to try a new life.

Given how hectic our summer and fall has been, this was the first chance we’ve had to hike with Cathy and Betsy for over a year.  I was eager to talk with them about my ever-shifting ideas about how to best use my time, how to balance acceptance of consulting jobs I’m being offered with my desire to write, how to structure my days, how to figure out what exactly I’m doing.   It’s not that I expected them to have answers, but I knew they would understand the questions.

And coincidentally, I had just gotten an offer from Cathy’s sister Anne, who I know well from her work on violence against women at the national level, to represent her organization at a U.S. – Russia Civil Society Partnership Program meeting in Moscow in three weeks, taking part in the gender equity workgroup.  I’ve been to Russia twice to do training on domestic violence, and have planned programs for two delegations of Russians visiting New Hampshire, so I was an easy choice for Anne to approach, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get away and accept the invitation to participate herself.

But do I want to go to Russia in three weeks?  Do I want to get involved in what might be an ongoing project?  How much exactly do I want to work, and stay engaged in the movement to end violence against women?  Do I have the energy to spare that a quick trip to Russia will use up?  Do I really want to do this, or do I just not know how to say no?

“Work begets work,” was one piece of advice Betsy gave me.  And she also said she always asks herself, when considering whether to take on work for her own consulting business, “Is this going to help me get where I want to go?”  This was all bouncing around in my head on Sunday night when I went to hear Kay Ryan read her poetry in Concord.  In talking about coming to know that she wanted to be a poet, she said it came down to asking herself, “Do I like it?”

The short story in all this is that I said yes, and will be going to Russia in a few weeks. The longer story is that David and I are both deeply involved in helping each other sort out what exactly we want to be doing with our lives, now that the huge structure of demanding jobs isn’t dictating the basic work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, laundry, grocery shop, sleep, work, eat, sleep over and over again schedule.  What we’ve come to affirm is that we’re in a mode of figuring it out.  Saying yes to something for this year doesn’t mean I would say yes to the same thing next year.  Or I may be out there looking for more opportunities like this, rather than waiting for them to come my way. Is this taking me where I want to go.  Do I like this?

There is no Grace and David Four Months Into Having Left Their Jobs Rule Book.  We’re making it up as we go along, paying attention, keeping track, staying present, asking the right questions.  And having fun, like in the photo above.  That was part of Sunday too.

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David Has A Blog

Today’s news — David has a blog.  Check it out: oldmanbadback.  Be sure to read The Number 4160 in the grey menu bar.  Otherwise he has two reviews of hiking packs he’s recently tried, and much more to come on staying outdoors, fit and active in the face of aging.  Adorable photo of him too.  Lucky me!

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The Northeast Kingdom

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We just spent two days in the Northeast Kingdom, and while I bristle at male gender references to almost anything, it is beautiful country.  The term is used to describe the northeastern corner of Vermont, and is reported to have first been used by George Aiken, a former Governor of Vermont and a U.S. Senator, during a 1949 speech.  Not surprising, that the term “kingdom” came from a man, but it is a gloriously scenic area, and I was there visiting one of my most brilliantly feminist friends — by that I mean her gender analysis is spot on and constant, underlying her fundamental views of how the world operates, which is probably why I was thinking about the “kingdom” thing in the first place.  But what do you call the land a queen owns and governs?  A queendom?

Beyond all that, we had a grand time.  We arrived on a sunny and warm October afternoon and enjoyed the view of Lake Willoughby from the camp porch, Jay Peak in the distance.  We ended up spending much of the afternoon sitting on the dock, late season sun warming our faces and backs, snacking, talking, listening to the water slap the rocks. David and I even went for a swim, though the water was so cold I could hardly breathe.

Yesterday morning, while Carol and Steve did camp close-up errands, David and I went to hike Wheeler Mt.  Within a few minutes of starting the hike, we were climbing slabs of granite that form the western cliff face of the mountain.  The foliage was stunning, with hillsides of yellow and orange rolling off into the folds of mountains around us.  It was so glorious and exhilarating, I knew I needed to hike more.  So after going back to the camp and helping Steve and Carol with more closing-down-camp chores, including completing the item on the list “Finish drinking all beverages and eating all the food,” we left to hike Mt. Pisgah.

Pisgah forms the eastern wall of the notch that Lake Willoughby slices through.  From its ridge the views of the lake, a long rectangle of wind streaked water directly below, and the Green Mountains in the distance, were remarkable.  We’d timed the hike so we’d get out of the woods right at dark, not having to worry about being any where by any time in particular.  Afternoons like yesterday are when the reality of having left our jobs is most striking.  Want to hike more?  Okay, let’s do it.

As we walked back to the car, the low sun lit the yellow leaves of the hardwoods at the base of the ridge into a canopy of autumn glow.  Just before the road, we crossed a boardwalk over a beaver bog, and the nearly full moon was rising in the east.  A beaver swam back and forth across the small pond, and twice came to watch us watch him.   We looked out over the silvered tree stumps standing in the still water once more, then got in the car and drove home, the big moon riding with us, feathering the dark ridges with a ghost haze, easing us back into a week that isn’t full of work.  Yes, we are blessed.

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Frost, Snow, River, Mountains

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We just got home after hiking to the summit of North Twin Mountain today.  The trees on the horizon are black against the last light in the sky, the sun long gone below the horizon.  And it’s only 7:33.  More darkness coming.

But it was glorious in the mountains today.  The Little River was running hard and clear over its bed of boulders, a color without color, the cleanest sheen of light green imaginable.  I’ve written about this river before (poem below), the last time I hiked North Twin, when I was bagging the 4,000 footers.  Today two of our friends on the hike bagged the peak for the first time.  Once you finish your own list, there are always friends to accompany as they work on theirs.

The views were perfect — the full Presidential Range strung out from a ledge on the northeast side of the ridge, then the Franconia Ridge stretching south from our lunch spot on the western facing ledge.  But the close views were beautiful too.

Last night was the first frost of the season, and once we got above 4,000 feet, we saw our first snow.  Clumps of ice were falling out of the spruce trees and collecting in heaps of white on the green moss, already speckled with snow.   But the sun was warm on the ledge, and on us, as we ate, and talked, trees across from us still holding glints of ice.

The Little River

There must be a story to a river
so wrongly named, so wildly big
in its crash of water and rock falling

from a fold of mountains, tricky
with its slick stones and ice needles thrust
over shallows like webs. We cross as if

stepping on the chest of a sleeping beast.
We find an old campsite, logs circling
a cold fire ring beside a green pool.

We listen as we make up stories, listen
to the confluence of gravity and water, wonder
how big is cruel enough not to be little.

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We Did It!

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Last October I wrote about our unsuccessful attempt to summit Mt. Katahdin.  As difficult and tiring as it was, David and I both loved the expansive views of the tablelands on the Katahdin ridge, the deliberately undeveloped and unspoiled wildness of Baxter State Park, and the idea that this year we would have time to fit in a trip to hike Baxter Peak, the highest point of Katahdin, almost any time, given our plans to leave our jobs.

After the summer we’ve had, any plan we make, like the three days we just had at Baxter State Park, that we’re able to keep, is a gift.  Tropical storm Irene whipped the bad weather out of the Northeast over the weekend, and we had clear, dry skies (except for a bit of rain which woke us up pinging the top of the tent Tuesday night) for our trip.

We set off Wednesday morning to climb Baxter Peak by the Chimney Pond and Saddle trails, reportedly the easiest way to get to the top.  As we drove  north, I talked with a friend who hiked Katahdin in July, and she assured me that once we got up to Baxter Peak via the Saddle Trail, we’d want to do the Knife Edge, the trail over a serrated ridge of Katahdin with steep pitches of rock and cliff off to each side.  Anyone who hikes Katahdin talks about the Knife Edge, as it presents the most exposed alpine hiking in the east.  As we made our we up the tough scramble of the Saddle slide, I couldn’t imagine a need to do any tougher hike.

And then we made it to the top.  Katahdin is a tough mountain to climb, but it’s glorious, and just getting to the top was glory enough for me.  Looking at the Knife Edge made me dizzy.  There were a number of hikers at the peak who had arrived around the same time as us, who were heading on to take the Knife Edge as part of their route down.  “I can’t imagine looking at that and wanting to hike it,” I said to one couple.  The young woman said back, “I can’t imaging looking at that and not wanting to hike it.”

The hike down, even on the Saddle and Chimney Pond trails, was plenty hard enough for us.  Eleven miles, eleven hours of scrambling up and over boulders, stepping around roots and rocks, and navigating a gnarly, uneven trail.  On the long hike out the Chimney Pond trail, I started counting my steps, just to keep myself moving and keep my mind occupied with something other than a focus on how much my feet hurt.  It was 1,500 steps from when I started counting until I finally came to a trail junction a tenth of a mile from the campground.

Yesterday morning, in the campground, we talked to two people who got back to their tent sites after 10:00 p.m. One man had done the Knife Edge with his daughter and it took them over 15 hours to finish their hike.  As I said to another group of hikers on Baxter Peak, “Getting to the summit of Katahdin was on my bucket list.  Doing the Knife Edge isn’t.”

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Vacito

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David and I have been home for five days now, and have actually been having fun.  My sister and brother-in-law came for dinner on Friday night, we climbed Mt. Garfield yesterday (which remained in a cloud for the entire time we were on the summit, but it didn’t matter, we were off in the forest with good friends, the first date we’ve been able to keep since June) and then we came back to a dinner party with close friends, eating a wonderful array of fresh vegetables from Alison’s garden.  I’ve had time to take photos of the flowers around the house, and today we’re headed to an afternoon and overnight on Squam Lake, with a friend I recently reconnected with after years of not seeing each other.

David was reviewing a document from his parents’ lawyer this morning, outlining the duties of an estate executor, and he just declared, “I am done with estate duties and am declaring myself available for a vacito.”  Vacito = mini-vacation.  Good idea.