It was a whirlwind July 4th weekend: driving to Massachusetts then up to New Hampshire, walking around in the forest for three days with as much as I could carry, then straight home again. I see no reason why this post should be any different. I just spent two hours getting the photo album together. I’m late for my trip to Brooklyn right now, one more reason to go with my original idea of making this a staccato entry. Short and sweet, coming right up.
On the road to Boston by 1:30p. Tappan Zee Bridge by 4:35p, Danbury traffic at 5:14p, through Hartford by 6:20p. Blow by cop on I-84 doing 90mph at first, slow down, then follow him for 15 miles doing 85mph. Cross the Mass. Pike from 7-7:40p to place me in Cambridge for dinner. Traffic and speeding cancel out to make an average-length trip, very disappointing.
Spend the night at Steve and Gosia’s, head out in the morning early to make mountains by 10a. Platypus water bag ripped, dick around in small town finding replacement and other supplies, then trailhead. Buy our parking pass for overcrowded lot (not a good sign for trails), gear up and head out. Starting elevation = 1,000 feet. [Cue photos.]
Bridge over river, Steve reads sign wrong and now we’re heading towards Appalachian Trail with a gazillion other people, devise alternate route halfway up first hill, no real problem. Stranger almost tags along. Hill so steep that wooden stairs are built into trail. Mt. Flume: 4,328 feet. I don’t realize worse hills are yet to come. Lunch. Stop for lots of air, water, and pictures while Steve and Alex walk ahead. Mt. Liberty: 4,459 feet. Reach first tent site just as knee starts to hurt; lots of people but at least there’s water. $8/night/person sucks, camp operator Gaya takes our address as we’ve no cash on us. Play Uno, dine, and hit the sack early (I don’t care for sunsets or I’d join the other two on Mt. Liberty before retiring). Alex is Lucky Pierre for the first night.
Hikers wake us with their 3:30a arrival at our platform. Very odd.
Next morning my knee feels only slightly better. Talk to a few people but only reliable information comes from bona fide trail guides. Hike across Little Haystack (4,780 ft.) and Mt. Lincoln (5,089 ft.) to reach Mt. Lafayette (5,260 ft.) for lunch. Tons of people but enough laugh at my “They’re mating!” plane joke to make it tolerable. Steve and Alex wish people wouldn’t encourage me. Steep, rocky ridge kills my knee but I make it down — across a valley with a small, hidden pond — then up and over Mt. Garfield (4,500 ft.) in time for dusk at the second tent site. Same deal as before, except Steve’s Lucky Pierre tonight. Water fill-ups, drying sweaty clothing on the platform in the sun, trips to the compost outhouse. Find $51 in the pocket of my warmup pants. We watch the shadows climb the mountain behind us and share a cigar, then play Degradation War with a racy deck of playing cards I’m occasionally embarrassed to own. Hikers arrive at nearby platform an hour after sunset. Sleep.
Early morning screams from neighboring platform. Orgasm? Bugs? Very odd.
Head down last mountainside, the worst climbing finally behind us. Going slow with agonizing pain in my knee, so I fall slightly behind. At least the throngs of people have thinned. Different terrain now: gentle railroad grades, bogs, rivers. Lunch at Thirteen Falls, dinner and camping farther along the way near another river. Finally no tent site, meaning campfire, marshmallows, cigars, and a few nips of vodka. My turn in the middle of the tent.
Last day; first half of easy, six-mile walk made horrible by excess of mosquitoes. Cross rivers and streams at breakneck speeds, finally slow down towards main trail. Pass plenty of people again on their way to swim somewhere in the hills. Reach car, eat lunch at Mr. W’s, drop off passengers in Mass. and shower, and race back to Conshohocken.
So there you have it. I personally love to look at the time stamps in the photo gallery and marvel at how fast/slow it took us to traverse the various terrain. Makes taking so many pictures all the more worthwhile. And since they pretty much say it all for me, I don’t feel so badly about skimping on the exposition. It was our first camping trip ever with absolutely no rain, and temperatures were borderline chilly which I found heavenly. It felt great to get up north again after a two-year hiatus during which we camped in the equally attractive Monongahela National Forest and the completely subpar Delaware Valley Water Gap. Viva la Whites.
