Spring Vacation Part 3, Trip, Day 1

We were soaked after a tough day of hiking. Disappointment hung over us as we crouched miserably under our tarp. The day had beaten us like a housewife beats her rugs. Our legs were tired and our moral was low. We had covered a fraction of our goal and were pooped.

We woke up to our alarms at 4:14 AM. Although still tired, we were excited to go. We were about to set off in winter to backpack in the Adirondacks! We got dressed, ate breakfast, grabbed the cheese from the fridge, pooped in a toilet one last time and hit the road. The plan was to leave my pickup at one trailhead and have Mom drop us off several miles down the road. This would eliminate the need to backtrack and give us a sense of direction and movement.

After dropping off my pickup, we arrived at the trailhead at about 8:00AM. Surprisingly, unlike most of the other pull off points along this road, the trailhead parking spot was not plowed. This was not too bad though, as Mom was only dropping us off, but it did suggest that we would be breaking trail.

Register at the trail head, Usually we can stand and use these

The temperature was warm, but it was drizzling slightly. We said goodbye to Mom and started donning our snowshoes. This was the first time that Nate or Raf had used snowshoes so they were just learning how they felt on their feet. They were about to get crash course in the toughest snowshoe conditions I have ever experienced.

Charlotte, being carried by Nate

After locating the trail, we confirmed that it would be unbroken. On Monday, it had snowed several feet of fresh powder. Now however, the snow was a mushy, icy slush. Breaking an untracked trail is mentally and physically tormenting. Since the leader of the pack has to do most of the work, we decided to switch off every 200 paces or so (although someone took it super literally at first, Raf). Breaking trail is tough for a number of reasons. The first is that it is sometimes hard to tell where the trail goes. Once we lost the trail for about 15 minutes as we were skirting around Round Pond. The major reason why it is so tough, though, is the dead drag on the snowshoes. Whenever we put our snowshoes down; heavy, wet, sticky snow would fall on top of the snowshoe deck. When we picked our feet up we would also lift the several pounds weight. Needless to say, our hip flexors were having the workout of their lives. The third and final reason why it was tough was the time and effort it took to transfer weight from one shoe to the other. When walking down a sidewalk, we put our feet down and they stay there as we put our weight on it. When snowshoeing in these conditions, after putting our feet down, we would have to push it through the snow another six inches to a foot to get a solid grip. This added a leg press to each step that we wouldn’t normally have to deal with.

In spite of the trail breaking and slow time, we were in high spirits. Even though it was drizzling and barely 40 degrees, I was soon in a t-shirt, although after an hour, when we had settled into a slower pace, I put on a long sleeve shirt again. The trail was grueling. Our legs were aching. We had gone two miles and it was time for lunch, so we ate.

This is the Trail marker

We are pressing on, not thinking, but listening. Listening to what? The wind? Yes, it must be the wind. But why has it been getting louder? It sounds more like water… it is water. There is a stream in the path. No, not a stream, but flowing slush, or rather water flowing through slush. Not only is it over 20 feet wide, but the slush is four feet deep. No way are we going to get across this here.

This is the Trail

The rain and warm temperatures had conspired against us, causing this stream to grow to its gargantuan size. We dropped packs and went scouting up stream. Fortunately, there was a deadfall across a skinnier section of the stream. We retrieved our packs and set up a bucket brigade for the packs, the person on one bank handed them to the person on the deadfall, who then passed it to the person on the other bank. We were passed the stream!!!

Bucket/Pack Brigade

After another little while we crossed another stream. This one had a solid snow bridge that the water went under for about forty feet. However, the next brook we need to cross was what defeated us. Scouting up stream only revealed ever steepening banks with only two possible and very precarious cross over points, and downstream a spreading swamp. We joked about using our p-cord and ice axes as grappling hooks to make swings from the trees. Instead, we turned around.

Crossing back over second time

This decision was actually quite fortunate. The snow bridge that we had crossed over less than an hour before, had shrunk from its previous size, to a mere 10 feet or so across. Quite relieved at getting back in time, we quickly crossed over and continued backtracking. If we hadn’t been able to cross over safely, on either that snow bridge, or a deadfall, we would have had to camp there and wait for it to refreeze over night or bushwhack up high enough to where it was small enough to cross. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do either of those options.

We crossed back over our first stream and made decent time back to where we had eaten lunch. The itinerary was for us to have continued on the track we had started down, set up camp in the lean-to there, and climb Dix Mt. Tomorrow, we would have backtracked to where we were now and hike through the pass between Noonmark and Round Mountain. However, we were here today. It was 3:00PM, we had gone five miles and we were tired. We decided to walk up the path about as far as we could and make camp. We made it pretty far. It was probably about 150 yds before we found the first promising camp sight.

Packing our camping area

We dropped packs, and stomped around, packing down the snow. We set up the tarp to cook under and erected our tents. As soon as we were ready we made our dinner of spaghetti and zucchini. It was quite delicious and boosted our spirits as we crouched under the tarp, slurping away. After we finished dinner, we crawled into our sleeping bags and waited for Raf.

Waiting for dinner and hot water

One of the many ongoing jokes at are always the fruits of such trips was the amount of time Raf takes to get ready. He is the one to look to when one wants to gage how prepared the group is to; move, eat, or sleep. If he is ready, the rest of us are ready. He isn’t lazy or careless, but just the opposite; he is precise and careful. It also didn’t help that he had two sleeping bags to line up. The reason we had to wait for him, was that we were reading Life of Pi out loud to each other. We decided it would be a cool idea to use our camp time to read a good and interesting book.

After reading one chapter though, we decided that it we were too tired, turned out the lights and fell into a delighted sleep. It was 6:30PM.

I woke up again sometime around 11:00PM. I thought I heard something walking around but I knew that couldn’t be. A little while later I was almost sure I heard sometime like a crinkling plastic bag. I whistled a loud clear pitch. Nothing. I put my boots and gaiters on and went to investigate. Sure enough, there was something out there that scampered away. It was too light to leave footprints in the now frozen surface of the snow. However, I found our bag of wheat thins on the other side of the tarp. I knew this was not the wind since it had been moved ten feet and a couple of the wheat thins were scattered about on the snow.

We had known that bears would still be hibernating, but we had not figured in the smaller varmints who were active all winter long. I picked up the wheat thins and put the one that were on the snow in the garbage. I collected the rest of the food and put it in my pack, hoping that I had scared the animal away for the night. I relieved myself and stuck a stake from Nate and Raf’s tent that had come out of the snow back in. I guess I scared Nate, but after telling him what was up, I returned to my sleeping bag, and snuggled in, warm and cozy for a good night sleep. 

Again, all photos courtesy of Nate Mori

Spring Break, Part 2, Prep

So now that I took my psych test, I have some time to continue working on this project. It is going to take a while, but it will be finished.

So when we got to my house on Wednesday, we at a little food, toured the house and went to bed. It was getting onto 3:00AM. Since we needed to get a lot of things done the next day, we were up again by 7:30. The first order of business was to prepare food. I have a food dehydrator, so we sliced up a bunch of bananas and started to dehydrate them. As soon as we did that and ate breakfast, we went shopping.

Getting Ready for Shopping trip

The first place we went to was the hardware store. We had a dual objective there. The first was to purchase some parts for a steady cam rig that Nate made out of his trekking pole. This took a while since both Nate and Raf had slightly different ideas about how it should go together, which was drastically compounded by trying to find parts that would work. We were greatly assisted in this endeavor by the hardware store guy who gave us tips and ideas on how to put it together. The second objective was of a more revolting nature.

In the summer, the acceptable way to deal with human waste is to dig a cathole, that is, a small six to eight inch deep hole in which the feces is buried. In the winter this is not a small problem. We would be hiking and camping on over four feet of snow. If we did manage to dig to the ground, it would be to no avail. Under the snow ground is as hard as cement and would take hours to dig eight inches unless we brought a jackhammer. Why not just poop in the snow you say? The problem with that is, when the snow melts, it carries the pathogens in the surface water into the streams, thereby contaminating them. No, the solution is to pack the poop.

This was the second reason for going to the hardware store. We purchased a 3’ long, 4” diameter PVC tube, one end cap, and a screw on cap for the other end. Although bulky, we figured this would be the cheap method, (as opposed to buying a $100, built for backpacker/rock climber’s model).

Me with poop-tube, Raf with steady cam stuff

We then proceeded to China-mart. This was supposed to be a quick and easy, go in, grab our food, get out trip. It was anything but quick and easy. Having come off a couple mid-terms, and little sleep the night before, we were moving slow. We had no plan. We walked up and down the aisles all together, all looking for the same thing. When we found it, we would weight the options, wondering which would be the best choice. We usually ended up letting Raf make the final choice. (: Halfway through finding all of the food, we ran into some real trouble.

It had to with waste disposal. We didn’t know how we would deal with it when we returned home with a tube full of poop. Could we throw it away? Should we try to flush it down the toilet? We weren’t sure about the former, and didn’t really want to try the latter. After trying to find flushable kitty litter, with which we were going to control odors, we saw something. It was diapers and depends. Of course!! No, our idea was not to use depends. We realized that we can throw well bagged and contained ‘stuff’ in the garbage. They do it all the time with diapers. Elated, we grabbed some doggie-bags (not the kind from restaurants), and went back to shopping.

Cutting Apples

We finally finished shopping and returned home. There we sliced boiled and dehydrated; apples, lentils, zucchini and black beans. While those dehydrated we mixed up GORP (good old raisins and peanuts) and a peanut butter log with honey, oatmeal and dried milk. Those were to be our lunches along with cheese and wheat thins. Breakfast was oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. Diner, the excitement, was; spaghetti with zucchini, curried rice with lentils, rice and beans, or cheesy mashed potatoes.

After food prep, we got down to construction. Nate and Raf worked on their steady cam project, while I worked on the poop tube. While we were preparing the food, Nate had worked hard on decorating the PVC tube. With colored sharpie, he drew a bear/godzilla/nun on the side. The tubing had been made in, or by a company called, Charlotte. Since the parts already had that name standing out on them, we christened the poop-tube “Charlotte.” She was really quite impressive looking, and we thought of the looks she would get on the trail.

Nate's artwork 

After construction, we pulled everything together. We got the fuel, food and gear, and laid it out in my basement. Although we did double-check everything there, we were pretty confident we did not forget anything because we were pretty thorough back at Gordon. Raf had a little trouble with his pack, but after a little ingenious work with an old guitar part and a Canadian penny, he fixed the problem very sturdily. 

Banana Chips and bunny ears!!

Gear prep

At six thirty, I took David, my younger brother, to Taekwondo, and, after saying high to everyone, returned home and soon went to bed. We were going to get up early the next morning and wanted a pretty good sleep.




All Photos courtesy of Nate Mori's camera, although many were also taken by Rafael Rozendo. 

Spring Break, Part 1, Travel

It was a long time in coming; winter camping has been a goal of mine for over a year. Even though I was working towards it for so long, it came a lot quicker than I expected. I thought that at the earliest, it would be next winter. Instead, my spring break turned into an epic of a greater size than I had imagined possible.

It all started early in the semester. One night in the rock gym, a bunch of us guys were talking about cold weather camping. I threw out the idea that we should spend spring break in the Adirondacks; backpacking and hiking the high peaks. This slowly became an idea that took root and grew. It took a couple months, but we started to settle on a plan. Our most ambitious plan was to hike 30 high peaks over break on an eight day trek through the mountains. Quickly realizing the infeasibility of this plan, considering our limited experience and the amount of gear needed for that length of hike, it was modified to be two four day excursions.

The group was to consist of the colossus, Sam, the bearded Raf, the…. idk… mustached Asian? Nate, and me. Raf and Nate, both hailing from Santa Barbara California were experienced campers, but had never hiked in the woods. Sam, from Massachusetts, had experienced harsher winters than the Californians and had completed the Franconia ridge with me this winter, but he still was new to prolonged time in winter. I was not much better off; though I had spent much of my Christmas break hiking in the Adirondacks, I had never actually camped in winter conditions. I had read quite extensively on the subject and knew more about snow travel than the rest of the group; but we were all setting out ready to learn what the woods had to teach us, hoping the lesson would not be too harsh.

In preparation for the trip, we had a couple nights during the quad where we would camp out. This helped us learn what gear worked and sort out better what we would bring along. After several nights spent outside, our confidence began to build. Spring break was fast approaching, and our excitement grew exponentially.

Unfortunately, disaster struck even before we had left campus. Sam, that strong individual, that burly, cheerful, strength, somehow injured his knee. The entire week before we left he rested it, hoping that it would regain its lost vitality. He debated whether it was worth the possibility of hurting it further for awe-striking views, and cold nights, snuggled deep inside a zero degree sleeping bag. In the end he decided, quite wisely, that it was not worth the possibility and checked out of the group. Sad to see him go, but resolute in our determination, we packed up and headed out.

Break started for us on Wednesday. We were going to go home, spend the night, and on Thursday, buy and package food. We got a late start. It was around six thirty when we pulled out of Gordon. The first part of the drive home went by without much note. However, when we got to the northern part of Vermont, the snow started falling. By the time we crossed the bridge into New York there was quite a bit of fresh snow. Since it was getting on to midnight, the roads were not being cleared very well. This was not a problem, as I flipped a switch and put my pickup into four wheel drive.

About twenty miles from home, we passed a car that had run off the road into the snow bank. Wanting to help if we could, we turned around. The car had obviously gone off within the past 20 minutes, but there was nobody in the vehicle. Since there wasn’t anybody to help, I started to perform another three point turn. Unbeknown to me, the snow bank that was level with the road hid a sharply sloping bank. My front end went off the road slightly and started sliding down hill. I quickly put it in reverse, but it was too late; I was stuck. I tried a variety of techniques, rocking it out, gunning and spinning tires; but even with four wheel drive, I could not get it out. Raf was sleeping when we had gone off the road and he groggily asked what was going on. I tersely responded that we were off the road, jumped out, grabbed my snow shovel, and started hacking away at the snow bank.

I had been working on it for about a minute before an old pickup truck pulls up beside the road. The passenger rolled down her window and yelled out, “You got stuck too? In a four wheel drive? I can f@#$%*g drive that through the field.” A little intimidated, but buoyed up by her exuberant greeting, I asked if they had a tow rope and she replied, “we have a chain, were f@$%^#g rednecks!!!!!” We worked together to attach the chain to my pickup. We easily pulled it out and they asked us to stick around until they got the car out. Since the car was so far off the road and the chain they brought was only six feet, we linked up my tow rope to their chain. While we work working, the lady asked me, and then asked Nate if we had any cigarettes. Of course we did not, so she finally bummed one off of her friend. Her car did not have any visible hooks or tie on points, so I crawled under, braving the snow and attached to rope to a metal loop on the underside. Fortunately, the combined chain/rope just reached their pickup.

When he pulled the car out, it went flying down the ditch, the woman hollering out the open window, until the car finally landed on the road. It was quite a sight, wheels spinning, snowflakes, falling and sparkling in the headlights, and the car sliding long-ways down the ditch. After unhooking, we bade each other safe travels and hit the road. We marveled at the excellent way that our adventures were starting. If break started in such a good way, there was no way it was going to be boring. 

Franconia Ridge

Knowing that pretty soon I would start to be inundated with homework assignments and social obligations; I decided that the first weekend back at college I would head up to the White Mountains on a day hike. I invited Sam to come along with me. Friday night I also invited Nate; he said he would love to come and was very excited until four the next morning, when he realized that he had a bunch of homework to do. I applauded his commitment to school while I blew it off and went to pick Sam up. On the road by 4:15 after a small SNAFU with the GPS, (I couldn’t find it at first) we made good time to the trailhead. Sam, only having gotten about two hours of sleep that night, slept most of the two and a half hour trip.

Franconia Ridge is a popular summer destination for hikers with a wide range of abilities. During the winter it is still a popular destination, although it is the more adventurous hikers who choose to hike the ridge. Completely exposed and above tree-line for about 2.5 miles, it can be very windy. After returning today from the hike I noticed a section on the Wikipedia that reads as follows.

“The exposed nature of the ridge and the changeable weather of the White Mountains make it a more dangerous hike than it may appear. Injuries and even fatalities from falls and exposure are not uncommon; most recently, one man died after he and a companion were trapped February 11, 2008 by fast-moving winter weather.”

Although this sounds very serious, Sam and I were well equipped, bringing; a tarp, thermal sleeping pad, down sleeping bag, a stove, pot and spoon as well as hot chocolate powder. I knew that the trail would be pretty easy to follow and we would turn around if the weather turned foul, but we still brought this equipment just to be sure. After starting on down the trail I realized that I had left two important things out of my pack, one was the fuel, and two was my compass. Although I had my hiking GPS with me, I never want to depend upon it, thinking that a compass is more reliable. The lack of fuel could be a problem if we encountered any really foul weather. However I was not worried; the weather forecast was that it was to be clear with wind at 5mph with gusts up to 15mph (at ground level).

When we arrived at the trailhead it was getting close to six thirty. The sky was just beginning to lighten up. We drove around the parking lot looking for the trailhead and eventually decided to look on foot. The instant we stepped out of the pickup cab we were greeted with a chilly blast of wind that ate right through our light layer of clothing. We hastily retreated to the safety of the cab and donned our wind shells. Again exiting the cab we quickly located the trailhead. Again returning to the pickup we grabbed our packs and snowshoes, and, putting them on, started up the trail.

The sky was now bright enough that we had no trouble following the trail. We were the first ones on the trail since the recent snowfall. For the first 20 or so feet we were sinking up to our knees even with snowshoes on. We thought, ‘if we need to break trail like this, it is going to be the toughest hike that we never want to do.’ Fortunately though, we soon hit on the old packed snow from previous hikers on which there was roughly three inches of new snow. After breaking trail for a short while I allowed Sam to pass me. I could sense his intensity wanting to get free and thought it would be a good idea to let him take on trail breaking.

He set a wonderful pace, not too fast and not too slow, just the pace I liked. After about half a mile we paused to let Sam take off one of his layers as he was beginning to overheat. As soon he had his pack back on, he took off at a blistering march. I struggled to keep up, puffing along. My legs started to burn and I knew at this pace there was no way I was going to make it at this pace. “SAM, you’re killing me.” I said after five minutes. He slowed down to the pace we were at before he stripped.

Moving along we soon started to have views of what was to come. We caught brief glimpses of the ridge and were awed by its majesty. The sun had fully risen and was shining on the mountains across the valley. It shone on the trees in a wonderful pinkish gold, resplendently reflecting off the snow. We were happy. I remarked to Sam that if we were forced to turn around now I would still be content with the hike. Little did I know what greatness was to come.

Right below the tree line on the ridge is a hut nestled in a col. In the summer it is open for visitors but right now it was locked closed with the biggest lock I have ever seen. We could see Mount Lafayette which looked so close we could reach out and brush the snow off the top! Taking a break there, we snapped a couple epic pose pictures and put on another layer in preparation for exposed portion of the hike. Since Sam had broken trail up until this point, I led. We exited the clearing on the other side than that we had entered and quickly realize we were not on the trial. Instead of doubling back, we struck off to the left as I had seen a manmade object looked like a sign. I was fooled and it was only a manmade something, the purpose of which I knew not what. Continuing to the left we were unable to find the trail. We kept pushing so far to the left that we quickly circumnavigated the hut, arriving where we had stood a few moments earlier.

We set off again, this time, using our heads, we brushed some snow off of a sign and read which way to Lafayette. We quickly located the trail which the sign pointed out, indicating that the summit was just over a mile away. So much for just reaching out and brushing snow off the top. We trudged on. Unfortunately our depth of vision was completely skewed causing us to miss seeing a dip in the ridge that descended below tree-line. Below tree-line I knew I would overheat without the wind so I slowed our pace down so that we wouldn’t have to take a layer off only to put it back on. We soon came out of the col and were on the summit face.

When I had asked Sam earlier to slow down he made a joke about the mountain not going anywhere, so we had plenty of time. This did not prove to be the case. Although it looked like a hop and a skip to the summit, the mount kept going. It kept going and going. And then it went some more. We started cairn hopping. We would spot the next cairn, climb to it, take a micro-break, complain about the wind and the never ending mountain, and then press on. Several times, upon arriving at a cairn we would have to spend a little while looking for the next one as they were all covered with snow.

Although the rest of our bodies were warm, the wind was having it out on our eyes. I had left my ski goggles on my desk in my dorm room because the weather report had been so clear. Now I wished I had brought them to block the wind. We walked with one hand up against our head, blocking the wind which was coming across our left shoulder. Finally we reached just below what looked like the summit. I pulled out my camera and we filmed a ‘summit push’ clip. We climbed over the steepest pitch we would encounter and saw that there, on a gentler grade was a hundred yards to the summit. Now with the wind almost directly behind us we scrambled to the top and dropped behind some large rocks to block the wind. The views were spectacular. From Lafayette, we could see where we had come from, where we were going, and then we could see miles farther in every direction.

We celebrated the summit with two Snickers bars, my favorite. We recorded a short summit clip, took a couple pictures and moved on. We had hoped that the wind would be at our back the length of the ridge, but instead it was over our right shoulder now, varying from quartering to the front and quartering to the back depending on what part of the ridge we were on. The ridge has three distinct peaks, each of which felt like a new accomplishment. The wind was howling around us and we were at the top of the world. Mountains that, in the morning we had looked up to, were now far below us in elevation. The views were phenomenal the whole way across the ridge. One only had to look to the right or left to see for miles and miles.

All too soon though, we descended off the ridge. As soon as we got bellow tree line we noticed how much warmer it was. Without the wind sapping our warmth we were positively toasty. After descending a short way we stopped for a couple munchies. Sam pulled out two frozen PB&J sandwiches. They tasted like cookies, anything in the wilderness tastes better.

Soon after this we saw the first people of the day. It was a couple who were hiking up together. Now, for the first time that day we were no longer breaking trail. The people soon came thick and fast. We passed by a group that had at least ten people. At the steeper portions of the trail we butt slid and stopped to take pictures of some interesting ice formations. Sam found a cave made by icicles dropping off an overhanging rock.

We made it to the bottom, took off a couple layers and hit the road. On the way home we stopped in Manchester to eat at one of Sam’s favorite Diners, The Red Arrow. The food was good and he ate probably about three times as much as I did in the same time. At 5pm we got home tired but satisfied after a wonderful day in the woods.