Taking Flight

Has there ever been anyone who divided the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire up into more sections to hike than me? I kind of doubt it. I had previously hiked from Mt. Garfield over to Galehead Hut with my friend Sylvia, and I had hiked from Crawford Notch to Madison Springs Hut previously in summer 2023. Now I needed to link those sections together. The problem was that it's impossible to simply start your hike at Galehead Hut. You have to get to it first. Thus, the first day of my hike wasn't even going to count, as it would be all about getting to Galehead. The second day would be the AT section. I decided that the easiest way to start would be to hike from Lincoln Woods to the 13 Falls Tentsite, and then climb from there to Galehead Hut. As usual, this endeavor would be aided by a car spot from my amazing fiancee Dragonfly, without whom this AT section hiking would be impossible. I began my hike by driving to Crawford Notch, dropping my car at the same trailhead that I h...

Some of the major accomplishments that a White Mountain hiker can pursue are the traverses. Amongst these are the Pemi Loop and the Presidential Traverse, although I am sure there are more. I needed a sizable AT section starting in Crawford Notch and ending in Pinkham Notch, and this would mean doing the entire Presidential Traverse, plus a pretty large chunk on both sides of it. I figured this would be a good opportunity to not only do my first Presidential Traverse, but also stay in two White Mountain huts that I had not stayed in before, Lakes of the Clouds Hut and Madison Springs Hut. I was, of course, familiar with both huts. Lakes of the Clouds is a hut that I had stood on the porch of many times during the winter, including just a few months prior , but had never been inside, as I had never been there when it was open. Madison Springs I had been inside once, but had never actually stayed there. I was excited to stay at both on this trip, although I have to admit that the high pr...

I think I've now caught up my back blog entries for 2024, or at least most of them, so now I am going to go back and catch up 2023. This first one wasn't supposed to be a thrilling hike, but it turned into one of the more exciting hikes that I have ever had. Of course, when you're in the backcountry, the word exciting has very much a positive and a negative meaning, and this hike definitely encapsulated both. You may recall that in December I attempted to hike Mt. Washington just before Christmas, but was driven back by bad conditions and only managed to hike Mt. Monroe , and even that was dicey. Thus, I wanted another shot at Washington. I decided to take my favorite route up the mountain, ascending the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail, popularly known as the Ammo. I parked at the trailhead, which is not too far from the base station for the Cog Railway. There were a decent number of cars in the lot, as it looked to be a really pretty hiking day. The hike starts off with a gradual ...

It has become a yearly tradition for me to travel up to Carter Notch Hut on the night before Thanksgiving, spend the night, and then hike out Thanksgiving morning. This would have been my third year in a row doing so. However, this has been a terrible year for me for illness, and so I got sick right before the Thanksgiving hike. Thus, I had to call AMC, pay a small fee, and move the hike. The question was where to move it to? I thought a Christmas Eve hike sounded kind of fun, so I went with that. The weather forecast was calling for a couple inches that night, which sounded manageable. It hadn't been snowing much recently, and trail reports indicated a packed down trail, so I opted for spikes rather than snowshoes. In general, I will always opt for spikes over snowshoes if given the opportunity, as snowshoes are just a lot more unwieldy and eat energy a lot faster. I got lunch at Big Dave's Bagels and Deli in North Conway, as I normally do. I used to get a plain bagel with cre...

Back in 2018, I used to get out to hike constantly, sometimes doing multiple hikes in the same weekend. These days, I'm lucky if I get out once every couple months. The effect is noticeable, as I am not nearly in the same shape now that I was in then. Thus, every once in a while I just have to force myself to hike. This weekend was one of those weekends when I just forced myself to go take a hike. I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go. I didn't want to do something super strenuous, but at the same time I wanted to try something new. With it being late fall, I wasn't sure if I would encounter snow and ice in some places. Putting all these factors together, I opted to hike Mt. Osceola. This would be my third hike of Mt. Osceola, but the previous two hikes included East Osceola, which is the most difficult approach. For this hike, I decided to go straight up the Mt. Osceola Trail, which is supposed to be one of the easier trails in the Whites. I had never done it befor...

I continue to chip away at the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire. I needed the section connecting I-93 to Franconia Ridge, and I needed the section connecting Franconia Ridge to Mt. Garfield. It seemed to me that it made sense to just get them both at the same time, and also get the benefit of another hike across Franconia Ridge. Oh, and it would get me another benefit as well. I have been working on staying at every White Mountain hut, and Greenleaf Hut just off Franconia Ridge was the second-to-last one I needed. By staying at Greenleaf, I could cut the hike in two. I decided to go for it in early August, a time that was ideal because I had recently hiked Mt. Madison and Mt. Katahdin and was in the best hiking shape I had been in for some time. Unfortunately, Dragonfly was busy and wasn't able to car-spot me for this hike. Thus, I called Trail Angels Hiker Services. I had worked with them before, and while they're certainly not cheap, they have proven to be friendly and reli...

This trip had been planned for a long time, and was supposed to be the highlight of my hiking summer. As I mentioned in my last blog post , my knee had been bothering me, so I hiked Mt. Madison just to make sure that I was ready for Mt. Katahdin. I hadn't hiked Katahdin since July 11, 2019, so more than five years had passed, and I was ready to get back to it! I wouldn't be going alone. I would be joined by my friend Sylvia, her husband Alan, our friend Vanessa, and Sylvia's friend Chris. We would also be joined by Sylvia's brother-in-law Paul, but he wouldn't be hiking with us. The plan was for Paul to drive up early on the 29th and hike, and then he would meet us where we were staying when he was finished hiking. Meanwhile, Sylvia, Alan, Vanessa, and I would travel up in Alan's truck, and meet Chris before we headed into Baxter State Park, which is where Katahdin is located. Once we got to the park, we would park at Roaring Brook Campground, which is where I s...