Yesterday's Hike: Mt Pierce and Mt Eisenhower, Crawford Notch NH.
Mileage: 9.6 miles
Elevation: 4,310 feet (Mt Pierce) and 4,780 feet (Mt Eisenhower)
Vertical gain: 3,250'
Companions: Solo
Weather: Sunny and totally clear, temps 86'F at the trailhead, and still 81'F at the summits, with a very gentle breeze. Yeah it was hot, but still awesome.
Even though my logs tell me that my previous hike of the Baldfaces included more elevation gain, I'm not sure that I believe it. I'll have to recalculate that, because this hike definitely seemed bigger. Perhaps that was just because of the scenery, being above treeline in the Southern Presidentials, you got the impression that you must have worked harder to get there. Hmm. Perhaps the extra effort had to do with all of the rotting snow I had to contend with for the mile between the Mizpah cutoff and treeline. I would describe what I found as "icy monorail flanked with soft, often hollowed out banks of snow." If I tried to walk on the side, I'd post-hole like mad, but the monorail itself (created by snowshoers following the same path all winter and packing it down) was icy. Eventually I put on my spikes and walked atop the monorail, which made the going pretty easy. Thankfully there was zero snow above treeline, and only a couple very small patches the entire way between Pierce and Eisenhower.
Astute readers will recall that this was my second time climbing Mt Pierce, the first done in the winter on snowshoes. As fun as that was, we never really got any open views, so it was nice to return on a clear day to find out what I'd missed. It turns out, we'd missed a pretty amazing view:
The dome-shaped mount just to the right of the sign is Mt Eisenhower, which would be my second peak of the day and since I was doing an out-and-back, the midpoint of my hike. The descent into the col is very gentle, as it only descends about 230 feet and thus Mt Pierce barely qualifies as a distinct mountain (there must be at least 200 feet of prominence between peaks in order to qualify). From the bottom of the col, it's a fairly gradual 700 feet up Mt Eisenhower, though it gets fairly steep during the last 250 feet or so. On top of the lichen covered dome, the views towards the Northern Presidentials are breath-taking!
The nub just below the Mt Washington summit right of center on the frame is Mt Monroe, which may look familiar as I took a shot of the lower peak of Monroe from it's higher peak last August when I climbed it:
As of yesterday, then, I've hiked all of the Presidential range save 1 mountain: Mt Jefferson. Perhaps I'll do this on Sunday, or perhaps I'll save it for another weekend. It tends to get very windy up there, so I'd only go if the forecast looked ideal the morning of the trip.
When I turned around to return to Mt Pierce, over which I'd have to cross again, I noticed that although there was a lot of haze, the view wasn't altogether bad looking south:
The hike down was fairly uneventful, though the air got warmer if anything, even high up. My GPS's thermometer told me it was 81 on top of Eisenhower, and it stayed fairly steady on the way down, peaking at 86 as I got close to the parking lot. I had company on the hike down, a solo hiker who was doing a multi-day backpack to start getting conditioned for a hike of the John Muir Trail out in the Sierra Nevadas in a couple of months! Sounds fun.
I got back to my car around 4:30, 5 hours and 10 minutes after I'd started. Counting my stops on the summits and my lunch break, that's pretty awesome time. I really thought I was going slow, but apparently not! My normal 2mph pace seems to be holding up so far this season, in spite of my worrying that I'd become fat and out of shape over the winter. I do need to lose a few pounds, but now that hiking season is back in full-swing, I'll be fine in no time.
What an awesome day!!!
Elevation: 4,310 feet (Mt Pierce) and 4,780 feet (Mt Eisenhower)
Vertical gain: 3,250'
Companions: Solo
Weather: Sunny and totally clear, temps 86'F at the trailhead, and still 81'F at the summits, with a very gentle breeze. Yeah it was hot, but still awesome.
Even though my logs tell me that my previous hike of the Baldfaces included more elevation gain, I'm not sure that I believe it. I'll have to recalculate that, because this hike definitely seemed bigger. Perhaps that was just because of the scenery, being above treeline in the Southern Presidentials, you got the impression that you must have worked harder to get there. Hmm. Perhaps the extra effort had to do with all of the rotting snow I had to contend with for the mile between the Mizpah cutoff and treeline. I would describe what I found as "icy monorail flanked with soft, often hollowed out banks of snow." If I tried to walk on the side, I'd post-hole like mad, but the monorail itself (created by snowshoers following the same path all winter and packing it down) was icy. Eventually I put on my spikes and walked atop the monorail, which made the going pretty easy. Thankfully there was zero snow above treeline, and only a couple very small patches the entire way between Pierce and Eisenhower.
Astute readers will recall that this was my second time climbing Mt Pierce, the first done in the winter on snowshoes. As fun as that was, we never really got any open views, so it was nice to return on a clear day to find out what I'd missed. It turns out, we'd missed a pretty amazing view:
The dome-shaped mount just to the right of the sign is Mt Eisenhower, which would be my second peak of the day and since I was doing an out-and-back, the midpoint of my hike. The descent into the col is very gentle, as it only descends about 230 feet and thus Mt Pierce barely qualifies as a distinct mountain (there must be at least 200 feet of prominence between peaks in order to qualify). From the bottom of the col, it's a fairly gradual 700 feet up Mt Eisenhower, though it gets fairly steep during the last 250 feet or so. On top of the lichen covered dome, the views towards the Northern Presidentials are breath-taking!
The nub just below the Mt Washington summit right of center on the frame is Mt Monroe, which may look familiar as I took a shot of the lower peak of Monroe from it's higher peak last August when I climbed it:
As of yesterday, then, I've hiked all of the Presidential range save 1 mountain: Mt Jefferson. Perhaps I'll do this on Sunday, or perhaps I'll save it for another weekend. It tends to get very windy up there, so I'd only go if the forecast looked ideal the morning of the trip.
When I turned around to return to Mt Pierce, over which I'd have to cross again, I noticed that although there was a lot of haze, the view wasn't altogether bad looking south:
The hike down was fairly uneventful, though the air got warmer if anything, even high up. My GPS's thermometer told me it was 81 on top of Eisenhower, and it stayed fairly steady on the way down, peaking at 86 as I got close to the parking lot. I had company on the hike down, a solo hiker who was doing a multi-day backpack to start getting conditioned for a hike of the John Muir Trail out in the Sierra Nevadas in a couple of months! Sounds fun.
I got back to my car around 4:30, 5 hours and 10 minutes after I'd started. Counting my stops on the summits and my lunch break, that's pretty awesome time. I really thought I was going slow, but apparently not! My normal 2mph pace seems to be holding up so far this season, in spite of my worrying that I'd become fat and out of shape over the winter. I do need to lose a few pounds, but now that hiking season is back in full-swing, I'll be fine in no time.
What an awesome day!!!