Hiked July 28, 2007 for Seek-the-Peak MWO fund-raiser
Up via Lion's Head, down via Tuckerman's Ravine
Before we begin, let's discuss the weather forecast as of Friday morning:
Wow… great way to start a camping trip!
We also discovered that Valerie can’t be made responsible for the rechargeable batteries in the camera. We pulled the camera out on Friday night to take a picture of the campsite, and the low battery light went on. So, between that and the lousy weather, we have no pictures of our own from this hike. We’ve relied on Brad Bradstreet, whom we met on the trail, for the pictures included in this trail report. The advantage is that both of us are in many of the photos, just look for us!!
We arrived at Moose Brook campground on Friday afternoon between rain showers. We thought we should get the tent up quickly – before the rain started again. We got the entire thing spread out on the already wet-and-muddy ground, got the poles threaded through, and the skies opened up. We struggled to get the tent up in the deluge, and we did. It was *very* wet, though, on the inside, outside, fly, and footprint. You name it, it was soaked and muddy. The rain stopped as quickly as it started, and we spent some time sopping out the tent and getting all the lines pulled out correctly on the tent fly.
Thunder rumbled in the distance for awhile, but it avoided the campground Friday evening. We had a good campfire and enjoyed some time outside. We went to bed early, slept well and got up at 5:20am. Still no rain. Amazing. Got dressed and cleaned up. Ate breakfast in the tent vestibule, and headed down to Pinkham Notch at about 6:30am. We followed several other cars out of the campground and all the way to the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. They were hiking too!
“Seek the Peak” had a tent set up for registration. They took our names and gave us goodie bags full of great donated stuff like energy bars and drinks, LL Bean socks, a nice “Seek the Peak” long-sleeved T-shirt, organic trail mix, sunscreen, bug dope, etc. They had the weather report posted. It had gotten worse. The afternoon thunderstorms were expected to be severe now. We need to get up and down ASAP.
We started up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail about 7:15am. The weather was sunny, but humid. The first 2.3 miles were uneventful – wide trail, rocks and gravel, tons of people everywhere. We made the turn onto the Lion’s Head trail and lost most of the crowd. We started a conversation with a couple guys as they passed us. They were from Virginia. They had come to NH just for “Seek the Peak”. These pictures show the Lion's Head trail while it's still in the woods... yes, this really is the trail!
On the way up Lion’s Head, we met a bunch of hikers who were all part of the Mount Washington Observatory forum. We met Brad, BlueDog, Chewy, and Rudabaga - all wonderful people to talk to.
The hike up Lion’s Head was steep and rough. When we crested Lion’s Head, we got a nice breeze and our first views of Tuckerman Ravine. Wow. What a hole! The skies had gone completely gray and the clouds were starting to roll past us. From this point to the top, about 0.9 miles, we would be completely exposed to the weather. Rudabaga (a young woman from Maine who was hiking alone) walked with us and we chatted. Despite the good conversation, the rest of the walk to the summit was a long and hard rock-hop. We arrived at the top at 10:45am.
Once we made it to the top, Tim helped Rudabaga get the pictures that she needed on the summit cairn – despite the fog around us. Funny, as we looked around, this was the first time we’d ever seen the hikers outnumber the public on the summit! We were the “norm”!!
We cleaned ourselves up a bit, changed clothes, ate some food, and then wandered over to the observatory for our free tour. We got to see the control room (and get a good look at the approaching storm on the RADAR). We went out to the top of the observation tower to see the equipment and also got to see the crew quarters.
Tim fulfilled his goal for the day when we both had an opportunity to pet Nin, the summit cat. Of course, if we’d had a hot dog, I think she would have crawled into our laps.
We met up with Rudabaga around 11:45am and we started down.
We took a different trail down – this one took us right to the “lip” of Tuckerman Ravine and then over the edge. The rain was coming and going. The rocks were getting very slippery. We had a couple small mishaps (“Oooh, that’s gonna leave a bruise!”), but no serious issues. Mostly, it’s just knee-grinding downhill over the rocks for a couple hours. Beautiful views of the waterfall over the ravine. Look closely below - especially on the tall, thin photos to see the trail that we followed down.
We arrived back at Pinkham Notch at about 3:30pm. We made plans with Rudabaga to meet up at the celebration dinner. We went back to the campsite and showered, put on clean clothes, and headed down to the Glen House, where Hart’s Turkey Farm provided a FANTASTIC dinner to 180 hungry hikers!
We enjoyed the evening’s conversations with our new friends – all members of the MWO forum. We’re going to need to join. One odd thing… we didn’t meet anyone at all today who was from NH! Where is the local support for MWO? We met people from Virginia, Maine, Long Island, Rhode Island… some people traveled all the way from Florida to participate.
Well, after all the raffle prizes were given away, and the food was gone, we all said goodnight – telling each other that we’d all meet again next year. I hope we do! Tim’s already plotting which route he wants to take to the top.
Overall, the group earned about $61,000 for the Mount Washington Observatory!!