Oh my goodness. what a day. 17.5 miles of hiking, and well over 4500' elevation gain. We really have no idea how much elevation gain there was but a loop for Whiteface and the tripyramids said 4500. And since we added Passaconaway into this day it had to been much more.
Either way, it was an extremely long and tiring day. The reason we decided to do these four peaks together was because they were so close to each other. We originally had planned to do Tripyramids Saturday and then Whiteface and Passaconaway Sunday. But we figured instead of doing two 8 hour days (rough estimate) that we could do one 12 hour day. We also ran out of time to do Tecumseh Friday night so we wanted to do it on Saturday.
So we woke up at 7am Sunday morning, June 19. That was pretty good for us to get up that early, but unfortunately it didn't matter much. We drove the 40 minutes to the trailhead, taking two cars since we would end at a different spot than we began. As soon as we got to the parking lot Tony realized he forgot his socks. Normally Tony just grinds through things like this and would hike without any, but we both agreed this long of a hike would be way to miserable without any. So back to the house we went. I think it was all a ploy for Tony to get more sleep because he passed out the entire way to the house and back, little punk!!
On sadder news I talked to my dad that morning and found out that Grandpa Bart had passed away. He had been in hospice and we knew it was very close to happening so it wasn't a shock at least, but still sad. And on Father's Day too!
We finally got to the Sabbady Falls Trailhead at 9:45 am. The falls are very popular because they're on the Kancamagus and only .3 mile walk in. Some of my favorite in NH, but we didn't stop because we wanted to get going. The Sabbady Falls trail was very gorgeous, we followed the brook most of the way and even had some little "meadows". It was very green too. The last .4 miles of the trail was very steep, about 700 feet of elevation gain. I discovered that I almost like trails like this that are so steep because then everyone is doing the zombie walk! And everyone is going very slow because you are scrambling up the trails and can only do that so fast. Rather than other trails like Hale or Tecumeh where you can just keep pushing through at a fast pass. Anyway, it did have some great lookouts, which was interesting because we could see some of the peaks we would be climbing today.
After 4.9 miles of hiking we got to the next trail which led us to the summit of North Tripyramid within half a mile. We arrived in 2 hours and 35 minutes to North Tripyramid. We enjoyed a bagel between the two of us and carried on to Middle Tripyramid, which we reached 30 minutes later (running time of 3 hours 8 minutes). The view from Middle Tripyramid was sweet because it looked right out to Waterville Valley and Mt. Tecumseh, what we had hiked the day before. It was neat to see it so far away and be able to say, less than 20 hours ago we were standing right there.
Anyway, so we continued on our path. This is where we started to get a little concerned about having taken a wrong turn. We never really saw any other turns but we ended up descending so much after the tripyramids, including some of the south slide, which was really cool because it looks exactly what you would think a slide would look like. I had heard about the slides throughout the whites and I was scared they would be really dangerous but as long as you went slow it wasn't dangerous at all. Well the reason we were so confused was because on the map it shows we cut off before the slide, but we knew we were definitely on the slide. It was confusing but right when we were about to lose hope we saw an arrow painted on the rocks signifying another trail. There was no official sign but we figured it was only possible to be Kate Sleeper trail so we took it. Eventually it leveled out like it showed on the map and we felt pretty certain it was the right trail and within a mile we were confirmed it was by two other hikers. This trail was 2.5 miles and at the end of it was an optional bail point. In case we were too exhausted to get the other two peaks we could descend Downes Brook Trail to the highway and hitch a ride back to the car. But we also knew at that point we would only be .8 miles from Mt. Whiteface and even if we were tired we would just want to carry on to get them all. It was a peace of mind for Kelli though.
During the Kate Sleeper trail we got into a good groove and it went quickly. There were a lot of moose droppings and lots of flat areas for them to be in but we never saw any. One time though, we were walking along in the middle of a conversation, feeling very isolated on this trail when we pretty much walked upon a jack rabbit. We were within a foot of it when it went flying into the trees, it scared the crap out of us. Although we probably scared it as well.
Well shortly after the rabbit incident we came upon the Downes Brook trail but walked right past it on our way to the last two peaks! Which we sill had 8.9 miles so it was quite a distance left. But we figured most of it would be downhill or flat (so we thought). We reached Whiteface at 5 hours and 30 minutes of hiking. Besides Isolation we had done all the other hikes in less time than that. And we still had 8 miles left, oh my!
After enjoying our PB&J we continued on the Rollins Trail to Mt. Passaconaway. It was 2.3 miles and didn't seem to have too much elevation change. Well let me tell you, it had a lot of change. This is when we started to really lose it on the trail, including Tony. It was the longest 2.3 miles ever! At one point we did the typical, "we must have taken a wrong turn" conversation and pulled the map out. We thought it could have been possible but we were probably on the right one. We decided to go for another thirty minutes and if we hadn't hit the trail for the last mile to the summit we would go looking for our mistake. Well within 2 minutes of stopping we found the next trail. We should have known.
At this point is when we came to a small creek and decided we should fill up. We were both hesitant about this because we didn't have our water filter, it had broke a week before and was in the mail on it's way to REI. We did have water tablets (iodine) which we had been told were just as good but we were very nervous. Our desire for water won out though and we filled them up and followed the directions. We had to wait thirty minutes so it wasn't until the summit we would be able to enjoy it. The climb up to Passaconaway was typical; spurts of steep rocks to scramble over and various gradual climbs. I had been teaching Tony one of my elementary school choir songs earlier in the day and had this stuck in my head. For those of you that know those songs it was the Oreo song that goes:
Chocolate cookie, chocolate cookie, chocolate cookie yum yum yum.
repeat.
An oreo, a chocolate oreo. I love that creamy filling in a chocolate oreo.
Chocolate cookie, chocolate cookie, chocolate cookie yum yum yum.
Stand up, move over, sit down, SING.
Well somehow I was thinking about that dreadful Mt. Passaconway while I was singing and I started to make up my own version. Remember when fatigue sets in you become a little delirious and crazy. but here's my new version:
Passaconway, Passaconway, Passaconway, Oh My My.
repeat
A mountain top, I would like to see, Oh Passaconway how you'll be the death of me!
Passaconway, Passaconway, Passaconway, Oh My My.
Stand up, step forward, don't sit down, HIKE!
Okay you have to know the original song to understand the beat but either way, this was the song I sang in my head for the next couple of hours. It was pretty funny.
Well we reached the summit of Passaconaway, finally, at 7 hours and 8 minutes. We devoured our last bagel, took the picture and carried on as quickly as we could. We knew we shouldn't stop or our legs would get way to tired. So only 5 more miles to go! :)
The first 3 1/2 miles were a lot of descending and poor Tony was having a lot of trouble with his knees. He tried my poles but didn't like them very much. Eventually he found a system that worked fairly well, just go down the mountain backwards. I got a kick out of this. Eventually the trail flattened out and we knew it wouldn't be too long till the end. But that end took way longer than we thought it would. We were so tired of walking and getting bit by the most aggressive bugs ever that we decided to run. Yes after 16.5 miles of hard hiking we ran the last mile. It was very hard and awkward running but if we stopped we would be swarmed by mosquitoes, even though we had bug spray on. They were absolutely obnoxious!! Finally we made it to the end and got to Dug (our car). We had been hiking for 9 hours and 30 minutes.
Besides the bug bites and Tony's knees the hike wasn't that bad and we felt we could have carried on a little longer. Which is good to know since we have the Presi traverse in two weekends and that's 22 miles long with 8000 feet elevation gain; takes most people 16 hours. And then there is the Pemi and wildcat traverse which are even longer. Oh my lots of hiking!!
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