July 3
So it was actually on our agenda today to hike the Presi Traverse but our lovely weather kept calling for thunderstorms. We aren’t afraid to get wet but because the Presi is mostly on an open ridge we didn’t want to be out there during a lightning storm.
Instead we opted for the Kinsmans and Cannon hike. I wanted us to get an early start to try to beat the rain, so we got on the trail about 8 am. I know, not that early, but we did wake up about 6:15. We just had a few chores to do and a drive ahead of us. On this drive we were lucky enough to see another moose and a fox, so Kelli was happy.
We started at Lafayette Campground and hiked to Lonesome Lake first. Man was it a rough hike. Not necessarily because the trail was hard but we were just both in a very sluggish tired mood. Tony had the best excuse because he biked one of the hardest trails on Friday, I had an excuse of work. Which I know we all work and it’s not that good of an excuse but it’s three 9 hour days of not being able to sit down, so my little, or big, feet do get tired. Anyways, it was pretty funny to see us; we both were doing the zombie walk and not enjoying it. But we eventually made it to the lake and it was very pretty! We even saw a solo female thru hiker which was cool. After the lake we wound our way towards North Kinsman on the Jimmy Fishin Trail and it started to lightly rain. We threw on our rain jackets to keep dry, but it was warm so it got muggy.
We reached what seemed to be a summit and had a great viewpoint but there wasn’t a cairn. I wanted to keep moving so we headed on our way towards South Kinsman. This was a very busy trail. It was part of the AT so we saw lots of thru hikers, Tony missed his chance to talk to two guys that were coming from Maine. He’s been wanting to know what the Maine AT section is like and most of the people we see go south to north. He was bummed and I laughed . Well we reached South Kinsman and didn’t find a cairn again and got a little concerned of what summit we actually were at. Could we really only be to North Kinsman? That was a daunting thought. But pretty quickly a couple from Massachusetts came up and said they thought this was South Kinsman as well. Tony and I took a picture and called it good. We started the hike back towards North Kinsman and the first few steps were on some slanted, wet rocks. Well my darling Tony wasn’t paying too much attention and he started to slip. He was leaning back and his right leg kicked out as high as my head, thankfully I was to the left of him so he didn’t kick me in the head. And with his spry, quickness he was able to level himself off and not actually fall flat on his butt. I don’t know how he managed to escape that one but man did he look scared during the process. Little did he know that 35 minutes later farther down the trail he actually did slip on another rock and fall down. It was the slowest, controlled fall ever and the entire time he was looking at me with a look that said, “Okay, I’m going down but I’m okay. I’ll just place my leg here, yes it’s bent weird but I’m okay. Alright I’ve landed in a good position, on nothing jagged. Okay we’re all good.” Honestly, you could see that thought process by the expressions on his face.
Anyway, we moved along fairly quickly after those few little falls. We eventually came to the last ascent to Cannon. We had made a pretty long descent, which we always hate to do because we know we’ll just have to go right back up. And up we went. A very steep half mile to the next trail juncture. We saw a few people coming down and felt scared for them because one group had a dog and the 5 people didn’t look like they knew what they were about to hike into. The trail was obviously wet but it was so steep at this part that going down seemed very treacherous. We couldn’t even imagine how a dog would get down some of those spots. But we came off the very steep trail to a more commonly used path and ran into another group of people. One of the guys in their group didn’t have shoes on! It was crazy because this trail (even more so then other NH trails) was soooo rocky. His feet either hurt like hell or they were super super tough. As we were staring at his feet this Chinese man comes barreling down with a really confused, worried look on his face. He barely spoke English and tried talking to all of us. Tony, the nice, heroic man he is told Mr. Chinese-man that we would take him back to Cannon mountain lodge. We were about a half mile away and on not too dangerous of a trail, but it was raining out and this guy was in jeans, sneakers and a zip up jacket- so not dressed for hiking. So we just assumed he got turned around and needed to get back to the lodge. Cannon mountain is actually a ski mountain and in the summer people take the gondola ride up to the summit to see the views. But that half mile with Danny (Tony was disappointed in his common, uncool name) was pretty entertaining. We felt bad for him because he was really shook up and even told us at one point he was scared. He kept making Tony go back and help him over rocks and such. He was from Hong Kong and was travelling by himself. Poor Danny. But Tony took care of him and he made it to safety.
The lodge was a funny place because we come hobbling in, dripping wet and people are just sitting around with massive meals and delicious looking beers. Man did a beer sound good. But we didn’t bring our wallets which was probably a good thing. It was nice to be able to eat our bagels in a warm, dry environment-even though everyone around us had steaming hot plates of pizza and sandwiches. After drying off some we decided to get going as the rain had let up a little. We did get to use a real bathroom and get our waters filled out of the drinking fountain, much easier than a stream.
We ended the hike in 8 hours and 22 minutes. Slower than we were hoping but with the wetness it made it so slow-going and tedious. And like always on the way home I looked up to the slopes of Canon mountain and saw a bear walking around. Every time I look at the slopes in the summer I always see a bear. I thought we’d see one hiking but apparently they like the front, gradual side of the mountain versus the steep, rocky section we were on.
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