The Tripyramids

I created a new post for this item for the trip reports, not that it needed it but because I'm still sleepwalking and not responsible for my decisions. Pics by tMail here. Pics by Mutha here.

tMail Sez:

What a day...

1. I missed the pick up in Plymouth as MadDog did the Tour De Plymouth
   
2. Mutha's state in DD I think he was still sleep walking
3. Livermore where are you?
4. 20 minutes into the hike Vasque's fully submerged in water and toes frozen North Slide (by tMail)
   
5. Interesting trail chatter we will leave it at that
6. Sabbaday everything I thought it would be
7. MD getting closer to his 48....Cabot and Waumbek scheduled for November 1st
8. Tmail doing Middle Tripyramid 4 times in one day has to be a record
9. Red Sox Suck I hope the lose
10. North Slide strikes again
11. Livermore great trail for the trail trot
12. Running into the Goonies on the Livermore Trail
13. The lost city of Babylon or something like that
14. Great Friends
15. Great People
16. Great to see Sasquatch

Mutha Sez:

• I rolled out of bed when MD rolled into the driveway, and in five minutes rolled into his car. I have a vague recollection of watching the pretty leaves on the trees and then noticing that we were approaching West Virginia.
• The Sabbaday Brook trail is a trail. The Livermore Trail is a hell-hole of tiger traps made to capture anything smaller than a cow. On the plus side, Westie and I ended up having to stop, doubled over with laughter as we saw both tMail and MadDog, one-after-the-other, drop into a slippery mess of knee-deep mud. View West (by Mutha)
  It was like two cartoon characters following each other over hot coals with a 1/2 second delay in their reactions, followed by lots of arm-swinging, head-bobbing and slippy-sliding.
• The Lost City of Livermore may never be found, and that's fine with me. It probably fell over, burned down and sank into the mud.
• tMail hit Middle four times while Westie, MD and I sat in a puddle of sunlight on cold, calm North Tripyramid, soaking up the warmth and enjoying the effortless recreation.
• The conversation was ... erratic. The topic sequence went something like this: Corn, Airplanes, The Provost's Desk, Sofas, The Red Sox, Sasquatch, Airplanes, Buddha, Red Sox, Tempeh, Beets, Airplanes, The Lost City of Livermore, ...

Maddog Sez:

Adding a few other notables:

1. the facial expression of MZ, through the blinds, when his rides shows up and he's rolled out of the hay.
2. We need to get TMail's call dirty.
3. It was comical to see Westie herding cats at the end so he could the make game on time.
4. The trail was a highway department's dream - can you say thousands of cubic yds of gravel.
5. WTF were are my trail runner gaiters? Next, I'm breaking out my nylons....easy MZ don't excited.
6. It was really funny to meet those geo-geeks. Right out of a movie.
7. What's top speed of a rocket sled coming down the slide in the winter, on fully loaded snow and ice conditions? Good problem for the St J., students.
8. A real nice day..thanks boys!

October 18th/19th

So far, here's the roster:

• Mutha: Green Mountain Marathon
• tMail/Maddog: Unspecified Death March
• g-$$$: Available and hot to trot
• The MPM: Claims to be able to teleport to any event.

tMail's Plans:

The destination will be the Tripyramids we will spot a car at the trail head for Livermore and then ascend up the Tripyramids up the Sabbaday Brook Trail...based on my calculations it will be about 13.1 miles

We will NOT be going down the North Slide we will go down via the Pine Bend Brook Trail then hook up with the Scaur Ridge which runs into the Livermore.

Time and meeting place to be determined...

Moosilauke & Nancy Pond Trail

tMail and I went our separate ways. He hit The Moose with a pal and I hit the Pemi with Spanky The Wonder Dog. The trail was pretty quiet and nobody was in the Pemi. There were maybe a dozen folk on the trail, but once above The Cascades things were pretty quiet.

tMail & Mr./Mrs. MPM ran a half on Saturday, the weather is beautiful, the foliage is at peak color and everyone seems really happy with the fall, in spite of the rapid crumbling of society and the return to hunting and gathering Mutha's pics here.

From Nancy Pond Trail to Norcross Pond To The Pemi

October 12th: Increasing Irrelevance

Ouch. That hurt. I've been heads-down in work and a nasty cold that is just starting to depart. There is a tentative plan for Sunday to hit some longer distance - possibly a jaunt into the Pemi and out again, maybe over Carrigain or some other summit, but distance and time are the name of the game ... if I feel up to it.

tMail got slammed with a cold but hopes to be clear in a day or two - and rumor has it will be running a 'half' with Mr. & Mrs. MPM on Saturday, so who knows what the future may bring.

In the meantime I'll follow the methods of the MPM and mentally crank a winter Pemi... ahhh, it's sure seems possible... must get fresh batteries for the headlamp ...

October 5th: Chicorua Franconia Ridge

tMail called it: Chicorua. He's got some crazy route that goes up and down and all over the place. Here's his version:

Maybe up Champney Falls Tr, then across the Bee Line Tr., Lawrence Tr. and pick
up the Oliverian Brook Trail in Paugus Pass?

We'll know more as the situation develops.

[Update 10/4] Mutha's got a bad cold. tMail & Westie will head for Franconia Ridge on Sunday for an 8/8:30 start at the trailhead.

September 27/28

I've got Academy stuff on Saturday and won't be hitting the hills - besides, we've got rain in the forecast for the end of the week. Sunday may be a little damp, but at this point it's looking like it'll be the better of the two days.

Nothing in mind, and may even do house chores ... but it's also tempting to get in the first long run of the 2008 foliage season.

Hmmmm....

[Update 9/26, 5pm] Forget it. Heavy rain all weekend. I'm getting indoor chores done. See you next weekend.

[Update 9/28, 6am] tMail, Riley and the PM wrestled Moosilauke on Friday, before the heavy rains. The pics from both featured new foot covers, stalking fog and socks made for sexy parties. Mutha meanwhile is doing house chores and discovered yet another beaver dam in a section of growth-chocked backyard Danville that had been overlooked.... and possibly a bear print.

Moosilauke: tMail Pics, PM Pics

Franconia Ridge Loop: 2:30

Today, in perfect conditions, I not only broke through the 2:45 glass floor, but I nailed 2:30 on the dot. It was huge for me because I thought the loop couldn't be done in under 2:45 (by me). Part of the success was getting from the Parking Lot to Haystack in 0:58. I never believed it could be done in under an hour (3,000ft, 3.1 miles).

Working In My Favor:

• I drove blind. Instead of using my stopwatch, I used the altimeter 'logbook' function with Elevation vs. Time
  60sec sampling interval. I didn't note the time when I stepped off the parking lot onto the sidewalk so I never knew my progress until I got back to the car. And my actual time could have been anywhere from 2:29:30 to 2:30:30, but when my foot hit the parking lot I stopped the logbook and the time indicated 1:00pm on the dot from a 10:30am start.
  
• Pristine Weather Conditions: low 70's in the parking lot, low 60's on the ridge. bright blue skies and no wind.
• Excellent Trail Conditions: Very little water on the trail, exposed rock was all dry.
• Drank 24oz of water the entire event and sucked down one Hammer Gel (Espresso) on Lincoln. I used my lumbar Camelback.
• I'm a little more daring on the ascents. Not quite in the same league as you other yahoos, but I'm getting closer.
  

Working Against Me:

• Remnants of a cold
• One of the busiest days on the trails. I couldn't find a parking space (at 10:30am on a great Saturday) at the campground parking aread, or on the east side of 93. I eventually parked by popping the Impreza up over the curb and parking on some grass on the east-side lot.
• Crowds: I had to battle MANY hikers. On the trail up Falling Waters I passed over 100 hikers - many in groups of 6 or more. It was a constant "excuse me", "on your left", "thank you", etc. On the way down the OBP it wasn't as bad, but there were a LOT of people. I feel obliged to obey the "yield to ascending hikers" rule, but there weren't that many - maybe 20 or thereabouts.
• The deciduous trees are starting to lose their leaves and it made the footing a little sketchy in parts - but it wasn't that bad.
  

The new target is sub-2:30.

Slow Friday Night

Things have been really busy this last week, and chances are my adventures this weekend (in spite of the glorious weather) will probably be limited to a quick hike on saturday morning and that's about it. I've got tons of things to do this weekend.

tMail has been coaching me in swimming and at this point I feel like I've found the missing link: an activity that I should have been doing all along. Better late than never. Under tMails mentoring, I went from thrashing around like a drowning lunatic to swimming pretty smoothly. I've got a lot of kinks to work out of course - but after 5, half-hour sessions so far I feel really comfortable in the water even if I'm not the greatest swimmer.

The best part of this story is that he did all his coaching while we hiked Kinsman Ridge. He showed the motions while standing vertically and we discussed the techniques, principles and points to remember. He even emailed me a training plan! I call the method iSwim.

Go Coach tMail!

Kinsman Ridge

tMail and I cranked through all 18 (or is it 16) miles (Update: 16.9 miles, 5,750ft) of Kinsman Ridge, from the Cannon Mtn trailhead at the Tram parking lot to the Cannon Balls to the Kinsmans to Mt. Wolf to the Kanc. Highlights included:

mutha'z trip report:

1. tMail is very fast on the ascent and in the trail trot. very fast.
2. I love/hate the Cannon Balls
3. Time flies when you are being instructed in the nuances of swimming. Who knew tMail knew so much?? But I was asking for it.
4. Quebecers in the parking lot are worth almost an hour of chit-chat.
5. See pic at right for elevation vs. time graph (click to zoom)
   

tMail's Trip Report:

What a day we had...it was great to get out for some good amount of time...

1. Vasque Trail Runners still perform great.
2. MZ great to get back on the long adventures again.
3. Conversation was great from "Rockets to Green Hornet Lunch Boxes"
4. Canadians...EY
5. I wish I was back and school and had Mutha for a teacher.
6. I can't wait for my Muthaville getaway in October and November (stay tuned for details)

Pre-PuppetMaster-Presi Preparations

Things are looking pretty stormy this weekend and I'm reluctant to get hit by lightning. I don't mind rain, drizzle or snow, but stormy weather is best left to others.

From the looks of the image to the right (archived from about 8:30 this morning) there may be a gap in the weather between late morning and early evening so I may head down to Franconia Notch for a quickie.

In the meantime, the PM's Presi Project next weekend may run headlong into plans by Hurricane Ike - although at this point Ike probably won't make landfall until very late in the week.

At this point we don't have the PM's specifics (is he still in Maine?) but we do know he either wants to go North->South or South->North. Anything else would be sheer folly and could result in aimless wandering around New Brunswick.