4.17.2007

20070421 - Planning For Sunshine

Ladies,

According to the theories of a crackpot amateur scientist who lives up the road from me here in the Northeast Kingdom, there is this thing he calls "Sohn" or "Suun" that radiates copious heat and light and appears to move across the sky because, as he claims, the earth actually TURNS! How lame. He's been walking around mumbling about how in a few days our happy, battleship grey sky will suddenly open and we'll see an azure background of bright glowing 'Skie' and this Sohn thing. He says it will be so bright we'll have to wear special dark glasses and coat our exposed skin w/ special protectants to ward off the evil Yoovee rays. He's such a whack-job.

Anyway, if this turns out to be true, I plan on selling all my worldy possessions and heading for the hills of New Hampshire. Probably Saturday the 21st. tMail has already expressed an interest in the old standby of Franconia Notch due to a trip he's planning for Sunday (if the planet still exists). Time will tell.

Yoovee rays. Ha. What a nut.

[Update, 4/20/07: Looks like we're heading up to Franconia Ridge, but are steering clear of falling water.... oooooh, it's gonna be warm and wet tomorrow...]

[Update 4/21/07: tMail and I had a fantastic day out. We missed the rest of the gang, but not so much that we cried real tears. The snow was from 0-8ft deep. The entire ridge between Liberty and Haystack was so deep in snow that we were in the tree-tops. I've never seen so much snow on the ridge between Haystack and Lafayette.

I've got cuts and scrapes all over my arms from pushing through the branches. The trail was non-existent at that height (most of the blazes were at/below snow-line). In low-visibility conditions it would've been extremely harrowing. Luckily we had light, time and warm weather. We wore t-shirts (tMail went sleeveless) for the first 4 hours of the hike until the exposed ridgeline at Haystack and then put on windbreakers, but in all the sheltered spots the windbreakers were overkill. Lunch on Lafayette was easy in spite of the breeze by sitting on the rocks on the lee side, looking into the Pemi. Blue sky, warm sun and a sardine sandwich!

While there were rare sections of the ridge that had no snow, the entire ridge north of Haystack was basically snowed in. We only needed snowshoes on the Liberty Spring trail and the Liberty-Haystack section... although we did do some major post-holing down the Greenleaf/Bridal Path section. Photos, etc. to be posted later tonight or tomorrow.]

[Update 4/22: Pics are posted.
If you're observant, you'll notice near the end there are two photos of some kids (the "jeans-and-sneakers" crowd) that had made it to the summit via the bridal path. The girl wasn't even wearing socks (or maybe ankle socks). On the way down, we were noticing slush, running water, snow and at times post-holed knee-deep. What these idiots were thinking is beyond me, but their cotton jeans were soaked. She was very cold and their feet were soaked.]

6 comments:

  1. the earth turns??? i thought it was flaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttt still....

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  2. I'll be thinking of you sun dogs while I'm trail runing, meeting with my cousin for lunch in Boston, and then typing up a FINAL paper regarding why AT&T should buy WebEx... F-ing BORING!

    My backpacks have been talking to me and they want out. Next wekeend I am available for whatever on Saturday. Show me the way... maybe to the gullies of Mordor.

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  3. what MZ didn't mention is that he had internal GPS getting from Liberty to Haystack there was no such thing as a trail..if we didn't have the light bulb on upstairs forget it turnaround go home..it was MZ bushwacking landing on the trail...MZ bushwacking landing on the trail it was textbook route finding...we saw movie characters from the movie Deliverance, the jean folk, sneaker folk, nice ass folk, we had lunch, we talked, we laughed, we shared a water bottle...we said good bye until next weekend....i return from Miami on Thursday I will be ready to go Saturday or Sunday...I say we go find Gollum (http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/ADVG/436~Gollum-Posters.jpg)

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  4. thanks tmail - well-worn green mountain route-finding habits kicked in:

    (a) don't freak out because you're up in the treetops and a 360° turn doesn't reveal a direction that's better than any other direction.

    (b) spitting tells you which way is down.

    (c) don't try to follow the trail. take the easiest route through the trees and brush and whatever the fuck you do, don't descend.

    (d) [optional] go the right way.

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  5. Just crawled out of the cave I call a basement. I heard the weather was nice over the weekend. I wouldn't know except for that emergency trip to buy more supplies at the Home Depot.

    The upside is I learned how to install carpet....and you know it's bad when you start imagining how to utilize the carpet installation tools as traction devices or as some form of ice protection.

    Now that I as a self-proclaimed carpet installer maybe I should takea page out of Mad Dog's book and go on a trip and learn from the zen masters of carpet installation...so where would do I bring my bike...the Orient???? Persia is definitely out.

    Cool pics mutha-z as usual...no doubt you guys had infinitely more fun than me.

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  6. I can imagine the headlines in The Exeter Times: Local Man Achieves Indoor/Outdoor One-ness, Transcends Shag.

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