Mt. Lafayette (4/48)
Oct. 13th, 2006 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofFor various reasons (I believe partly for the young members events, which the cynical can interpret as "meet chicks"), we joined up with the AMC. Given our member discount, it seemed appealing to drop the money to spend a few nights at the huts and not have to haul around food, shelter, and bag. So we planned another three-day to basically mop-up around Franconia Ridge.
Erik went and dropped his camera, breaking it. I schlepped my heavy, sucky, battery-chewing piece along, but we stopped in Manchester to pick up a replacement (basically a few models later of Erik's). The idea was we had the SD cards and a charged battery from his old camera, so we should be set. The clerk at Staples had to turn everything into a massive story, and we had some language barrier (or cruddy equipment barrier) issues at Dunkie's, so we lost nearly an hour in Manchester.
Then, of course, we discovered that part of the failure of Erik's camera was draining the battery, so we were left the battery that came with the new camera--and whatever charge it came from the factory with. Ooops.
We rolled into the tramway parking lot about the same time as two busloads of retirees. We gawked at the tourists gawking and decided we wanted out ASAP. I popped in my contacts and Erik decided to rearrange his pack...he had packed a tiny daypack and didn't have enough space for the food I brought. While he did that I called AMC to ask about electricity in the huts, to see if we could charge the camera. I wound up connected through to the shop guy who said "Of course there's 110V if you turn on the inverter...uh, wait, who are you?" "A guest." Much awkwardness involving me explaining that I didn't want to tap out their limited resources, just checking. It's actually rather amazing, because from a hiker's point of view the huts are flat-out luxury, but they actually have very limited resources. There's one helicopter supply drop in the spring and one pick-up in the fall, and the rest is on the backs of the croo (with a little help from propane, wind, and sun). Only came to realize this over the course of the weekend, and much more in the huts blog, so I can get back to narrative, where Erik repacked it all and we're pretty much ready to go.
Behind me is the ridge we started climbing; behind and to its right is the arm of Lafayette.
We marched on over beneath 93 and located the Greenleaf trailhead, which is kinda hidden in a ditch now. First stream crossing, two feet in. The trail was pretty wet and climbs rather sharply at first. We had a steadily-ascending view of Franconia Notch all the way up. Very little climbing brought us to views of Profile Lake through the trees.
This far north, the leaves were pretty much gone, but there was still some colour at higher elevations. A steady upward and onward brought gradual change to the vegetation, and we peeked out to see what was in store for pretty much the rest of the weekend.
About two hours up from the valley floor we came out into Eagle Pass, where we put our feet up and gorped for a minute. The sun was pleasant but the wind picked up a bit.
We dropped into a shallow col as the trail lead from the ridge we climbed to the arm of Lafayette that hosts Greenleaf Hut. We were cut off from Franconia now and the air chilled as we ascended into a postcard.
(I'm amused by how green-screen that shot looks.) The bits of red you can see above my head are mountain ash berries--every few years all the ash "mast", or produce a much larger crop than usual. We saw the berries everywhere, on otherwise bare trees and dropped all over the trail.
Slogging up the muddy trail, being hit by the occasional load of dropping snow, we started to hear voices. Then the trail levelled and we saw the spur over to Sunset Rocks, so we dropped pack and scrambled over.
The distant mountains are over in the Green Mountains of Vermont, including Camel's Hump, over 60 miles away. We later found that visibility for the day was about 100 miles. Looking southwest, we were seeing mountains that could only have been the 'Dacks.
Five minutes later we were at the hut. I snapped a quick picture down to Eagle Lake, gradually returning to its natural boggy state.
The croo in the 50's found it amusing the keep ducks in the lake, but AMC's trying to be a little more conservation-minded these days. It's easy to see the long ridge leading to the summit of Lafayette, and even the trail through the trees (right). Squinting, you can just make out the cliffs below the summit, which are all one really sees on the ascent.
We headed inside, claimed bunks, grabbed water, and ate lunch while our socks dried out. Then we dropped what gear we could and booked it for the summit, with the hopes of bagging Lincoln as well and still being back for dinner at 1800.
Once we broke out above treeline the wind really caught us, and eventually we reached the ice.
Fortunately there was always a clear footing.
We passed a girl descending, wearing a hot pink skirt, chaps, and listening to an iPod. As she was not unattractive, we wondered if she were staying at the hut.
Finally we hit the summit. I stood around taking pictures at pretty much every angle I could.
To the left (with the exposed cliff) is Garfield, the ridge beyond is the Twins and the Bonds (further right), with Galehead in front. Behind the Twins are, of course, the Presidentials, with Washington sticking up prominently.
At this point the battery in Erik's camera died, so we switched to mine and got a nice shot of the ridgeline to Lincoln.
And, someone happened along and was kind enough to do the honours for the obligatory summit shot.
Four!
Based on my calculations, we had just barely enough time to make it to Lincoln and back for supper, so we hydrated up, dropped packs, and started trotting down the ridge. We passed a couple of older women who were coming up from Liberty Spring and were mentally unprepared for the high winds on the ridge. They also seemed a little physically underprepared for the exertion. We wished them luck, said we'd see them at the hut for dinner, and continued on, far more slowly than I had figured.
I'm not sure what kept slowing us--maybe it was simply the wind, maybe I had underestimated the difficulty of the footing. But we were jogging without packs, and moving much slower than I had figured on with packs. The north face of Lincoln was also ridden with false summits, so we would repeatedly pull over what we thought was the last rock, only to find another climb in front of us. Finally, we decided we had pushed it too far, and turned around.
We paused for a moment on the way back to take a panorama stretching across Lafayette from Greenleaf, our home for the night, to Galehead, target for the next day.
On the far left, Greenleaf Hut perches on the long ridge from Lafayette. All the way to the right, Galehead Mountain sits in front of the ridge of the Twins and Bonds (a fair bit shorter). Follow the left shoulder of Galehead down, and right at the low point is a grey blur--Galehead Hut.
On the way back up Lafayette, we passed the two women we had talked to before...they were definitely having a hard time of it, and we promised to hold a bowl of soup for them.
Resummiting Lafayette and heading back down went without incident, although we kept looking over our shoulders for the people behind us. Finally, we saw a single person coming down the slope. Fearing that the other had fallen, I dropped my extra clothes on Erik and sent him up, while I headed down to the hut to get help if necessary. It only took about ten minutes for Erik to catch back up with me, along with the person who had been coming down. He belonged to a different group, who was coming along the ridge from Galehead. He let himself get ahead of the rest of his group and we'd gotten confused, since all we could see was "somebody in blue."
Eventually we saw the rest of his party emerge from behind the cliffs, then the two we had been worried about. So we booked it back to the hut and got in about ten minutes before dinner, which unfortunately was not enough time for me to change into my glasses.
Dinner started off with a lentil-walnut soup and fresh-baked (of course) raisin bread. The person we had met on the trail (who was on his first hiking trip with a number of experienced buddies, as it turned out) was vegetarian, so the whole meal was veggie--no objections from me! The servers introduced themselves before bringing out the soup, and the rest of the croo got introduced somewhere in there, so, Greenleaf croo 13 October:
The Greenleaf naturalist was out; I believe stolen by Lonesome Lake hut for the weekend, so there was no lecture up for the evening. Emma suggested Twister...but I get ahead of myself.
Main dish was a veggie lasagne, which might have been vegan as I heard mention of tofu cheese. At any rate, it was excellent, and paired with a similarly masterful corn succotash (or at least that's how I'd describe it...."corn and stuff"). 'Twas amusing to what extent we were instructed on what "family style" meant and how arduous it was to pack out served, but uneaten food; I guess some people come in expecting to be waited on hand and foot. We were just happy to not deal with alcohol and cat food cans.
The rest of the Experienced Hikers Who Let The Newbie Go Ahead arrived during lasagne; and the two we were worried about came in at the tail end of dinner. We all cleaned our plates, so we got to have dessert: gingerbread with a tiny snowman on top for garnish. Cute. Final dinner count was 14, of the 21 people with reservations. Sort of a shame, because you could not have asked for a better day in mid-October: crystal-clear with plenty of sunshine. Guess some people made it to the snow and decided it was not for them.
After dinner, despite Emma's Twister suggestion (as a "way to stay warm"), Erik and I pored over the Guide to try and figure where we went wrong on timing. Finally we just cranked all my estimates up by about 75% and went from there. If we left smack at 8, went hard all day, and didn't stop for any significant amount of time to eat, we could have summited Lincoln and made it to Galehead on the dot of 6. We decided this was not a good idea.
The crew of five who'd come from Galehead dug into their 50-60 pound (!) packs and pulled out a box of port, a box of cab, and several mini-bottles of hard liquor. We passed, but it was apparent their packweight hadn't helped much on the trek over (which, they informed us, was also very icy, and they were doing in the difficult direction, with 4000'+ of elevation gain).
I noticed at some point the menu board was changed from "Dinner is..." to "Dinner was delicious! Breakfast is at 7...I wonder what it will be?" For some reason that struck me as quite cute. There was a little bit of a summer camp/overplayed/semi-patronizing tone to the whole experience...I think the end goal was going for general homeyness.
The dining room (official name)/common room (what I thought of it as) looked straight back into the kitchen, where the croo hung out. Although they didn't mingle much, that at least let us feel slightly a part of their "home." Emma had a rocker back there where she'd sit and knit...classic homey scene.
We tried to talk people outside for a spot of stargazing, but nobody was terribly interested (temperature being around 20 degrees with 20MPH winds, gusting to something like 40), so we stood out and looked at the Milky Way for awhile. After lights-out at 9:30, it was relatively easy to see M31. That was the saddest part of people wimping out, as it's very rare one gets the chance to see it with the naked eye.
They locked down the wind turbine (I forget which croomember said "It's not really a wind generator, since it doesn't generate wind") at lights-out, making it suddenly a LOT quieter. A few more minutes and we turned in, stealing extra blankets from unoccupied bunks.
Erik went and dropped his camera, breaking it. I schlepped my heavy, sucky, battery-chewing piece along, but we stopped in Manchester to pick up a replacement (basically a few models later of Erik's). The idea was we had the SD cards and a charged battery from his old camera, so we should be set. The clerk at Staples had to turn everything into a massive story, and we had some language barrier (or cruddy equipment barrier) issues at Dunkie's, so we lost nearly an hour in Manchester.
Then, of course, we discovered that part of the failure of Erik's camera was draining the battery, so we were left the battery that came with the new camera--and whatever charge it came from the factory with. Ooops.
We rolled into the tramway parking lot about the same time as two busloads of retirees. We gawked at the tourists gawking and decided we wanted out ASAP. I popped in my contacts and Erik decided to rearrange his pack...he had packed a tiny daypack and didn't have enough space for the food I brought. While he did that I called AMC to ask about electricity in the huts, to see if we could charge the camera. I wound up connected through to the shop guy who said "Of course there's 110V if you turn on the inverter...uh, wait, who are you?" "A guest." Much awkwardness involving me explaining that I didn't want to tap out their limited resources, just checking. It's actually rather amazing, because from a hiker's point of view the huts are flat-out luxury, but they actually have very limited resources. There's one helicopter supply drop in the spring and one pick-up in the fall, and the rest is on the backs of the croo (with a little help from propane, wind, and sun). Only came to realize this over the course of the weekend, and much more in the huts blog, so I can get back to narrative, where Erik repacked it all and we're pretty much ready to go.
Behind me is the ridge we started climbing; behind and to its right is the arm of Lafayette.
We marched on over beneath 93 and located the Greenleaf trailhead, which is kinda hidden in a ditch now. First stream crossing, two feet in. The trail was pretty wet and climbs rather sharply at first. We had a steadily-ascending view of Franconia Notch all the way up. Very little climbing brought us to views of Profile Lake through the trees.
This far north, the leaves were pretty much gone, but there was still some colour at higher elevations. A steady upward and onward brought gradual change to the vegetation, and we peeked out to see what was in store for pretty much the rest of the weekend.
About two hours up from the valley floor we came out into Eagle Pass, where we put our feet up and gorped for a minute. The sun was pleasant but the wind picked up a bit.
We dropped into a shallow col as the trail lead from the ridge we climbed to the arm of Lafayette that hosts Greenleaf Hut. We were cut off from Franconia now and the air chilled as we ascended into a postcard.
(I'm amused by how green-screen that shot looks.) The bits of red you can see above my head are mountain ash berries--every few years all the ash "mast", or produce a much larger crop than usual. We saw the berries everywhere, on otherwise bare trees and dropped all over the trail.
Slogging up the muddy trail, being hit by the occasional load of dropping snow, we started to hear voices. Then the trail levelled and we saw the spur over to Sunset Rocks, so we dropped pack and scrambled over.
The distant mountains are over in the Green Mountains of Vermont, including Camel's Hump, over 60 miles away. We later found that visibility for the day was about 100 miles. Looking southwest, we were seeing mountains that could only have been the 'Dacks.
Five minutes later we were at the hut. I snapped a quick picture down to Eagle Lake, gradually returning to its natural boggy state.
The croo in the 50's found it amusing the keep ducks in the lake, but AMC's trying to be a little more conservation-minded these days. It's easy to see the long ridge leading to the summit of Lafayette, and even the trail through the trees (right). Squinting, you can just make out the cliffs below the summit, which are all one really sees on the ascent.
We headed inside, claimed bunks, grabbed water, and ate lunch while our socks dried out. Then we dropped what gear we could and booked it for the summit, with the hopes of bagging Lincoln as well and still being back for dinner at 1800.
Once we broke out above treeline the wind really caught us, and eventually we reached the ice.
Fortunately there was always a clear footing.
We passed a girl descending, wearing a hot pink skirt, chaps, and listening to an iPod. As she was not unattractive, we wondered if she were staying at the hut.
Finally we hit the summit. I stood around taking pictures at pretty much every angle I could.
To the left (with the exposed cliff) is Garfield, the ridge beyond is the Twins and the Bonds (further right), with Galehead in front. Behind the Twins are, of course, the Presidentials, with Washington sticking up prominently.
At this point the battery in Erik's camera died, so we switched to mine and got a nice shot of the ridgeline to Lincoln.
And, someone happened along and was kind enough to do the honours for the obligatory summit shot.
Four!
Based on my calculations, we had just barely enough time to make it to Lincoln and back for supper, so we hydrated up, dropped packs, and started trotting down the ridge. We passed a couple of older women who were coming up from Liberty Spring and were mentally unprepared for the high winds on the ridge. They also seemed a little physically underprepared for the exertion. We wished them luck, said we'd see them at the hut for dinner, and continued on, far more slowly than I had figured.
I'm not sure what kept slowing us--maybe it was simply the wind, maybe I had underestimated the difficulty of the footing. But we were jogging without packs, and moving much slower than I had figured on with packs. The north face of Lincoln was also ridden with false summits, so we would repeatedly pull over what we thought was the last rock, only to find another climb in front of us. Finally, we decided we had pushed it too far, and turned around.
We paused for a moment on the way back to take a panorama stretching across Lafayette from Greenleaf, our home for the night, to Galehead, target for the next day.
On the far left, Greenleaf Hut perches on the long ridge from Lafayette. All the way to the right, Galehead Mountain sits in front of the ridge of the Twins and Bonds (a fair bit shorter). Follow the left shoulder of Galehead down, and right at the low point is a grey blur--Galehead Hut.
On the way back up Lafayette, we passed the two women we had talked to before...they were definitely having a hard time of it, and we promised to hold a bowl of soup for them.
Resummiting Lafayette and heading back down went without incident, although we kept looking over our shoulders for the people behind us. Finally, we saw a single person coming down the slope. Fearing that the other had fallen, I dropped my extra clothes on Erik and sent him up, while I headed down to the hut to get help if necessary. It only took about ten minutes for Erik to catch back up with me, along with the person who had been coming down. He belonged to a different group, who was coming along the ridge from Galehead. He let himself get ahead of the rest of his group and we'd gotten confused, since all we could see was "somebody in blue."
Eventually we saw the rest of his party emerge from behind the cliffs, then the two we had been worried about. So we booked it back to the hut and got in about ten minutes before dinner, which unfortunately was not enough time for me to change into my glasses.
Dinner started off with a lentil-walnut soup and fresh-baked (of course) raisin bread. The person we had met on the trail (who was on his first hiking trip with a number of experienced buddies, as it turned out) was vegetarian, so the whole meal was veggie--no objections from me! The servers introduced themselves before bringing out the soup, and the rest of the croo got introduced somewhere in there, so, Greenleaf croo 13 October:
- Bennie, Hutmaster
- Adam, Assistant Hutmaster, cook, dishwasher
Luke wasn't mentioned; now that I know, I hope he wasn't having further medical problems. - Eric, field supervisor for the huts, who was coming through supervising prep for closing. He'd spent the previous night at Galehead, hiked down the Gale River trail, then drove over and up Greenleaf, so we asked him about the crossings on the Gale River. Said they were fine.
- Emma, whom we'd seen coming down Lafayette. Suddenly the iPod made sense; had I been living up there for several months I probably would be carrying music while hiking, too.
The Greenleaf naturalist was out; I believe stolen by Lonesome Lake hut for the weekend, so there was no lecture up for the evening. Emma suggested Twister...but I get ahead of myself.
Main dish was a veggie lasagne, which might have been vegan as I heard mention of tofu cheese. At any rate, it was excellent, and paired with a similarly masterful corn succotash (or at least that's how I'd describe it...."corn and stuff"). 'Twas amusing to what extent we were instructed on what "family style" meant and how arduous it was to pack out served, but uneaten food; I guess some people come in expecting to be waited on hand and foot. We were just happy to not deal with alcohol and cat food cans.
The rest of the Experienced Hikers Who Let The Newbie Go Ahead arrived during lasagne; and the two we were worried about came in at the tail end of dinner. We all cleaned our plates, so we got to have dessert: gingerbread with a tiny snowman on top for garnish. Cute. Final dinner count was 14, of the 21 people with reservations. Sort of a shame, because you could not have asked for a better day in mid-October: crystal-clear with plenty of sunshine. Guess some people made it to the snow and decided it was not for them.
After dinner, despite Emma's Twister suggestion (as a "way to stay warm"), Erik and I pored over the Guide to try and figure where we went wrong on timing. Finally we just cranked all my estimates up by about 75% and went from there. If we left smack at 8, went hard all day, and didn't stop for any significant amount of time to eat, we could have summited Lincoln and made it to Galehead on the dot of 6. We decided this was not a good idea.
The crew of five who'd come from Galehead dug into their 50-60 pound (!) packs and pulled out a box of port, a box of cab, and several mini-bottles of hard liquor. We passed, but it was apparent their packweight hadn't helped much on the trek over (which, they informed us, was also very icy, and they were doing in the difficult direction, with 4000'+ of elevation gain).
I noticed at some point the menu board was changed from "Dinner is..." to "Dinner was delicious! Breakfast is at 7...I wonder what it will be?" For some reason that struck me as quite cute. There was a little bit of a summer camp/overplayed/semi-patronizing tone to the whole experience...I think the end goal was going for general homeyness.
The dining room (official name)/common room (what I thought of it as) looked straight back into the kitchen, where the croo hung out. Although they didn't mingle much, that at least let us feel slightly a part of their "home." Emma had a rocker back there where she'd sit and knit...classic homey scene.
We tried to talk people outside for a spot of stargazing, but nobody was terribly interested (temperature being around 20 degrees with 20MPH winds, gusting to something like 40), so we stood out and looked at the Milky Way for awhile. After lights-out at 9:30, it was relatively easy to see M31. That was the saddest part of people wimping out, as it's very rare one gets the chance to see it with the naked eye.
They locked down the wind turbine (I forget which croomember said "It's not really a wind generator, since it doesn't generate wind") at lights-out, making it suddenly a LOT quieter. A few more minutes and we turned in, stealing extra blankets from unoccupied bunks.