Galehead Mountain (6/48)
Oct. 15th, 2006 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jtniehofThis night was a fair bit warmer than the last...probably partly because of the full crowd in the bunkhouse. I slept straight through to reveille.
Cricket sang us awake, unaccompanied. Her voice was unbelievably gorgeous, and more than one guest commented that they could stand to hear her as an alarm clock every morning. Can't say as I'd disagree.
We stumbled out for breakfast, again very crowded due to the full hut. Sadly the red liquid in pitchers on the table was not cranberry juice, but Kool Aid (flavour: red). Beyond that, we had oatmeal, pancakes, and bacon. The pancakes were of the white flour (or perhaps Bisquick) variety, and since we were sitting at the end of the table the plate didn't have much left each time it got down to us. As a result, we underate a bit.
At our end was a friendly couple whom we talked with for awhile. She was a little less experienced in hiking but seemed fairly happy to be dragged up by her SO. Both seemed a little in awe of our hike the day before. She mentioned overheating; I pointed out that her pockets could ventilate. Guess we've learned a little bit over time.
Maia gave us the weather over breakfast; she was almost cringing. I swear she was afraid we'd throw rotten vegetables at her. This was followed up by another croo skit on blanket folding. Setting this time was a slumber party discussing (I cringe) the Tom and Katie wedding...with fun like "For this special night, Tom folded the blankets a special way." This included Ben in drag. We had folded the blankets once lengthwide, twice widthwise...but since we'd stayed the last night of the season, they wanted once lengthwise only. So we had to go and unfold blankets.
The snow had left only a light dusting, so we figured we could easily bag Galehead before heading back down. Our miscalculations of the previous couple of days made us fear it would take quite awhile, but not enough to put us off schedule for the shuttle. So we bid farewell to the croo, left our packs, and headed up the Frost Trail.
Left to right: Cricket (sadly duckless), Maia, Eliza, Ben (antlerless).
The Frost trail had a bit of ice and was a little rocky, but mostly pretty easy going and a steady climb. Just below the summit was an overlook roughly southeast towards the Bonds.
Looking below one's feet from the outlook.
The treed-in summit was maybe twenty minutes total from the hut (including outlook time), and we had a lovely view of the moon.
The summit itself, however, was a little less impressive (6!)
The cairn is by my right hand.
Grabbing packs, we started back down the Garfield Ridge Trail. We shortly reached the junction with the Gale River Trail. By this point we were already ravenous so we sat for some gorp. Another, older couple from the hut passed us and asked why we were hungry already. As they went past, I overheard them commenting on the excellence of Maia's talk the night before...so it wasn't just my biased opinion.
We soon passed them back up, and it didn't take long to clear the rugged, rocky section of the trail and move into the Gale River valley proper. We warmed up from the activity, the day warmed up, and we lost elevation all at the same time. In addition to the warmth, we passed below the evergreen line and into some trees with some colour left. There were plenty of leaves on the trail, too.
After a nice brisk walk in the woods, I got a little ahead of Erik, dropped back, put feet up, and pulled out a bar. He caught up with me and relaxed as well...at which point the couple we had repassed earlier passed us again, and made cracks about our food needs. From here on we headed out, crossed the river a few more times (including the last crossing that used to be bridged), and reached the trailhead.
We sat to wait for the shuttle (coming two hours later) and started in on lunch. The clouds started to drip and I thought about trying to rig a poncho as a tarp. At this point our friends from breakfast headed out and offered a lift back to Erik's car. We gratefully accepted and called AMC to let the shuttle driver know.
This trip was very hard to return from; we took several days to readjust to civilization. We had three excellent days out with beautiful weather, good food and comfortable sleep, and just enough human companionship to keep from getting lonely.
We stumbled out for breakfast, again very crowded due to the full hut. Sadly the red liquid in pitchers on the table was not cranberry juice, but Kool Aid (flavour: red). Beyond that, we had oatmeal, pancakes, and bacon. The pancakes were of the white flour (or perhaps Bisquick) variety, and since we were sitting at the end of the table the plate didn't have much left each time it got down to us. As a result, we underate a bit.
At our end was a friendly couple whom we talked with for awhile. She was a little less experienced in hiking but seemed fairly happy to be dragged up by her SO. Both seemed a little in awe of our hike the day before. She mentioned overheating; I pointed out that her pockets could ventilate. Guess we've learned a little bit over time.
Maia gave us the weather over breakfast; she was almost cringing. I swear she was afraid we'd throw rotten vegetables at her. This was followed up by another croo skit on blanket folding. Setting this time was a slumber party discussing (I cringe) the Tom and Katie wedding...with fun like "For this special night, Tom folded the blankets a special way." This included Ben in drag. We had folded the blankets once lengthwide, twice widthwise...but since we'd stayed the last night of the season, they wanted once lengthwise only. So we had to go and unfold blankets.
The snow had left only a light dusting, so we figured we could easily bag Galehead before heading back down. Our miscalculations of the previous couple of days made us fear it would take quite awhile, but not enough to put us off schedule for the shuttle. So we bid farewell to the croo, left our packs, and headed up the Frost Trail.
Left to right: Cricket (sadly duckless), Maia, Eliza, Ben (antlerless).
The Frost trail had a bit of ice and was a little rocky, but mostly pretty easy going and a steady climb. Just below the summit was an overlook roughly southeast towards the Bonds.
Looking below one's feet from the outlook.
The treed-in summit was maybe twenty minutes total from the hut (including outlook time), and we had a lovely view of the moon.
The summit itself, however, was a little less impressive (6!)
The cairn is by my right hand.
Grabbing packs, we started back down the Garfield Ridge Trail. We shortly reached the junction with the Gale River Trail. By this point we were already ravenous so we sat for some gorp. Another, older couple from the hut passed us and asked why we were hungry already. As they went past, I overheard them commenting on the excellence of Maia's talk the night before...so it wasn't just my biased opinion.
We soon passed them back up, and it didn't take long to clear the rugged, rocky section of the trail and move into the Gale River valley proper. We warmed up from the activity, the day warmed up, and we lost elevation all at the same time. In addition to the warmth, we passed below the evergreen line and into some trees with some colour left. There were plenty of leaves on the trail, too.
After a nice brisk walk in the woods, I got a little ahead of Erik, dropped back, put feet up, and pulled out a bar. He caught up with me and relaxed as well...at which point the couple we had repassed earlier passed us again, and made cracks about our food needs. From here on we headed out, crossed the river a few more times (including the last crossing that used to be bridged), and reached the trailhead.
We sat to wait for the shuttle (coming two hours later) and started in on lunch. The clouds started to drip and I thought about trying to rig a poncho as a tarp. At this point our friends from breakfast headed out and offered a lift back to Erik's car. We gratefully accepted and called AMC to let the shuttle driver know.
This trip was very hard to return from; we took several days to readjust to civilization. We had three excellent days out with beautiful weather, good food and comfortable sleep, and just enough human companionship to keep from getting lonely.