This was #48 that I've soloed - I don't think I've processed that yet, probably tomorrow when I recover a bit from the hike. It was no joke, but also I enjoyed it a lot, except the last mile up, which was so hard! I was considering staying up in NH the night before, but my friend who has a place had "adult" guests, and all the hotels and such were about $200 for the night, so I decided I would do it as a day trip. I really wanted to go on this day, though, because weather was predicted to be good, with good views, low winds and no rain. So, when I woke up to pee at 5:15, I was ready! (ish, I left at 5:45 and was driving on auto pilot - I forgot to turn on rt 95, but fortunately you can take 495 instead. Oooops). Anyhow, I got to the mountain and was ready to go at 9:09, which I thought was pretty good!
Tuckerman's Ravine is 4.1 miles, 2 miles that's consistent uphill to the Hermit Lake Shelter. The trail is wide, rocky and uphill, but very doable here. I knew that this part was "the easy part" and I hauled myself up as fast as I could (for me) because the sun is going down around 7:30 these days, and I didn't want to have to worry about light. It was a good walk, I was really glad I did parkour since it really helped me on the rocks, and before I knew it I was at the shelter. I looked at it, went "nice" and kept going because I decided I wanted to stop and eat something at Lunch Rocks. I had hiked up almost to lunch rocks once before in the spring to watch the skiers, but that day was cloudy and I couldn't really see where I was. I did remember that after the shelter there was more significant elevation gain, and that lunch rocks was a bit away. It started to seem like a ton of elevation gain, and a lot of distance, and I realized I was really hungry. By that time it was almost 11, and all I had had to eat was oatmeal at like 6:30 am, so really no surprise. Anyhow, I pushed myself to make it to lunch rocks, and was so glad I did! It was so nice there, with a waterfall and pretty little mossy glades.
I sat for like 15 minutes and ate a cheese sandwich and peanut butter bar and enjoyed the view and the vibe. I had been debating if I should bring a cheese sandwich because there's a restaurant up top, but in the end I decided it wasn't that heavy, and I thanked prior me for packing it. It was delicious, and I really needed it. The hardest part of the hike came after lunch - there was about 1.7 miles - first up the headwall and then the dome of the mountain. I actually didn't think the headwall was that hard. Which fooled me into thinking the dome wouldn't be either. Wrong! The dome was brutal, and I wound up playing the 50 steps game, where you take 50 steps and stop and look around, check out the view, think about how far you've come since the last 50 steps, and maybe wonder why you are there. And then you take another 50 steps, and do it again. Sometimes I did 100 steps before stopping. And it seemed to take forever to do the last .8 mile. That was definitely the slowest part.
As I knew would happen, the top is pavement; there's a line to take a photo at the summit, that was really long. I didn't need a photo, though, so I just snuck in between two people taking pictures, tapped the summit marker, and called it a day. I was so pooped, I didn't even know were to sit, so I tried a couple places, before deciding I needed salt, and going into the restaurant. They had some pretty delicious looking pizza, but I was pretty sure that if I ate it I would puke, so I settled for doritos, potato chips, diet coke, and this disgusting looking prepackaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich (all thinks that I would normally never eat). I went outside away from the crowds, ate all the chips and drank most of the diet coke, and between the salt and the syrup, I felt better and ready to head down!
It was a really nice day at the top! No wind, the clouds were really high up, so you didn't need to worry about sunscreen but there was a good view, and no rain. You could see really far - above is Lake of the Clouds and the Crawford Path, and I sat and thought about how I'd hiked all of that. I took Lion's Head down, which initially was on the same trail as Tuckerman's. It was slow going down, but much faster than up, that's for sure (thank's parkour!) I made sure to be supportive and encouraging to people hiking up who looked tired, because that does help me. Once I got on the Lion's head trail, it was pretty fun - I enjoyed the rocky path for the most part. The only part that wasn't fun was that there were these three really loud people behind me who were playing this bad music on tinny speakers. They were so annoying I finally decided to stop and let them pass. I rested for about 10 minutes, which was nice, actually.
There was a really nice ridgeline on Lion's Head that was rocky and so fun, perhaps my favorite part of the hike. At the end of the ridgeline was a really great view of Hermit Lake and the shelter there, it was right below us, but really far down, which gave you a sense of the descent. There was a mile or so that was just downhill all the way. Pretty steep. I was glad I hadn't gone up it. And again I was glad for parkour. The crazy thing was I passed people on the way down, and I actually lead a group of guys who were fine not passing me!! Crazy! It did seem to take a long time before we got to the trail junction with Tuckerman's Ravine trail. From there it was just a long, consistent downhill. I practiced using my parkour skills and going from rock to rock, and was really happy with how I did. My legs were killing me and I kind of needed to pee. I stopped on a bridge to eat a little bit of chocolate I had brought and look at my map. But otherwise, I kind of moved pretty fast to get out. I finished around 6, walked to my car which was in a second lot about 3 minutes away, drove back to the Joe Dodge Lodge, and took the best shower before driving home. On the way home I stopped and got a super doughy white bread bagel, cheese and pirates booty and scarfed it down in the car. It was so good! I got home at around 10 and foam rolled, took some advil and went to bed.
I just got new trail runners from la sportiva - the exact same shoes as my old ones, but the old ones the treads had worn off. I was a little nervous about not breaking them in before doing Mt Washington, but I remember the old ones being fine. These were great and I was so glad I had them given all the rocks! There was one spot that was a bit snaggly, and I have a little bruise this morning, but nothing serious. I also got a new water bladder which was less of a success - I'll have to check and see if there's some secret to it - the hose kept popping out at random times. At one point it came out and fell on the trail - if I hadn't seen it that would have been really bad because a water bladder isn't really helpful without a hose to drink from. I was so glad that I brought a sandwich, even though there was food up top - the food was pretty junky and I wouldn't have wanted to rely on it. I brought big puff and was glad I had it - even without any wind, I was cold up top since I had been sweating. I might try Washington again one day, via Huntington. But if I do I don't think it would be solo, and I would need to stay up in NH, to have a full day to hike, and a good night's sleep before.
When you look at my splits, you can see that I walked around for almost 3/4 mile up top! That was kind of silly of me on such a long day. Also, I did pretty well for me. Some of the hours that are on the "slower" side I did have stops to eat. That was a tough one, but good day!
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