Jennings Peak

I was going to do Sandwich Dome, which is 1.1 miles past Jennings Peak, but then on the way up I realized that the best view was from Jennings Peak and so there was no real reason to go all the way to Sandwich Dome. So, I didn't, and I was so glad I made that choice! Sandwich Dome is like 3992 feet - it it was 8 or 10 feet taller, the trail would be mobbed. As it was, I saw about 15 people all day.

Jennings Peak (and maybe Sandwich Dome) is definitely on my list of go-to hikes for the future. It was a super nice hike, some slabby parts, some really pretty woods, nothing too strenuous on the uphill - though the uphill part was all uphill without much break, and no crowds. It's a circle hike, which I did counter clockwise, and the way down was super steep at first, but then a really gradual and relaxing walk next to a pretty stream. 

I left home a little late, around 7:30, but it's only an hour and 45 minutes to get there. I had a new book to listen to, the trees are starting to change color so it's really nice out, and so the ride up flew by. I got to the trailhead and started out at 9:45. I thought I had started the GPS, but apparently I hadn't. I stopped after about an hour to see where I was (I was a little annoyed with myself for looking because I knew I had a ways to go, but then I was like "see me, good thing I looked"). Anyhow, I magically start my hike half way up the trail according to alltrails, but in real life I walked up there. 

It only took like 2 hours of walking to get to the top of Jennings - it's like 3.8 miles, so that seems reasonable. I stopped at a viewpoint and ate some grapes. At the top there was a nice dog, and 4 people, of course - until that point I had only seen 3 other people. While I was up there, 4 more people came along. It's always crowded at the summit. I had a bagel with cheese sandwich, an apple, and some pistachios. And then I took some pictures before heading down.

My feet were killing me on the way down. I spent a lot of time thinking about why my feet and legs hurt so much. In part I think because in parkour yesterday we did an endurance exercise where we alternated 5 squats on a rail with butt kickers one way across the basketball court (the short way, thankfully) and jogging back, for 10 minutes. Ouch. When I was almost back there was a stream crossing and my feet were killing me, so I took off my shoes to walk across it - so cold. And then I took my inserts out of the shoes, which helped. I think I need new orthotics

Anyhow, I got down and changed in the parking lot (couldn't do that at a 4000 footer) and then got in the car to go home. On the way back there was so much traffic, it took me forever (well, maybe 2 and a half hours). Fortunately I still had enough juice in my phone so I could listen to my book. At the rest stop where I used to get a hamburger I got a PB&J. I have to admit the bread was both stale and mushy, but it still tasted delicious! I got home and my legs were killing me so badly I took a hot bath and foam rolled. We'll see if it helps.

Definitely a hike I would do again. Not as superb as Welch-Dickey, but it can be a little more rigorous, and it's so much more peaceful. It wasn't the hardest hike for sure, though maybe giving that my last two hikes have been Washington and Isolation, I shouldn't judge. Good bang for the buck. Two thumbs up.

Rendezvous

This weekend was my first parkour rendezvous. It was exhausting, challenging and a great time! Usually rendezvous allows coaches and practitioners from around the world to get together and train. Of course, with COVID, there were only people from the US this year, so I guess it was smaller than normal; it seemed like a lot of people to me. The event was 3 days, Friday - Sunday. I only did Saturday and Sunday, and I'm glad I did, because I'm completely exhausted and my feet are killing me! They split us up into ability groups - 1-6 yesterday and 1-5 today - I was in group 2 both days. Each group was in a different area for each session. Some of the areas were a mile apart, and so of course we walked. It was a lot of walking! According to mapmyrun I walked about 6 miles yesterday, and 4 miles today, but all of that was on city streets in shoes that aren't really padded at all. Note to self if I'm reading this before planning my next rendezvous - wear better shoes. Of course, the real exercise was parkour, not all the walking!

There were like 5 sessions Saturday and 4 Sunday. We started Saturday with my least favorite, cat hangs and wall runs, which are hard for me to do because of my toes. I am making some progress on them - if I get my foot up high enough I can bounce off the walls OK. And sometimes I can hang on things. Anyhow, it was definitely my least favorite session of the weekend, glad to do it first. Then, we went to this sort of movement-based session that was kind of about falling right and kind of about the things you do between moves, or how to move your body when you are off balance. We did a lot of falling, and falling in different directions. We had a "murder party" where we mock stabbed each other and when you were stabbed you had to fall down, so the way you fell was less controlled by you. My favorite thing that we did from that session was a reverse gate vault, where you fell backwards off something, reached for the ground with your hand, scissored your legs, and brought them to the ground with control. It's a good core exercise and it just looks cool. Then we went back to the armory, which was the headquarters for the day, for lunch. I had brought sour dough bread and cheese sandwich and a whole avocado, and I was so hungry that I ate the entire avocado. And, I had some pistachios, and I ate so many of them. And then someone bought chips, and I ate a bunch of them.... 

After lunch we got to choose a section, and I was thinking about capture the flag, since I used to like it so much at summer camp, but it sounded like it was going to be a ton of running and chaos. So, I went to this circle talk where we shared about what parkour means to us, and how we manage our anxiety within it. It was really great because there were 20 of us, and 18 were guys. I definitely get in my head a lot about parkour (and Life), and sometimes I think it's just me, but it was cool to see that all these dudes had a softer side, and they had angst too. One guy said that he also envisions the worst, with him falling and breaking his spine and then there's the wheelchair, etc, and he divides his worries into rational and irrational, and asks himself more about the irrational. And some of the really good folks said they really worked up to challenges, and sometimes they couldn't do them, and had to come back and try again. So, it's not just me. 

Next, we did balance work, and practiced walking on these new rails at the high school. Which was fun. I could do about 6 steps before I started thinking, and fell. But I was pretty in control for that bit that I did. We also challenged our balance by going to this high point and looking over a wall - I was the only one in the group who could stand on the wall! Yay! This one woman even said "I got vertigo just looking at you." And then we made routes in this playground, and I did one that was really fun jumping back and fourth from a bench to the side of a sandbox. After, we went back to the armory for micro challenges, and we did one in the armory, but it was so crowded we wound up going to this playground that we hadn't been to that was super fun! We did this one challenge where you tried to get across these logs with your eyes closed that was hard, but I did get it the easier way. And we did this thing where we tried to go under as many logs as possible, that was harder than it looked. We finished at the armory, with an exercise where we had to compliment 5 people, and this like 20 year-old kid said he liked what I said at the circle thing :). And then we sat in groups and talked about our day, stretched, did some yoga, and then I walked home and was exhausted.

Today, one of my friends picked me up, because we weren't right around here, we were at another series of parks. We decided to park at the end point, which we were super glad we did at the end of the day when we were exhausted. We started with a warmup that was prep for a zombie apocalypse. The instructor was so funny - as we were starting like 5 hot guys with no shirts on came running by and she was like "clear the way everyone so they can get by!" Then she yelled at them "we'll catch up to you later. I'll bring you some shirts!" We did a little chasing each other. Then we broke up into groups. Our first activity was a little parkour vocab combined with doing activities by the mall - there was this wooden bench there that I really liked because the back of the bench was super easy to balance on, and I did my first parkour glides there. It was really fun because it was basically "do some stuff and tell us what it was." 

Then, we went under the bridge and jumped on some rocks. The exercise was to find a jump and do it in 4 different ways - first from 2 feet to 2 feet, then striding off the right foot, then off the left foot, then plio jump, which for me was the hard one. But, I did wind up getting a few jumps in the end that I initially couldn't do, which was exciting! Then lunch, which we went all the way back to the mall for - I kind of wanted to whine about it, because it meant like an extra mile of walking and my feet were killing me, but I sucked it up and went. 

Because yesterday's lunch was so good, I brought more of the same, except this time I also brought clementines and a banana. Then we had to walk 22 minutes back to the park, where we did coordination and reflex activities. The first one was really cool - one person held a stick between their hands and you held your hand over it. They would suddenly drop it, and you tried to catch it before it hit the ground. It was cool because at first I was just moving my hand over it, but then I realized that it was going to go down at the same speed, so I just had to move faster, and figure out the swoop. I caught it a couple times, which was really awesome.

The last activity we did was a storming the castle kind of thing where we had a bunch of challenges to complete. The first was you had to join with one other person and hop up this flight of stairs 10 times, which was exhausting. Then, you had to join to a group of 4 and all jump over something together 3 times. Then, you became a group of 6, and had to carry a squirming coach across the park, which is much harder than it sounds. Then, as a group of 8 you had to qm backwards across the park in a straight line. Then, as a group of 10, you had to get up the handicapped ramp using only the rail, and you had to always be in contact with the person next to you - either holding hands or touching their back or something. Then, as a group of 12 you had to balance on this stone bench and sing a silly song (and I hope no one had covid because we were waaay too close), then as a group of 14 you had to do 3 steps to get between 2 benches - which I didn't get to do because another group won. I was OK with not doing the last challenge because no one wants to be the one who brings it all down. And I wasn't sure I could do it.

Then we gave eachother massages, stretched, and chilled, and the event was over. And, we went for ice cream :) It was a really fun way to spend the weekend! I'm so glad that it's a long weekend because tomorrow my plan is to lie on the couch and read a book and maybe do laundry. I'm beat!

I Ran!

OK, it was only 1.87 miles, but I realized that my new fitbit would keep really good track of pace and distance for me, and I wanted to check out how it worked, so I had to run to see. And, it's pretty cool! When I was running I could actually look at my fitbit to see my current pace - there were some times when I was actually going below a ten minute mile (all of these occurred on a downhill) and there were some times when I was going like a 14 minute mile (hello big uphill). Most of the time I was in the 10's or 11's somewhere. My average was 11:34, with the first mile at 11:15 and the .87 at 11:56, which doesn't surprise me because there was way more downhill on the first mile, and because I was kind of sucking wind on the second mile. 

It didn't completely suck. Maybe I will try to get into running a little bit again? Like, maybe one time a week, plus the run on Wednesdays? I feel like if I did it just a little more then I might not dread it so much. And, the fitbit maps and graphs are pretty fun.

 

Mt Washington via Tuckerman's Ravine and Lion's Head

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!

Climbed a 5.11!

It wasn't pretty at all, many many falls, and a bit of an assist from the belayer, but I got up a 5.11 today at metro rock! I was pretty psyched!! It was a good day of climbing - I started with a 5.8 that was one of the hardest climbs of the night because it was pretty burley at the top, then moved to a 5.9 which I did clean, then I moved to 5.10's. In total, I did 5 5.10's! 2 clean - 1 on auto belay (it took me several tries, but when I got it, it was super fun, would definitely retry), and 1 that I've done before, and really like. I also did one in the chimney with 1 fall, which is cleaner than the other two times I tried it. One that was really over hung with a billion falls, and a belayer who, when I yelled "take" was like "don't worry, you're safe." Not the brightest bulb in the bunch. I did one other that was pretty overhung, but by that point I had a new belayer who was a woman, and got it on the whole taking thing. 

The 5.11 was on slab - there were some moves that had pretty crappy hand holds, but if you got it just right, you could almost get a grip and move yourself up, until the next fall. Some of the folks in the meet up that I was climbing with were like "the biggest and best hold is near the top" and when I got close, I saw that there was this hold that was literally the size of the tip of my thumb. I was just like "are they kidding?" but it was hung in a way that you were meant to pinch it with your thumb and the wall/corner/arete. In retrospect, kind of cool. Anyhow, there was a degree of arm to the climb, and I felt pretty good about the exercise of it and the whole night. When I got home I ate some bread and cheese, just to make sure I don't lose weight and make it easier to climb.

I'm pretty psyched with how the climbing thing is going, and I love climbing at Metrorock all the time again!

Last week, on Wednesday, we did parkour on the fiedler bridge, which was a longer run to get to, but super fun once we were there. We did some climbing on the sides of the bridge, and then coach was like, just walk on the side of the bridge, and I did! At first, I thought there was no way I could do that, but actually the cement edges were like a foot wide, which you can pretty reliably walk on something that wide without falling because, gravity. So, I made up this little song that went "I'm walking along and it's not scary 'cause I've got gravity on my side." and I sang it over and over again, and actually made it across the entire river!

This weekend we are supposed to have a hurricane on Sunday, so definitely a bad day for Washington. I was thinking about tomorrow, and hurrying back, but it looks like next weekend might actually be nice, so that's the current plan. And, to keep climbing Friday night!

Rock Circuit Trail

After my failed attempt at Washington, I was eager to go up there again and try to get the peak. Today looked like it was going to be good weather, no rain, low winds, a good view - perfect! So, I was thinking I would make a day trip of it. My car, sadly, had other plans. It's tax-free weekend, so of course I went to REI. When I got into my car after shopping (got a new fitbit because it seems I fried my old one with a new charger. Sad. But, it was over 4 years old, and the new ones have so many toys, I was excited to get one) this sensor that's been broken started dinging over and over and over and over. Sometimes it would go maybe 30 seconds without dinging, but sometimes it would just ding repeatedly. There was no way I could drive for 5 hours with it dinging like that. So, I had to let the perfect day go by :(. I've taken the car to be fixed 5 times for this sensor already, no joke, and they can't seem to fix it - I'm taking it to the dealer and just getting a new one tomorrow (sensor, not car). I was just going to leave it broken - it's a tire pressure sensor, which is fun, but I guess I've lived without one for my entire life and don't need it, but the dinging has to stop!

Anyhow, since I couldn't do Washington, I decided to try the entire loop of the Rock Circuit Trail in the Fells instead. Partly I decided to do this because I went to parkour this morning and we had a pretty chill class which we finished up by going for ice cream - I had the most delicious goat cheese and fig flavor - with actual chunks of goat cheese in it! So good! I got a small, but it was not small at all, and I ate the whole thing, so I needed a little exercise.

It was finally a beautiful day - the sun was out, no humidity, about 80, a perfect day for a walk in the woods. I wore my chacos, which may have been a mistake for a 4 mile walk/hike, my feet felt a little raw at the end. And, it was really fun wearing my new fitbit - I have one face that's a bitmoji of me - it changes depending on what I'm doing. It was running while I was exercising, and then it had a banana later. Now it's sleepy. Anyhow, it was a nice walk in the woods, I ran into a few people, but it wasn't too crowded, I was a little warm for a while, but nothing too bad. 

The rest of my staycation wound up being pretty chill, but very nice. There were a few rainy days that I spent on my couch watching the Olympic climbing (so amazing!) and I read a good book. It was hard going back to work, but what can you do? I'm going to be back in person in like 3 weeks, it's so hard to believe! It will be so strange going into work, but I bet soon it will feel strange that I worked from home for a year and a half. I'm going to try working 8:30-4:30 instead of 8-4 to see if I can get an extra half hour of sleep. Wednesdays I will go right to Harvard Square for parkour I think, and maybe I can find a yoga place near Wellesley? I think if it's 3 days a week that I am commuting, it will be different than when it was five, but we'll see...

 

Mt. Washington Fail

My one goal for my staycation was to solo Mt. Washington for #48 of my solo NH 4000 footers. Well, today the mountain won. It was not a good day for hiking Washington, though it was nice out everywhere else it seems. 

My goal was to hike up Tuckerman's Ravine to the top, then down Lion's Head. To make things easier, I stayed at my friend's place up in N. Conway - they've got wifi up there now, it's so on-the-grid. The forecast looked OK - rain overnight, clearing in the morning, sun coming out around 10 or 11. I decided with the rain that I would hike the other side of the mountain, doing the Ammonoosuc Trail up and Jewel down since they are less climbing-like, and I figured that the rocks would still be wet. Which they were, because it rained the whole time I was there!

I got up a little later, around 8:30, made coffee and had my oatmeal that I brought, and hit the road by 9:15. It's a 45 minute drive, and I got to the mountain around 10. It was a beautiful day in N Conway, but as I drove closer, I could see the clouds around Washington. They were thick. It didn't seem like they were going to clear off, but I went with hope, and started off on the hike. One thing that's nice about Washington is that there are real bathrooms at the foot of the trail, so I stopped at the visitor's center to pee before heading out. 

Although it's August 2, I wore long pants, one of my new long sleeve lulu shirts, my rain pants (the egg salad people would be so happy that I learned my lesson from Isolation) and my rain jacket. I was a little warm once I got going, but not too bad. The first mile is pretty chill, and I strolled along in the rain wondering if there really was any chance that the clouds would clear up. After a bit you get to a really pretty little pool with a waterfall going into it, and that's the start of the really uphill bit. I pulled out my hiking polls, and headed up. After about a half hour I ran into a park ranger who said that another front was moving in, and the winds were picking up above tree line, and it might be hypothermia weather up there. Which kind of silly to think of dying of hypothermia in the beginning of August, but it can happen. I started thinking about maybe just going to the hut instead, and tagging Monroe. 

As I hiked, I got warmer, and it kept raining. I was sweating, and so my pants and shirt were getting wet, even though I had rain gear on. As I got higher, the wind started to pick up. I came to a second water fall which was beautiful, and stopped to eat a power bar and my cheese sandwich on sourdough bread. And, I thought about how miserable Isolation had been. And then I was like "fuck it, I'm turning back." Because I didn't think I was going to be able to make it to the top, and I was probably going to have to go down the same trail, and it was steep and slabby and not fun and I didn't want to do another miserable hike like Isolation just because I had started it. So, that's what I did! 

I only wound up hiking for about 3 and a half hours, with a total of about 4 hours on the mountain. I didn't actually make bad time - the slow split in mile three was due to sandwich eating, photographing the waterfall and deciding about going back. I'm glad I made the choice I did. When I got home and looked at the current weather conditions on Washington it said winds were at 44 mph with gusts up to 52, temp was 42 with a wind chill of 30. In wet clothes, that would not have been a good idea. The mountain is always there for me to try again.