Hiking Should be Skipping Through the Woods with a Cigar in One Hand and a Scotch in the Other

After months of cajoling, planning, preparations, new boots, and equipment we finally set off for the White Mountains. This adventure was a group of men…in a manly environment…doing manly things…with men (almost makes you want to break into a Monty Python song).

Last Fall I met my friends James and Dan at the AMC Highland Center for a guy’s adventure while our wives spent the weekend in Boston (you can go back in the Blog Archives to the very first posting which was about that event). It was such a great time that I came back to Woodstock and suggested to Jamie Harrison that we have a men’s retreat at the Center in the late Spring / early Summer. Well, the time is here and so are we!

We met Friday afternoon to carpool and make our way to the mountains. Before heading out we took a few minutes to look through the collection of pictures from previous men’s trips—from almost 20 years ago.

Bruce Lyman and Bob Kirk headed out first in Bruce’s two seater. Bruce needed to head from the mountains to Albany on Sunday and Bob offered to keep him company on the trip up.

We had decided to leave at 2:00 pm from the Church parking lot. Right at 2:00 I received a call from Bob Donahue, “Are we heading out today or tomorrow?”

“Today!”

“Okay…I’m about two minutes away.” This was not to be the last of Bob’s witty quips over the weekend—see the title of this blog.

With Bob on site we only needed to wait for Leslie Sweetnam and his neighbor John Pillo and we’d be on our way. 2:10…2:15…2:20…no sight of them and no answers on Leslie’s home phone or cell phone. Right about 2:25 they pulled into the lot in Leslie’s van. Prior to setting the 2:00 leave time we had talked about 2:30. That seemed to be the time in mind and at 2:30 we were on the road—Leslie and John with Bob, and Jamie and Chris Harrison with me. Charlie Bottieri and Patrick Mumford were heading out from work in Rhode Island and would meet us at the Highland Center.

The bunkroom furnishings are all by LL Bean—donated to the AMC for the Center. We picked out our beds and started to put our gear away. Bruce had the top bunk here and I had the bottom. There was plenty of room for our equipment and to get settled.

We were set to use the Shapleigh Bunk House at the AMC Highland Center. This bunk house has sixteen beds in one room and four in a second. There is a shared seating area with a small kitchenette—sink, refrigerator and some storage space.

Once everything was put away we headed out to the Dining Room in the Lodge for a buffet supper. Charlie and Patrick had yet to arrive, but since it was a buffet that would be served for a few more hours the rest of us dug into a great meal. You can see that the Dining Room is post and beam construction and seats about 100 people. The serving staff seemed to be international with two of the young ladies at registration being from the UK, the maitre de from France, and our waitress at dinner from Thailand.

Following dinner we settled into the Adirondack chairs outside of the Bunk House and Bob gave us and idea of what it means to relax while roughing it in the wild. Leslie had also brought his autoharp so we then shifted to some strumming and plucking. There was even some singing although it was Bob and Leslie who knew most of the words.

Leslie had packed away a banjo for Bob to use and Bruce got his trail map out and pretty soon we were ‘Plucking and Planning’.

Before too long it began to get dark (Charlie and Patrick had shown up by this time, eaten some dinner and came back to join the group) although it stayed fairly light in the overcast skies until some time after 9:00.

Once we realized the visitor wasn’t acting rabid (we hoped) we kept an eye on her, but let her come close—somewhat.

So then it was time to cover ourselves with bug spray and for stories to be told. Of course to also protect ourselves we imbibed some other forms of repellent, aged fruit juice and grain / barley juices. As we sat there eating peanuts with salted shells we soon heard and saw a visitor coming in to eat the shells. She darted in and out among us and tried to get on to the porch of the bunk house looking for any scraps. It was pretty obvious that she had been there before and that seeking handouts was not beneath her.

As the evening got later we decided to move inside and watch a movie. Again, in the spirit of ‘roughing it’ Bob Donahue had brought along his LCD projector, speakers and laptop so we set up to watch the movie Head Office. It was an enjoyable comedy with several stars in their younger years. Not everyone stayed up, but a few die-hard souls did see the whole movie.

Once everyone did get to bed it quickly became obvious that a significant amount of logs would be sawed during the night—some much louder and longer than others. This is one of those times that being deaf in one ear comes in handy…a good ear to the pillow and out like a light.

The plan for the next morning was to get up when you felt ready and head over for breakfast in the Lodge, but in no case would we leave for some hiking any later than 8:30 am (later than what I preferred, but okay). I was awake at a normal for me 5:15 am and likewise Bob Kirk was up. We headed over to the Lodge and were able to get some coffee early since the breakfast line didn’t open until 6:00.

As we looked at the weather reports and talked to the staff it seemed that we would not have many views from the mountain tops if we chose to go up. The photo to the right is looking south from the Lodge through the Crawford Notch. There is a little bit of blue sky there, but not a large amount and the clouds would quickly close in. I continued to point out that a 40% chance of showers also meant a 60% chance of clear…and possibly some views through the clouds. Bob said that, “while I like your thoughts, I think you are over-optimistic.” Regardless, we were going to do some hiking.

Everyone was up and fed by 8:00 and we gathered for a photo of the expedition party before we headed out on our Adventure.

Back Row l – r: D. Swenson, P. Mumford, R. Cloutier, B. Lyman, C. Bottieri, J. Harrison

Front Row: C. Harrison, B. Kirk, L. Sweetnam, B. Donahue, J. Pillo

We loaded into two vehicles and headed up the Clinton Access Road to a trailhead about three miles away. Our planned assault was to head up Edmund’s Path and connect with the Mt. Eisenhower Loop / Crawford Path above the tree-line and just north of Mt. Eisenhower. The trip started out from the trailhead with high spirits and a challenge before us. As we moved up the Path we started a bit of ‘Ten Little Indians’ where the leader would head the line for about ten minutes and then step aside to let everyone pass and take up a position at the end of the line. The team heading up to the peak scrambled up some switchbacks and with the clearing skies were rewarded with some great views of the surrounding areas, and as you can see in the photo below all the shades of blue in the mountains around us were amazing.

This way the whole line would keep the relative same pace…and it worked for awhile, but eventually we ended up split into a couple of groups. It was soon after this, about an hour and a half and a 1,500 foot gain in elevation from the start, that word filtered back from Bob D. about his definition of hiking and that we must have a different definition of a path from his—false advertising on the part of the AMC. We reached the trail junction,shown in the photo to the left…that’s a trail sign up on the ridge and not a cross as some pointed out…soon after noon and found that the lead group had split again with some going over Mt. Eisenhower and some taking the loop around the peak. Likewise we split the second group so Bob D. and Jamie would take the supposedly easier route around the peak while Bruce, Patrick, Charlie, Chris and I would go over the peak and meet up with them at the trail junction on the south end of the Loop. We did take some time to eat the trail lunches provided (at a reasonable cost) by the Highland Center and as we sat there the clouds started to thin out and we could begin to see some of the surrounding peaks. The earlier group missed some of these views by heading out before we had arrived. After a little finagling I was able to get the camera and timer set up so we could get a group shot at the cairn signifying the peak. The panorama shot below also shows you how little the clouds had lifted and how a day like this gives you a ‘top of the world’ kind of feeling. Below the panorama is a collection of shots from the trip up the mountain and in to and out of the clouds.

As we came across the ridgeline heading from Mt. Eisenhower to Mt. Pierce and the trail down to the Highland Center you can see that Bob was continuing to question the designation of this trail as a path. It is also obvious that he is not skipping. At this point, since Bob had a stick in his hand I decided to keep my distance for the remainder of the hike. Jamie mentioned to Bob that, ”Next time we should get two of the expandable walking sticks that other hikers were using.” “There is not going to be a next time,” was Bob’s only comment. In the photo to the right you can just make out Bruce’s silhouette in the trees coming up to the top of Mt. Pierce. Mt. Eisenhower is in the background and this shows the drop in elevation we already made coming across the ridgeline. Soon after reaching the peak you can see that the clouds were closing back in on the peaks behind us.

Bruce and Jamie were right behind Bob and everyone was pushing through. Once we reached the trail junction with the Webster-Jackson Cliffs Trail we took a collective break while Charlie, Bruce, Chris and I took a quick side jaunt up to the peak of Mt. Pierce.

From this breakpoint in the hike we already had the lead group well ahead of us on their way down the mountain. We decided that a second group of Chris, Charlie, Patrick and I would head out at our own pace and that Bruce would shepherd Jamie and Bob along—this had nothing to do with Bruce being a physician, we all know CPR. After traveling about 1.2 miles down the trail we, the new splinter group, reached the Mitzpah Spring Cut-off Trail and we decided to wait for Bob, Jamie and Bruce to catch up.

We spent the time letting our joints stiffen up and talking to other hikers going up and down the trail. A couple of college age workers for the hut—both a guy and a girl, neither of which had any business being that fit and healthy—went by carrying additional food supplies up to the Mitzpah Springs Hut. The telling comment the girl made as she headed up the Cut-off Trail was, “At least it levels off more from here on up.”

After waiting about 40 minutes we questioned some hikers coming down if they had seen our trailing group and how far back they might be. They had seen them and the lady was very pleased when she said, “I remember them. I don’t often get to pass people so I know exactly who you mean.” From the various descriptions it sounded as if they were still at least 30 minutes behind us. Since we needed to make sure some dinner was saved for the final group—it was now 4:40 and dinner was served at 6:00 prompt, and there was still almost 2 miles to go—so Chris headed back up to support the group coming down and Charlie, Patrick and I headed on down.

Our group reached the bottom at 5:30 and I made a prediction that the group behind us would not arrive until 7:30. We cleaned up enough to get over to dinner and I requested that four dinners be saved for our party still on the trail. The Lodge was gracious in doing this for us and one of the staff members said it is not unusual to have some members of a party still be working their way down when dinner was being served.

Right at 7:30 Chris and Jamie showed up at the bunk house and said they had pushed on while Bruce was encouraging Bob down the trail. I set out with an intent to go to the trailhead and look up the trail. Somehow that wasn’t satisfying enough so I set out up the trail and met Bruce and Bob about .75 miles up. Bob’s hips were bothering him quite a bit and the muscles in his thighs, the quadriceps, we tight and extremely sore. Bruce and I continued to encourage him and tried to point out less steep portions of the trail (we no longer called it a path) to try and ease the jarring steps.

Just about 8:30 we came out of the woods across the road from the Highland Center. The final group was down and darkness was setting in. The expedition party collectively felt relieved and most of us began again to sit outside and relate stories of the day—two headed in to bed and were quickly asleep.

Bruce retrieved the held dinners from the Lodge and after some showers, ice, libations and ibuprofen everyone was feeling better. I took a chance and said to Bob, “Next time not everyone needs to hike. It’s always good to have someone stay near the site and make sure the ice doesn’t melt too fast.”

It was obvious that Bob was feeling better when he said, “Next time I won’t undertake the hiking part of this trip.” At least he is starting to say ‘next time’.

There was not movie this night and although the logs being sawed in the bunkhouse were even louder than the night before we all fell off to sleep earlier than the night before.

Early on Sunday, around 5:30, several of us were up and at it again. The original plan was to do an easier hike up to Arethusa Falls in the morning before heading back to have a small service before getting ready to head back to Connecticut. While sitting outside with some coffee and waiting for breakfast to be set up I took a picture of the clouds coming up the notch towards us. It wasn’t too long before the ridge was covered in the cloud and it continued to fill in the remaining ground. By the time we sat down inside for breakfast the air moved from misting to an outright rain.

We changed our plans, I think to almost everyone’s relief, and decided to have a brief service of how important it is for men to share some time together in this type of adventure and we also shared communion together.

For the trip back I took Chris and Jamie over the Kancamangus Highway for a bit of a scenic route. Chris and I commented a couple of times what a good bicycle ride it would be…at least if you take the Conway to Lincoln route. The other direction is the same elevation change but in a much smaller distance.

If you would like to see all of the pictures I took click on the warning sign below and you will be connected to an on-line album. I will update the album with pictures from others as I receive them. A little side note about the sign in the picture below…besides commenting on the appropriateness of the sign Bob D. wanted to take a picture of it. So he lined it up and kept stepping back to get more of the sign in the picture…almost to the point of falling over backwards down into a ravine. A case in point of the dangers of hiking in this area.

I welcome comments from anyone, and other members of the expedition should add their own thoughts and comments for others to read.

Men's Retreat 2009