Isolation

Today is an attempt at Mt. Isolation, NH via the Glen Boulder Trail (the stones of "sticks and stones").

I'm also packing for the lake, so running behind for a 9 hour hike. Don't forget the GPS to find those bushwhacks. Water the plants, paint the house. Later.

Sticks and Stones

There is a pile of branches collected over several storm cycles and stacked right in view of the back deck. Yesterday it bugged me enough that I moved them, in two parts, to the bigger burn pile in the front acre, out of sight of the house.

First, half of the sticks were lashed together with a piece of new white clothesline rope.

Then the bunch of branches were dragged past the granite marker named Ogum, and past the peonies, deer flies dive bombing the bald spot on top of my head where I was conked with the butt of a pistol when I was a child. On this stick-dragging day I felt like a Biblical Ruth gathering sheaves of grain in the field.

The dirtied rope was untied and the branches cast one at a time to the top of the burn pile.

The reward at the end of this surprisingly fast job was a sampling of black raspberries growing at the edge of the new pile.

Today perhaps I'll tackle the stones.

Part 4, Colorado

On the third day, after the scary thunder, lightning and torrential rain, we gathered up our wet tents and beat feet downhill. There would be no camping on the ridge this time. No climbing above treeline to stay in another storm like the night before. Gluttons, not fools.

We wanted better shelter where we could dry out.

Mike and I hiked back up to investigate a "cave" we had seen. It was just a black spot on the wall from, what else, more water.

But I was able to use my Ribz, a fancy over-the-shoulder pack to keep snacks close and bandaids closer.

The remainder of the day was a rest day for eating, warming up, napping, drying out, and drinking.

 Next up is Climbing Sheep Mountain.

Eeew, Eeel

Jim spotted an eel on our beach next to the rock wall.

Taking a picture of an eel in the water is difficult.

Almost as difficult as painting a picture of water using oil on canvas.

 Doesn't mean you can't try.

Kind of makes one hesitate to swim here.

Part 3, Colorado

Group dynamics; who knows how decisions are made? We decide to go on to the highest camp even though it is a couple miles further, it adds a couple miles to our trek tomorrow, it is more exposed, and it is uphill from here. Even now it appears that altitude was fogging our thought process.

It starts raining right when we are the most tired and discouraged. We duck into a grove of pines and wait out the showers.

At camp two, which is beautifully perched beneath high rocks, we miss supper because of thunder, lightning and torrential rain in waves all night long. Mike reads with his vision-sparing red night light in the tent next door. It is comforting and I snap a nonflash photo in one of the storm's lulls.

The next day the sun shows itself and the air is crisp. We pack up, discard the congealed supper, and head downhill while we can, for more substantial cover from the weather.

Part 2, Colorado

Flowers in bloom on arrival.

Packed up and ready to go.

Day One: Heading to first camp 2.5 miles in.

Looking Up. Watching weather.

Camp was set up just in time for the afternoon shower.

It is better to lessen the weight of the pack by eating the heaviest foods first; beans, rice, cookies, things that take the longest to cook thereby burning more fuel in the canister. It is better to have no rain in order to cook the heaviest food first. So we eat the heaviest snacks instead, because it's raining.

There is a fire ban in the wilderness. But it's raining!

WhaHa, Pilgrim.

Christmas in July, also known as the Feast of St. James, Santiago de Compostela.

It has been one week since visiting a grocery store. While the cupboards at home are not close to being bare, I miss seeing all that food on shelves and walking by huge stocked refrigerators.  I miss the hubbub. I dream of celebrating the Feast of St. James with a barbeque; hot dogs, corn on the cob, skewers of roasted vegetables, baked beans, potato salad that's never the same twice in a row.

Jim accuses me of trying to fatten him up for his 50th class reunion so that he'll be unattractive to his classmates when he visits Wisconsin in August.

He has been studying his 8th grade graduation picture, going over the faces with a hand lens.

Yesterday he asked that I call him Big Jim. Today it will be Saint James.

Cleaning Up

Before the rains came we had a smoky fire to burn up the wood stacked on the patio. The blueberries are ripening on the low bushes on the side of the hill. The thermometer reads 108 degrees in the sun and the fire doesn't make it much hotter. It's a kind of day where you sit in the swing under the shade of an awning and yell at ducks swimming by.

Mt Cabot

This time I remembered the GPS and made a new track of 9.2 miles. The trail started and ended in a two-mile field of head-high ragweed and red raspberries, narrow enough that the trekking poles were a hindrance.

There is always a moment of anticipation and pause at the entrance to the woods and the beginning of the climb. Sometimes it is a question of which stick or stone will leave its mark on me this time. Sometimes it is excitement about what feather will turn up.

It was 11:11 AM when I passed the "no maintenance" spot. This trail from the west has been closed for years. It would have saved a couple of miles. But I suppose landowners at the bottom do not wish to have spitting and smelly hikers traipse across their property.

There is a rough and dirty little cabin near the summit that led me to believe I had made the top. But I was wrong.

It was a pseudo summit, faux success, a place where the fire tower used to stand.

I was eating a peanut butter and cracker lunch, thinking about the downhill trip, when two Canadians came through speaking Quebecois. They hailed from somewhere further up the trail, and I realized that I would have to keep climbing another hundred feet to reach the true summit. So I look sheepish.

It was a long hike, hot at the bottom, not as long as some: 4,180 feet, 9.2 miles, 5 hr 13 min.

Lake People

This morning gives promise to a glorious day.

That's what the metal bird bath has inscribed on its rim, along with the symbols of the zodiac. Yesterday was a pirate boat parade lasting a couple of hours. The Zodiac made me think of it. The boats started on our end of the lake and motored north, the crew arrghing and shooting water out of cannons.

Those lake people. They're a different lot.

Word Finding

Penbob? Wiggins? Cliggens?

When I first learned the word for the little glass ring that keeps the candle wax off the table, I was very pleased.

Recently I forgot the word. For three days it settled into my psyche, and today it surfaced.

Bobeche!

And bobeches!

Whatever the word, these were dirty, waxen, dusty and speckled with charcoal. So they received a bath in soapy water and were put on display. See the bobeches, how they sparkle!

Caps Ridge Trail

Yesterday I drove on a road through the hills, through Crawford Notch, to the trailhead with the highest elevation in the White Mountains, Caps Ridge Trailhead.

From the trailhead the path led up a narrow ridge,

scrambling up three rock faces (caps),

and finally up and across a half mile boulder field.

At the top I found the pin that marked the summit of Mt. Jefferson, 5712 feet.

Then I had lunch with Pete, a nice man who shared the wind break.

He talked about climbing ravine trails and having a fear of heights, always carrying iodine tablets in case he ran out of water or clogged his water filter. This while eating slices of pepperoni and cheese and watching the line of tourist cars drive up to the top of Mt. Washington.

On the way down, it is always amazing how high I climbed, over what rocks and difficult handholds,

and how much I missed on the way up.