Our spring backpack trip to Tuckerman Ravine did not include checking any peaks off the list and we did not ski or snowboard, but it was excellent!  What a blast!

We started off with a night at Joe Dodge and the excellent dinner and breakfast feasts that go with it.  We were on the trail at 7:45 and up to Hermit Lake / HoJos a little after 10AM.  Not bad for six 12 – 14 year olds (and two old people) with full packs!  After chatting with our caretaker, Anthony, we scored shelter #8 – with a door – swept it out and set up base camp.

We were up in the bowl and scarfing down lunch on the rocks at noon.  Lunch note: Pringles and Hummus are easy to pack, require no tools and are excellent alone or in a ham & swiss wrap.  Clouds were in and out, but blue sky dominated the afternoon.  Ski traffic was low, but enough to entertain.  We were all astounded at the complete lack of 10-essentials common sense in practice by many of the skiers and their friends.  Sneakers and jeans were not uncommon!  After lunch we got into self arrest training (with and without a moutaineering  axe) and some high speed penguin sliding on the far left of the bowl.  Everyone had a great time and managed to learn the basics without any puncture wounds.

In the early afternoon we were back at HoJos with time on our hands so the scouts jumped in to help the AMC crew re-roofing the summer bathroom building.  The crew was about done with tearing off three layers of asphalt shingles that were scattered everywhere.  A helicopter will pick up 800-pound tarp bundles full of construction debris, but the shingles need to get packed into the tarps first.  Needless to say – the crew was very happy to get six unscheduled volunteers!  This was pretty funny for Komodo because he’d spent the first part of the week kelping me re-roof our garage.  Komodo: You can run, but you can’t hide from dirty roofing jobs!

Dinner was a (successful) experiment with black beans, chicken and tortillas followed by Ape & Komodo Congo Bars.  Dinner note: Heating frozen stuff in a bag by boiling water is awesome – especially at cleanup time.  No one went to bed hungry and much laughing and farting was heard in the ravine.  We were in our sleeping bags before 8PM and sleeping around 9.

In the morning we had breakfast while light snow fell and packed up to head out.  On the way down we split up and Komodo and I inducted two new members into the steep and sketchy school of mountaineering. We took the Huntington Ravine Trail back up and looped back to the Tucks Trail on the Fire Road to the Lions Head junction.  This was tough due to low travel, several blowdowns, high posthole factor and multiple water crossings.  Comfort levels were challenged and everyone had a swagger in their step as we greeted skiers on their way up the Tucks Trail.  We bumped into some of our lax buddies as we got close to Pinkham around noon.  Not a bad outing!  Ok, back to lax  . . .

Komodo and I spent the weekend attending Solo’s Wilderness First Aid course.   Fortunately, we hosted it at the Troop 3 Scout House since we have a crew going to Northern Tier this summer and all those guys must do it to go.  We’re just doing it so Komodo can save me in an emergency.  It’s a lot more involved than the First Aid Merit badge and so much more than CPR training.

The 2-day WFA class is definitely heavy for a 2nd class 12, almost 13, year old because it is 2x 9 hour days.  Some solid attention span is required and though there is a ton of practical exercise there’s also a lot of lecture and four quizzes.  Komodo and I were very happy playing victims for various scenarios (everyone gets to do this).  This is a serious subject, but time for wackiness, pizza and cookies made it an excellent weekend all around.  Out instructor, Tom Teller, was outstanding at blending personal experience and humor to make material stick.  We’re looking forward to our next hike and hope we get lucky enough to find some dehydrated, disoriented, hikers or at least a hypothermia victim to properly assess, treat, document in a SOAP note and help back to civilization.

Whiteface is just barely a 4,000 footer at 4,020 and ranked as #45 of the 48, but on a clear day: Wow – I love this mountain!  Komodo & I got a relatively early start and we were on trail at 11AM.  The ride up to Wolanacet from Center Harbor was short and scenic.  The field, cemetery and houses at the trailhead are postcard perfect.  The weather was even nicer than Friday when we went up Cardigan with Stinky the Snake.

We went up Dicey’s Mill to Tom Wiggin before putting crampons on.  Wiggin is the meat & potatoes of this ascent and crampons make it straight forward.  Micro spikes or non-awesome snowshoes would make this whole trip a real challenge.  A short rip up Blueberry Ledge brings you to the false summit and the first of easily a dozen unbelievable (Views From the Top) VFTs on the way to the true summit.  Seeing Squam and Winnipesaukee sprawled out in front of you is pretty awesome and getting that on a sunny day in February with almost no wind is a real gem!

We left the ice axes in the Apemobile and just brought crampons and poles.  This was big for Komodo who usually favors the axe and no poles, but by the end of the day he was sold on the value of poles.  Poles can be a pain on tight little boulder / ice scrambles like those on upper Blueberry Ledge, but 8 times out of 10 they are a big plus.  Komodo is now a big fan – especially on sketchy stream crossings.

Route Info: We went up Dicey’s Mill to Tom Wiggin to Blueberry Ledge and came down Blueberry all way.  The end of Blueberry is on driveways so to do it again we would take the Blueberry Cutoff to finish back on Dicey and pick up the cool little bridge on the way back.  The easier route is to go out & back on Blueberry all the way and skip Wiggin.

Final rating on this hike: 9.5 / 10.

We had a great opportunity to take Stinky the Snake on his first mountaineering expedition on Friday, February 19th.  stinky kind of dropped in on us so we had to improvise his gear a bit, but with Mrs. Aper’s boots and Komodo’s snowshoes he was ready to tackle Cardigan via Holt / Cutoff / Clarke and back.  Winds were gusting around 50 at the summit so we thought we might lose him, but he managed to stay on the ground & make the fire tower with no mishaps.  This was also the field test for the new ‘little blue’ butt slide sleds and those worked out great on the way down.  We were all very ready for yet another excellent meal at the BHOP at the end of the day.

We decided to turn the way back machine to mid-80s and visit The Place today.  The Place, the silly spot, the boiling point, P75-212 – it was known by many names.  During sophomore year at GDA we constructed a home away from home in the woods beyond the Ould Newbury Golf Course overlooking the Mill River.  We enjoyed it a ton through the end of junior year.  When we returned as seniors it was gone.  Unfortunately, it was a casualty of too much fame as some intrepid faculty figured it out and took it down.  So, when Cat Eveleth mentioned it recently on FB I though it would be a good expedition.

I think Gilly, or was it Jaime?, and I went out there 15-20 years ago.  The license plate was still there then, but today it is gone along with the tree it was nailed to.   There are a ton of prickers since it’s wetland and all we could find was one beer can and a rusty steel garbage can base.

There were people on the golf course so we went in from the dump and cut across through the woods.  We did find an excellent deer stand and climbed an awesome pine tree on the way.  There was some bouldering to get up the marsh to the bluffs where there was evidence that some Guvenas are still going there (see pic of Komodo chillin on cheesy bench).  It was a short hike into the past packed with fun telling young Komodo tales of sneaking in the night, ice fishing houses, cross bows and good friends.

Komodo and I  set our sights pretty low today.  Well, low and local, Mount Ann is a Trustees of Reservations property right in our neighborhood and towers a massive 250 feet!  It is kind a hassle to get to though and it was a perfect opportunity to test our newest piece of gear.  We LOVE our new Garmin 60 CSX and it performed admirably on its maiden voyage.  No more wrong turns 1/10 of a mile from the trail junction for us.  We’ve named our new child The Chimp (Komodo’s idea).

The hassle and beauty of Mount Ann is that it has no parking so its kind of a free for all for anyone that’s willing to get there.  Yes, there are secret camping spots, deer stands,  bullet ridden signs, paint ball forts and ATV tracks.  Coming from the end of Loading Place Lane in Manchester there are a ton of twisting trails that can get pretty confusing, but with the weeks of cold weather, little snow and the chimp we were ready to bushwhack with impunity.

Bushwhacking is a ton of fun when all the marshy spots are solid ice, but it’s still a lot of work.  We set some waypoints, saw a ton of cool rocks, got our picture taken by a couple of Gloucester dudes ice fishing and found a sweet deer stand.  A couple of hours of good fun before pounding junk food & watching the Stupor Bowl!

Komodo and I have been talking about documenting our quest to bag the 48 4,000+ foot peaks in the White Mountains for a while and we decided to start this blog over the weekend of January 16-17, 2010.  We already had five peaks under our collective belts and I (Aper) think I’ve easily got 20 accumulated over the years (that do not count).  Part of the appeal is to get out of the rut of doing some loops over and over and over again.  I believe I’ve done Falling Waters / Franconia Ridge / Bridle Path at least 25 times over the past decade.  The other part is gaining winter mountaineering skills.  Our first post-blog trip was a great learning experience!

We were planning to do an overnight at Carter Notch Hut on Monday, MLK Day, but changed plans in the morning when we woke up to 6+ inches of new snow in Center Harbor.  We decided to stay and ski on the lake instead.

So we changed plans to a day trip, on Tuesday, to the Liberty Spring / Flume Slide Loop.  The hike sounded like no big deal from this post on VFTT.  However,  it underscores how much you need to interpret trip / condition reports!  The experience / fitness level of the poster plus the changes in weather since the post mean everything!  This was a long hike (for us) with a lot of new snowfall and when we made a wrong turn off the summit of Flume it turned into a saga / survival adventure that will serve us well as we go after the remaining 41 peaks on the list!