Saturday, January 12, 2008

Asleep On The Couch

We’re just back from Staples, new camera in hand. Atticus, an unwitting model for the camera’s first shot, is asleep on his blanket on the couch looking quite comfortable and not at all like a little dog that had one hell of a climb today. He needs his rest for what awaits tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the weather gods might invite us up to play. We’ll be up early to check the Higher Summits forecast at the Mount Washington Observatory. If it holds true to what we saw this morning we’ll get an early start. Rick Caston, our landlord, is going to follow us over to Crawford Notch. I’ll leave my car in the Notch and hop into Rick’s truck with Atticus. He’ll drive us up to the cog railway parking lot and drop us off. Atti and I will head up the Jewell Trail and five miles later hope to be standing on the summit of Mt. Washington.

From the highest point in the northeast United States we’ll hike down towards Mt. Monroe and at the Lake of the Clouds Hut (closed in the winter) we’ll start climbing up again, this time to Mt. Monroe, and the fourth highest peak. Then it’s over Little Monroe and Mt. Franklin to our third 4,000-footer of the day, Mt. Eisenhower. From Eisenhower it’s over to Mt. Pierce and from there an easy 3 mile hike down the Crawford Path.

If all goes well we’ll bag four 4,000-footers in the roughly 15 mile hike. From there it is a 40 minute ride to the comfort of home. I’m cooking a turkey tonight so we will eat well after that long one. Monday is supposed to snow so I don’t imagine we’ll be hiking until Tuesday or Wednesday but at least we’ll have gotten one of the more challenging hikes out of the way.We’re just back from Staples, new camera in hand. Atticus, an unwitting model for the camera’s first shot, is asleep on his blanket on the couch looking quite comfortable and not at all like a little dog that had one hell of a climb today. He needs his rest for what awaits tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the weather gods might invite us up to play. We’ll be up early to check the Higher Summits forecast at the Mount Washington Observatory. If it holds true to what we saw this morning we’ll get an early start. Rick Caston, our landlord, is going to follow us over to Crawford Notch. I’ll leave my car in the Notch and hop into Rick’s truck with Atticus. He’ll drive us up to the cog railway parking lot and drop us off. Atti and I will head up the Jewell Trail and five miles later hope to be standing on the summit of Mt. Washington.

From the highest point in the northeast United States we’ll hike down towards Mt. Monroe and at the Lake of the Clouds Hut (closed in the winter) we’ll start climbing up again, this time to Mt. Monroe, and the fourth highest peak. Then it’s over Little Monroe and Mt. Franklin to our third 4,000-footer of the day, Mt. Eisenhower. From Eisenhower it’s over to Mt. Pierce and from there an easy 3 mile hike down the Crawford Path.

If all goes well we’ll bag four 4,000-footers in the roughly 15 mile hike. From there it is a 40 minute ride to the comfort of home. I’m cooking a turkey tonight so we will eat well after that long one. Monday is supposed to snow so I don’t imagine we’ll be hiking until Tuesday or Wednesday but at least we’ll have gotten one of the more challenging hikes out of the way.