Hiking in the White Mountains

On Saturday, Chad and I, along with our good friends from church, Alex & Christina, set off to the White Mountains in New Hampshire for some hiking. It's about a 2 hour drive from Boston to the White Mountains. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I have been very skeptical about these so called 'East Coast mountains.' However, after spending a long, long day climbing one, I will say now I have a new found respect and admiration for these mountains.

We started on the trail about 11 am (late start, I know). We hiked the Franconia Notch Loop trail, which starts at I-93 in the Franconia Notch State Park, climbs a few miles up to the summit of Mount Lincoln, follows the ridge line between Mount Lincoln for a mile or two, until the summit of Mount Lafayette, then follows the mountain back down to where you started. All in all, a total of about 9 miles. I believe about 1/3 into the journey we all had the same thought; that this was a bit ambitious of us. We knew we could do it, but at what cost to our bodies and our minds was the real gnawing question. This was our first East Coast hike and we were unaccustomed to such rocky terrain. Hikes on the West Coast involve some rocks sure, small parts of the whole path. This however was 80% rocks. It was a constant staircase of rocks, and not always in a nice staircase pattern. This required a near constant attention to the floor as you were always thinking, "ok... how do I make it up this scramble..." About 2 hours into the hike, I was already feeling my strained neck muscles. The woods were beautiful, and the hike gave amazing views of the surrounding mountains. And we had great weather. It was overcast most of the day, and in the woods, it stayed relatively cool. At least compared to what it probably was in the city. Probably our favorite part of the hike was hiking the ridge between the two summits. This part of the trail is actually a small (very small!) section of the Appalachian Trail (AT). The top of the White mountains is above the tree line (at 5,000 ft) and is in the Alpine Zone. You can tell immediately: obviously the trees disappear, but the vegetation changes, and there are some plants there which are found nowhere else on earth. It's quite unique looking. I guess there are many rare species of plants that only grow in that clime and you are hard pressed to find a similar environment and plants any where else on earth. Cool, huh? From the Lafayette summit it's 1 mile down to the Greenleaf hut which is a hut on the AT. They have bunks for overnight guests, a kitchen, but no electricity. They have to hike up all the supplies. We stopped there for a water refill and pushed to the finish. Remember the rocks? The constant scramble up the rocks? Well now we had to do that in reverse, which is actually much harder, technically and physically. At some parts, we were on all fours trying to slide down the mountain. In total, it took us 7 hours to complete the loop. We felt very good about ourselves and to celebrate we ate dinner at Nacho's Mexican Grill in Lincoln, NH.
Nacho's was an experience unto itself. The last time we were in Lincoln for Chad's ziplining trip we had eaten at a BBQ and we wanted to try some Mexican this time. By the cars parked outside, we could tell Nacho's was hopping. After being seated, we began to notice the chaos. The kitchen was oddly situated in the front of the restaurant. When our harried waitress showed up with the chips she promptly spilled them across the floor, desperately clutching the basket to her stomach. Since the kitchen was literally right across from our table we could see our waitress argue with the other staff and make helpless attempts at service. We actually felt really sorry for her, so we excused the spotty service. Like when Christina's margarita came with a fully wrapped straw right in the drink. Or the salsa that never came. Also, to add the craziness that was inside, it began to pour on the outside guests. They were seated under umbrellas, but they were not quite big enough to cover everyone. Right outside our window, there was a little boy who was pressing his body as close to the table as he could to escape the rain. I was laughing so hard because this little boy was chest to the table, butt sticking out, try to press a taco in his mouth. He gave it an excellent effort. But pretty soon all the outside people came inside, making it even crazier inside. People were eating their tacos standing up. It was more amusing then anything. And we left Lincoln with satisfied tummies.

We got back into the city at about 10:15pm, 14 hours after departing from Boston. This morning, I woke up with a body as stiff as a board, a sore back, and blistered feet. Chad is in much better shape. And so ends the tale of our first mountainous adventure on the East Coast.