January 31, 2009
Today Cath, Larisa, Drew, and I attempted a traverse of the Wildcats, Carters, and Moriah. Attempted? Yes, attempted. As you can tell from the peaks I listed above, we didn't quite make it to Moriah. After spotting cars up in Gorham, the rest of the team met me at the Nineteen Mile Brook Trailhead to spot my car for a possible bailout, a move we were glad we made. We then drove down to the Wildcat Ski Area. We were on the trail about 8:30. Hmmm? Should we take the lift up. No, of course not.
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As Larisa said, "We're back in black."
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We were then briefly joined by 3 fellow Gridders or Grid-iots as we are sometimes called.
Steve, John, and June were doing the Wildcats today.
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The Polecat Trail is shared by hikers and skiers.
Cath likes to refer to this part of the hike as "bowling for hikers".
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As we continued up the ski slope the most common remark from the skiers was: "You're going the wrong way."
Once we reached the top of the ski slopes we were congratulated by several skiers. I am sure some had been watching our progress. Since they were skiing down and taking the lift up, they probably went passed us several times as we made the 2.6 mile hike.
We weren't quite there yet. The actual summit was a couple minutes up the trail. Cath and I put our snowshoes on. Larisa and Drew had already done so. A few minutes later we were on the 4062' summit of Wildcat D. Although I've done most of the White Mountain 4000 footers several times, I had only climbed Wildcat D once before. So this completed my 2nd loop. It was also a new winter peak for me. #37 for any winter and #25 for this winter.
Fortunately the Wildcat Ridge Trail had been broken out a couple days ago by Jeremy a.k.a Rocket. This trail is kind of overgrown so we had to deal with a lot of branches whacking us in the face. There were several nice viewpoints along the way. The clouds held a death grip on Washington which remained in the clouds all day.
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After going over the unofficial 4000 footer peaks of Wildcat C and Wildcat B, we reached the 4422' summit of Wildcat A. I was the last to arrive. I saw Drew and Larisa at the lookout, but no Cath.
"What did you do? Push her over the ledge," I joked. Then Cath emerged from the woods.
This was #38 for any winter and #26 for this winter.
I borrowed a few photos of Larisa's.
Here's one of those photos as she
impersonates a wildcat on Wildcat
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Now the real fun began. Jeremy had been nice enough to break the trail for us, but now we were on our own as we broke trail through the deep snow down Wildcat A.
Cath the Trailbreaker
There were a few tricky spots as the trail crosses the slide. Cath led us safely to the bottom.
Here's a look back up to Wildcat A
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As we expected the .2 miles was broken out from the base of Wildcat A to the Carter Lakes. There's an all season self-service hut there that gets plenty of traffic. The real question was: "Would the trail be broken out up the very steep trail to Carter Dome?"
The answer was "yes" or so we thought.
"We're golden," said Cath.
We headed up the steep trail. We found a spot in the sun, took a break, and then continued with Larisa in the lead.
"Oh no," said Larisa.
"What?" asked Cath.
"The tracks stop," replied Larisa.
Someone had attempted to head up to Carter Dome but had given up. It was now up to us. We took turns breaking trail up the steeps. A couple times we even used Cath's rope to help out.
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We managed to get through the steepest part. Then Cath let out a 'woo-hoo'.
"Are we at the top?" asked Larisa excitedly.
"No, but there are people comin' down," answered Cath.
That was great news. It meant the trail was broken out ahead. We wished they had been a half hour or so earlier, but hey, we'll take what we can get. A few minutes later Cath stepped aside to let Larisa bag the summit first. There's nothing like hearing a 'woo-hoo' from Larisa when she reaches a summit. The 4832' summit of Carter Dome marks my #39 peak in any winter and #27 for this winter.
Summit of Carter Dome
On the move again.
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Down we headed to Zeta pass. Fortunately someone had gone the other direction up to Middle Carter. Great the trail was still broken out. We met two hikers. One of them, Chris, I had hiked with once before.
"We just went to South Carter," he said. Then added, "But two others went on to Middle Carter."
Great, that was more good news. Up we went to the 4430' summit of South Carter. This was a repeat winter peak for me, but #28 for this winter. The long day was starting to take it's toll on our group. Moriah was starting to look out of reach, but we weren't giving up yet. We pressed on. As we headed down South Carter, Middle Carter came into view.
A weary Drew looked at the mountain and said, "I suppose you want me to climb that one too."
As we neared the summit of Middle Carter we met our last two hikers of the day.
"Is it broken out on the other side?" I asked.
"Nope," was the reply.
I had a feeling the trail wouldn't be broken out between Middle Carter and the Stoney Brook Trail. For me, this was the point where I no longer wanted to attempt bagging Moriah as well. We reached the 4610' summit of Middle Carter. It was another repeat winter peak for me, but #29 for this year. Larisa held up 5 fingers representing the 5 four thousand footers we bagged today.
The big question now was: "Were we still going after Moriah?"
The answer was no. I have to admit that I was relieved.
"It's fun to do the whole ridge, but five winter peaks in a day is nothing to sneeze at," said Cath.
The going was slow as we broke the .6 miles of trail down to the North Carter Trail. Cath and Larisa took turns breaking out the trail down to the Imp Trail junction. They both still had plenty of energy. They were breaking trail, and I still couldn't keep up. We regrouped at the junction and took out our headlamps. Down the Imp Trail we went, again with Cath and Larisa alternating in the front.
I finally caught up to them near the bottom.
"I will never refer to women as the weaker sex," I said. "You two ladies can hike! What would we do without you?"
"That's a nice compliment," said Cath.
I sure meant it.
A few minutes later we took the cutoff to Camp Dodge and then we were on an unplowed road.
"Do you want to break trail from here to the gate?" Cath asked me.
"Sure, why not?" I replied. It gave me a chance to restore my pride a little after being out hiked by these two ladies. At the gate we took off our snowshoes, left our packs, and began the road walk back to my car. We finished at 7:15. What a day! I was exhausted.
That wraps up January. I bagged 29 four-thousand footers, by far my best month ever. Twenty-six of those counted toward my Grid bringing my Grid total for January up to 36. January has now pulled ahead of June as my month with the most peaks.
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