December 13, 2009 Hike #2
After bagging Mount Cabot in the morning, I was hoping I would have time to get in another hike. The only four-thousand footer I needed that was on the way home was Moriah. I knew I'd only have time to get it if the conditions were as ideal as they were on Cabot. Madison and I started at 1:15 p.m.
The trail was well packed but not by snowshoers. This trail had been barebooted quite extensively. Regardless, the trail seemed well packed and didn't appear to be postholed. There was a spot or two with postholes, but I made it fairly quickly up to Mount Surprise. The snow was a little deeper now and the absence of snowshoes on the hikers before me meant there were more and more postholes. The trail wasn't in awful condition but I got spoiled on the trail heading up to Mount Cabot in the morning. There was also a small snowstorm on the way. The skies above me which were once blue quickly turned dark grey. The late start, the postholes, the storm moving in, the wind starting to pick up, the fact that it now gets dark a little after 4:00, and the fact that I was hiking solo meant one thing: I didn't feel that I could safely reach Mount Moriah today. I haven't had to do it often, but I decided it would be best to turn back.
I had made it a couple tenths of a mile past Mount Surprise. When I returned to Mount Surprise (which is really just a tiny, tiny bump on the way to Moriah), I looked over to the right at a spot that was several feet higher than where I was. I wasn't sure if I actually ever tagged the highest point even though I had been here several times before. Well, I had time to spare now so I pushed through some branches, climbed over a couple blowdowns and tagged the top.
Here's Madison on the true summit of Mount Surprise.
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We returned over the same route. It was snowing pretty hard by the time I reached my car at 3:15 p.m. I had the chore of driving home in the snow while Madison got to snooze on the back seat.
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