A week later...

 

After a week with the flu that turned into a cold and hangs on as a cough, we knocked off Whitecap twice. As I wrote on my report, "Yellow trail is ice, crust, soft snow, and dirt. We headed up over the first two steep sections to the second ledge to take pictures wearing microspikes The ice is mostly gone on the ledges, though we did not go to the third ledge that traverses the mountain to the Orange Trail. On the way down we stayed to the snowmobile trail from the saddle on down. The streams are running are and I'm guessing the snow will be gone from the trails in the next 7-10 days (emphasis: guessing)."

Love the layered look of these mountains in the Mahoosucs

Love those cairns

Mt Abram

Must be treat time. 

Overflow of water and melting snow in sunshine. 

Leading the way up Yellow to the ledge

1500 feet elevation about 3.4 miles roundtrip. 

  

Powder on Whitecap Mountain, and Anne at 10,804 feet

On Rumford's Whitecap Mountain... add 2-4" of powder to a hiking trail and you've got a workout. Both of us sucked wind hiking Iles' Orange trail and paid the price in the evening.  I ordered out.  Even though we're hit every other day with snow, I smell spring coming. Whitecap's trail always surprises me when winter moves to spring--in a just a few days of sunshine the trail turns to dirt with 2-3' in the woods for Bailey. 

Old Speck where the AT gets tough

Sunday River's White Heat with
NH's Presidential Range in the distance. 

The path to Bailey's Cairn

Sunday River's White Heat

15 degrees with the wind. 

On the summit awaiting treat and dreaming of his Kong

"Take me to my Kong."

This just can't be good for him. 

I traded texts and photos with brother Rob on my Whitecap hike. He and Anne were at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles while Anne received injections to combat her ALS. On my little four-and-a-half miler, I thought of Anne's big-mountain treks out west, including San Jacinto Peak at 10,804'. I hope she has good memories of those climbs.  I laughed thinking about Rob joining her for a hike of Mt. Baldy just above Upland, Claremont, and Pomona, my old stomping grounds during graduate school at Claremont. From his texts, I could tell, as the bumper sticker proclaims: I'd rather be golfing.    

Anne Kent, San Jacinto Peak at 10,804'

                                                         

San Jacinto Peak