To: mitoc@MIT.EDU
Subject: blithering about carter dome et al...
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 94 01:43:15 EST
From: a goofy newfie <hharley@MIT.EDU> (Heidi Harley)

Greetings, o MITOC members. At the suggestion of the intrepid and
intrepidly-named Christopher Paul Barrington-Leigh (CPBL
henceforth), I set digits to keyboard to chronicle a small
chapter of MITOC outing history. It is to be hoped that my 
humble efforts inspire the similar recording of other MITOC
ventures for our entertainment and for posterity, although
perhaps at lesser length. 
	It was two weeks ago that my inbox contained
a note inquiring whether I'd be interested in joining a small
group headed into the White Mts. organized by CPBL on
President's Day weekend. Having reached an optimal stage in
my scholarly efforts for such an interlude (i.e. any stage),
I eagerly acquiesced, although with the warning that
I'd never snowshoed and only winter-camped once, with my
parents when I was 14 or so and not paying attention. CPBL
assured me that this posed no problem, and inquired if my
car was still in self-propelling condition. :) Luckily, it was,
although it had just been traumatized by a nasty tow-truck
and had required a few repairs. These being completed, however,
Max (the car) was perfectly able to transport a small group
to NH and back. 
	This small group consisted of Liz Arentzen, the 
aforementioned CPBL and me. Liz was a recent alumnus of
the MITOC winter school, and was thus well-prepared for the trip;
CPBL (henceforth Chris) had all the extra hardware the group
required, and I had gone to Hilton Tent City and picked up
gaiters, overmitts, liner mitts and fuel, and had that post-
gear-purchase newbie glow. We met in the MITOC office and picked out
boots, snowshoes, packs, bags and ice axes, and we were set. 
	We met on Friday at 4 in the office to discover that 
in an inspired frenzy of cleaning, Liz's snowshoes had been
tidily restacked with the others and promptly snagged by another
group. Hmmm, we thought. No prob, we thought, we'll just grab
a pair of bearpaws just in case and stop by IME in N. Conway
and rent another set of Sherpas. This resolved, we loaded
our gear into Max and headed out into the rush hour traffic.
	Chris perused a topographic map for a half hour or so,
and then proposed a possible itinerary: a couple hours'
hike Fri. night to an AMC cabin, a shortish day of hiking
Saturday to a spot a few miles further in, and then a long
hike out on Sunday, taking in Carter Dome and Carter Notch
on the way back. We agreed that this sounded lovely, and 
proceeded to play Ghost and Geography as we buzzed happily
northwards in the gathering dark. Glancing at the dash in
passing, I noticed the gas gauge was flat on E, and, 
picking the one exit with no gas station, drove around for 
an entertaining twenty minutes wondering if we'd make it up 
the next hill. Eventually we found a purveyor of fine fossil 
fuels and got back on I95.
	Reaching N. Conway, we went to IME and tried to rent
snowshoes. The store was pretty crowded, and it took
a while to communicate our needs, and it then transpired
that bindings had to be added to the shoes in question.
An hour and a bit and $25 later, we were back in the car, headed
for Carter Notch Road. We thought. It turns out that
Jackson, NH, is the center of a whirlpool of roads, a.k.a. the
Vortex of Death, all named 16A or 16B, and no matter what route 
you attempt to take, you will wind up back on 16 south of where you
got off it. At one point, heading the wrong direction
on the wrong road, we stopped and gave a stuck car a push.
The guy seemed a little confused about his whereabouts and
destination, but then, who were we to judge? At another
point, we stopped at a hotel in the middle of 
Jackson, feeling quite sure that someone
in the tourist business would be able to help us in our
quest for the trailhead. Unfortunately it transpired 
that the desk worker wasn't from around there, didn't know 
what road the hotel was on, much less the names of any of the 
other roads in the vicinity, and couldn't find her butt with both hands.
Thus thwarted, we accosted other passerby until a tentative
suggestion that "Carter Notch Road might be the one that
the hotel over there is on" turned out to be correct. Yip,
that same hotel. 
	We zoomed contemptuously past the hotel and up the road.
On the map, the road appeared to come to a dead end from which
our trail started. In real life, it went on, and on, bearing
ominously back towards route 16, getting bumpier and bumpier,
until it finally ended in a big clearing where loggers had been
doing their dirty deeds. Speedily recognizing that this was 
unlikely to be our trailhead, we reversed and went back down the
road, looking for likely spots for nature-loving snowshoers
to start their weekend's amusement. Finding one that matched
the description in the guidebook, we parked. Deciding
that I'd blocked the road, I restarted the car for remaneuvering...
it barely turned over, a symptom of a battery problem I'd
had earlier in the year but had thought was licked. Letting
the car run to hopefully charge up the battery, we got our
gear together, ate some peanut butter cookies, and
were ready to go. Turning Max off with some trepidation,
we headed down the trail. Hi ho, hi ho...
	We hiked for maybe half an hour, turning off a logging
road onto a real trail, until we reached another logging
road which matched none of the trail junctions in the guidebook.
Figuring we'd better quit before we went in a completely
wrong direction, we stomped down some snow in a little
turnaround area and set up the tent. I'd agreed to make
dinner, so with much assistance I started melting snow for
egg noodles. After maybe 45 mins we had enough, and the pasta
was swiftly cooked. I added a couple of packages of dry pesto
mix and enough olive oil to choke a horse, some pine nuts, and
we were eating at last. Eating olive oil with a few noodles
floating in it, to be sure, but nonetheless eating. We then 
hopped into our sleeping bags and fell asleep, only 6 or so hours behind
schedule. 
	The next day dawned bright and sunny and quite warm. We
didn't know this, of course, as we didn't wake up for another 5 hours 
or so, but it was still nice then, so we happily puttered around getting 
ready to go. Some skiers happened by, but they didn't know where our trail 
was either. Chris looked determinedly
at the map, trying to make anything on it match the real world, and
finally decided we needed to go back the way we'd come. Shouldering
our packs, we set off, and sure enough, there was our trail branching 
off to the right, which we'd missed in the dark. We set happily off
down it, pausing only briefly to change when our suitable-for-10-degree-F 
clothing turned out to be unsuitable for the 50-degree day, and were 
on our way. 
	This part of the trail had been skied over fairly recently,
and the going was pretty good, although I had a tendency to
slide off into unpacked-down snow on the sides. Liz tromped
along cheerfully behind me, offering helpful advice on ways to
not fall down so much, and Chris ranged around us, occasionally
knocking snow off of flat-topped trees for amusement or sending
spherical snow wafting in our direction to keep us on our toes.
We saw evidence of moose and rabbits around the trail, and 
chickadees in the trees, and were content. At one point, we stopped
to filter some water from a stream with a nifty water-filter gadget
- that is, Chris worked the gadget and Liz and I made little
snowpersons and animals until Chris pointed out (with great
restraint) that really, it wasn't as easy as all that and 
would we like a turn? Fully watered at last, we continued 
down the bunny trail. We met the skiers who'd been ahead of 
us on their way back; the wetness of the snow slowed them 
down too much to do their full trip, they said. 
	Midafternoon we reached the AMC cabin which we once thought
we'd camp the night before. I was a little pooped; my legs
were surprised at suddenly being asked to do some work after
a month and half of rest and recreation. Having stowed
our packs at the cabin, we frolicked in the frozen swampy
area nearby that appeared as a lake on the map; we rolled 
big snowballs and made a snowthing. It acquired a roughly
triangular shape, passing through various permutations on the
way to becoming a large x-mas tree-looking pile. Liz smoothed
it expertly with a snowshoe, Chris stuck the cabin shovel in it,
and we declared it a finished work of art. It was a lovely
afternoon. 
	It was Liz's turn to do dinner, and she whipped up some
couscous with curry that was totally ideal, hot physically
and spicily, and as revivifying as all-get-out. Topped
off with hot chocolate and a kit-kat bar, we were pretty
content. We'd set up the tent, thinking that it might be
warmer than the open-faced cabin. As it turned out, warmth
was not something we needed to worry about; it didn't get
below freezing all night. Chris elected to sleep outside
and look at the stars - a good idea.
	The tent had been fairly inadequately established -
we didn't have appropriate stakes, so we just let the sides
sag in and staked out the fly over it with ice axes so
it wasn't touching the walls of the tent. Pretty much as
soon as we got into our bags, however, the drawbacks
of this arrangement became clear. The wind picked up
and the tent started billowing and snapping and it
was more or less impossible to nod off. We hung in there
determinedly, eyes firmly closed and bags pulled over our
ears, until we felt one corner start to flap up and saw the
tent start to fold in on us. We decided we'd better
move into the cabin, and rolled up our bags full of
stuff and darted out into the night, trusting the
remaining stakes to hold the tent for a minute or two. Our
naivete became apparent as we turned around to the sight
of the tent sailing over the snow like a large box kite. 
Strapping on our snowshoes, we dashed after it, grabbing it
where it had lodged in some trees. Chris had been roused from
his cozy corner by all the commotion, and helped us to dismantle
the errant shelter and return it to its proper place. By
some miracle, the fly wound up in the cabin, although none
of us could remember bringing it there. Everything packed
away, we calmed down as best we could and fell asleep
in our too-hot sleeping bags in the thoughtfully pre-built,
non-flapping, perfectly warm cabin provided by the AMC. 
	Waking up relatively early the next morning
(still not in time to see the dawn, which was again bright
and clear...) we chowed down on our oatmeal and dried fruit,
got our gear together and headed back down the trail for 20 mins
or so to where the Rainbow Trail was clearly signposted, "2.5 to
Carter Dome" (the original plan being clearly unrealizable at
this point). Striking off optimistically in the direction of
the arrow, we were soon befuddled, as the arrow seemed to point
directly up the hillside to nowhere in particular, trail
markers, tracks, and other significant signs of human
presence being conspicuously absent. We floundered around
for awhile, exploring the occasional promising direction, 
breaking trail in large circles and getting a little sweaty.
I was skeptical that I could make it too far breaking trail
upslope in my innocent condition. We decided to cache our
packs, take necessities, and bushwhack up the hillside,
and at least gain a little altitude for our efforts. Liz and
I dumped our packs, and Chris took what he claimed were the
heavy things out of his and added some of our gear and reshouldered
it. (He'd been carrying every piece of group equipment so far,
and I had considered asking if the weight shouldn't be re-
distributed, but the fact that he could go about twice as fast
as I could with a much heavier pack forestalled me. Liz, too,
was swinging along at a solid clip. They both let me set
the (leisurely) pace, though. :) Unladen except for our ice
axes, we headed off into the woods. 
	The thing about bushwhacking is that the woods always
look the thickest and most impassable in the direction
you want to go. We went left, and farther left, and farther
left, when we really wanted to bear more right.
The hillside was pretty steep, and we switchbacked determinedly
to about the point where the birch became conifers, and took
a break. From then on it was harder going, as the spruce and
fir grew thickly together and also made perfectly solid-looking
snow into a pit trap every few steps, supporting it with low-
growing branches. We crawled along, stopping frequently, squirming
through narrow places and pushing through bushes (Chris with the
pack having a trickier time with this bit). We went in the
correct direction now, however, since the forest looked equally
impassable in all directions. Lo and behold, we eventually
crossed a snowmobile track, of all things, headed straight uphill. 
Looking around, we saw trail markers and all the accoutrements of
a well-travelled path. We celebrated with summit cookies. 
	We headed up the track, the going considerably easier with
a trail and snowmobile-packed snow. Before long, we came out
on a windswept knoll still a few hundred feet below the summit
of Carter Dome. It was barren,  but it was a bizarrely windless
day, still as could be, and bright and clear. We could
see for miles; it was an amazing view. We spun around, looked
at Mt. Washington gleaming in the sun, at its lesser companions,
at mountains far enough off that they weren't on any of our maps.
It was warm and unbelievably sunny. 
	Feeling euphoric, we hit the trail to climb the last
few hundred feet, re-entering the woods and losing the view.
We emerged on the top of Carter Dome to more great views (although
more tree-obstructed) and a still-calm day. We fired up the
Whisperlite and melted some snow for soup, had another KitKat
and gorp, and felt satisfied. 
	After a half hour or so on the summit, we started the descent.
It was somewhat harder going than we'd imagined, as the snow
was so soft and melted that we postholed pretty severely every
few feet - when we built up some downward momentum, it'd be enough
to send our snowshoes in up to our hips. The snow was too wet to
allow any glissades, as well. My snowshoes seemed determined
to make their home on the hillside, and came off repeatedly. 
I started making little whiny noises. The descent
did have its speed to recommend it, though; it was faster than
going up. There was a slightly worrying moment at the bottom
when all the trail markers disappeared (we had elected to follow
the snowmobile rather than our own `trail' up the mountain) and
the snowmobile seemed to head off in an irrelevant direction,
but after casting about for a while, we followed the snowmobile
and made it back to our packs just as it was getting dark.
	We then had three miles of hiking to do in the dark. The
snow was so soft that it seemed like we were breaking trail
all over again, and it had started to cloud up, so the moon
wasn't as helpful as it could have been (it was half full). 
We headed out, Chris and Liz breaking trail intrepidly and
occasionally pausing to let me catch up, whimpering and
feeling sorry for myself. :) We had been concerned that after
all the warm weather, the stream crossings would be a problem,
but it transpired that only a couple of streams were flowing
again, and the only slightly hairy one had a convenient tree 
across it. At one point, some fairly big animal with cat-looking
pads had walked along the trail in front of us for a way. After
a bit, it turned off on another path The night took on a slightly 
interminable quality as we trekked along, but eventually we 
reached a junction with another trail that told us we were 
nearly there, and a little energy returned to our legs. A little
more slogging, and we reached the original logging road that
led back to the waiting Max. 
	We were unsure whether after two days of sitting and that
last barely-turn-over start the battery would be up to getting
us on the road again, and so we held our breath for a minute
when I turned the ignition key. The engine caught, no problem
at all, and we cheered and took off our K-bar boots merrily.
We zoomed back into Conway (escape from Jackson posing no problem),
left the IME snowshoes at the pizza restaurant next door (which
unfortunately was close enough to closing that they wouldn't feed
us any pizza, curses curses curses), hit a McDonalds and headed
home. There was nothing good on the radio, but it kept us
entertained with its badness, and pretty soon we were rolling
into Boston. 
	It was a terrific weekend. Beautiful weather, yummy food,
grrreat views, enough sense of accomplishment, and totally and
utterly cool and happy and helpful companions. I couldn't
imagine a better introduction to winter (all right, almost
spring) camping. As soon as these blisters heal, I'm doing it
again. :)
long-windedly yours,
Heidi








