North East Highpoints

Steve:

I wake up at 1:30am, get dressed and head over to Todd's. Our car (the mighty 2001 Plymouth Neon), is already packed with my stuff, we only need to load up with Todd's and we'll be on our way. I get to his house and we finish packing. I survey the scene, I'm pleased with my provisions for the week (donuts, tootsie-rolls, pretzels, cheeze-its, oatmeal pies, pop-tarts, beef jerky, goldfish crackers, chocolate covered granola bars, and chex-mix). Todd's provisions, in comparison, are weak, I make a mental note to myself that I may have to defend my food.

We set out from West Berlin at about 2am, right on time. The drive to CT is pretty good, neither of us are tired at this point. The drive through the NYC area was nuts, despite it being 3am, we both thanked Odin we didn't have to go through the area during the day. As we neared our destination the sites became more and more interesting. We noted possibly the most well lit train yard on the face of the Earth, a school clearly possessed by the devil, and miles of road with out any sort of lighting at all (probably all used up on the train yard). Also, along the way I ate the majority of my donuts and drank a half gallon of Gatorade, I thanked Odin for a delicious and nutritious meal.

As we entered the town we got lost for the first time. It turns out that the street's name was different than our directions, but we found it. Along the way I had to pee very badly, so Todd did a burnout to show his displeasure while I peed.

Steve:

The road to the mountain was long and windy. It took half an hour to travel the 5 or so miles. At the base it was only about 6am, still dark, yet there were cars there. I mentioned how we weren't the first ones, Todd pointed out that they probably stayed the night, I made a mental note to ensure he had some sort of accident along the way.

Upon setting out up the first peak, Mt Frissell, I immediately regretted the whole trip. It turns out that climbing mountains wasn't as easy as I had hoped. I thought about how this peak wasn't even that hard, and I had summited worst peaks before, also how I should be in better shape now then I had been then. It didn't help though. The solution was just to slow down to a crawl, and complain a lot. Once I was going at about the same pace as a wounded turtle, things got easier.

Frissell was a pretty good peak. I noted how it seemed almost like someone had cut off the tip of a normal peak and put it on the ground. It wasn't a long hike to the top, and once I got used to things it wasn't very hard either. We got to the highpoint (which isn't even a summit, but the state line), and took some pictures. It was pretty foggy, so not much of a view. Then we descended.

On the way down Todd's concern for my safety vanished, and he pulled ahead. This was when he developed the system used many times on the trip of calling out "Steve?", to which I would reply "Yeah?", which worked quite well. Close to the base there was a sudden noise from the side of the trail, I had thought he hid along the way and was going to jump out. When I told him this he remarked that he was going to have to do that now (he never did). At the base he was talking to two guys that were going up, I didn't talk to them at all.

Then we got in the car and drove off. The drive to RI was both long and pointless. It was probably the most sleepy either of us were on the whole trip. The Mass Turnpike, while being very well maintained, was very uneventful. The only exciting moment came when we summited the turnpike (the highest turnpike in the country). We crossed the state line into RI and pretty soon we were at Jerimoth Hill.

Steve:

There was some debate as to whether or not we even made it to the peak of the treacherous mountain, although I think we did. There was a helpful map at the base camp to guide us along. The sound of cars on the highway was never out of earshot.

Then it was back in the car to travel to Mount Greylock in MA, our last peak of our first day. We quickly realized that our directions called for us to retravel the Mass Turnpike, and then that we actually had to retravel a lot of the roads that had lead to the Mass Turnpike. I insisted that there had to be a better route, that didn't involve this trip twice, Todd disagreed. This time the turnpike wasn't as bad, as we were armed with Manowar to help delivery us to the other side safely.

Steve:

At the ranger station we were told we had to go to another place to start. We drove around the park to the other side and parked there. We were greeted by a farmer, who was apparently in charge. He was fairly colorful, and gave us some advice. As we started out up the mountain, the first thing I noticed was that it was fairly warm still. As the hike continued it became more and more evident that it was in fact hot. At some point I made the comment that if it stayed like this (as in the terrain and grade), it wouldn't be so bad. As with every other time I made this comment during the trip (which was often), it didn't stay like that.

Greylock wasn't that bad, but it was hot, and it was the end of a long day. The terrain was pretty good, but it was just a steady grade, which increased as it went along. It probably didn't help that our plan called for us to camp near the top so we were carrying full packs. Along the way Todd, in his endless battle to cut down on time, suggested we drop the packs at the camp, summit, then descend and camp at the base, so we could be out earlier. I was hesitant, partly because I hadn't seen this campground at the base, partly because it was supposed to rain, and partly just to be difficult.

At the mid way camp we dropped our packs and ate and rested a bit. We were pretty close to the summit, and we only had to take daypacks up so we should have had plenty of time. However, Todd as always was in a hurry. My shirt was soaked, and I had taken it off during the rest. I couldn't bring myself to put it back on, so I just went with out a shirt. The hike took longer than I had thought, and by the end I was dead. As per usual I wanted to rest for hours, and Todd wanted to rest for seconds. I took one of my best pictures of my life at the top, shirtless and wanting to die. Then we headed back down.

At the midway camp Todd had pretty much decided we were going to be heading back to the base. I did however, insist that we rest for at least 10-20 minutes before continuing. I hadn't changed out my socks at all, as I had considered the first day's hikes to be easy. After our pitstop we headed back down, with our full packs. The hike down wasn't bad, although it did seem long. Towards the end my feet were starting to really show their hatred for me. We got to the camp just as I was looking for a convenient place to throw myself off the side of the trail.

We set up our tents in what was just a field by a river. Todd set his up much faster and put the rain guard on, while I frolicked in the stream and ignored the signs of rain. I eventually set up my tent, just as the sun was setting. The field was filled with strange green bugs, which covered everything, and upon being disturbed would cover whatever disturbed them. Despite being very careful about getting in my tent, there were approximately 100,000 of them in my tent with me.

I fell asleep fairly quickly, and was awaken by the sounds of thunder, and rain falling on my face. It turns out my decision to forgo the rain guard was a poor one. So I got up and put on the rain guard, and peed. It was at this time that I noticed that the field was now filled with odd green glowing bugs. They glowed dimly and slowly faded on and off. It seemed impossible to locate any particular one. I assumed they were some sort of alien and went back to bed.

Steve:

In the morning I woke up fairly refreshed. We tore down our camp and prepared to head out. As we were only about a quarter mile on flat land from the car I choose to walk out in my flipflops. It was my turn to drive, so I got in and we set off for New Hampshire.

The drive from MA to NH was pretty scenic. We saw our first runaway truck ramp, which provided endless amusement for us along the trip. There was a lot of wide banks to stop and take pictures.

Steve:

We arrived at Mt Washington in NH, and paid our toll, and got our CD to listen to. It was lightly raining at the base, although it got steadily worst as we climbed. The road to the top was fairly nuts, and there was zero visibility. At the top we didn't even want to get out of the car. It was raining pretty hard, and pretty cold. We were in our car clothes so we had to change in the car. I put on my rain pants and poncho, while Todd put on his 10 cent novelty poncho, and we got out to take our picture. We took the pictures and then spent a little time in the various buildings on the top. We didn't spend much time up there.

The ride back down was interesting. As the Neon is a race car, it likes to go fast, and going downhill it picks up speed very quickly. Even in first gear it didn't even start to slow down until we were going 30. Doing 30 down this rainy single car wide windy road was pretty much out of the question. So I had to ride the brakes the whole way down. After a short while we noticed the brakes were actually smoking (actually steaming since it was raining), and pulled over several times to let them cool. At the base we went in a small store for a short while and we were then off to Maine.

The ride to Maine consisted of a road called Rt 2, which we were to become very familiar with during the trip. Rt 2 was probably the deadest major road in the world. The side streets were dirt roads that went up at 45 degree inclines. For the parts on I-95 it was raining like crazy (a recurring theme during the trip is that it was raining during the driving, but pretty good weather during the hiking). Doing about 70 we almost died about 20 times.

Steve:

We arrived in the town outside the park and had something to eat. We had about an hour of daylight left and had to get to our lean to and set up. The town was about an hours drive from the park. We got there and didn't have any trouble checking in. We drove to our reserved lean to and set up shop. As it was dark we had trouble setting up. I had the idea to move the car in front of the lean to, and use the dome light. You can imagine the size of the lean to as about the size of your bed, and the space in front of it as the size of your bedroom. It was a lot of maneuvering, and there was a 10 foot drop off into a river inches from me, but my years of rally driving proved themselves. The dome light however, proved quite useless.

Once in bed, instead of getting plenty of sleep before what would be the hardest hike of our trip we stayed up for hours joking about nothing. Eventually we did go to sleep.

Steve:

We woke up that morning to the sound of steady rain on the lean to. We got ready and had some breakfast. By 7am we were ready to hit the trail. As we made our way up the mountain I remarked again that it wasn't so bad so far, this was perhaps the most ironic of all the times I made this comment. After the first mile it became a steady incline, which got steeper as it went. Luckily as we made our way up the rain slowed and stopped. The temperature was very good for hiking, it had cooled off greatly since MA. At the 2 mile mark things still weren't all that bad, although it would be a long time before that 3 mile mark.

I knew we had to get above the treeline for the last part of the hike. I had never really been above the treeline though, and didn't know what to expect. We also had charts of the grade along the way, and could see that it leveled out near the top. I had assumed that it would level out at the treeline. That assumption turned out to be the exact opposite of true.

When we finally got above the treeline it was obvious. Now we began to climb up big rocks. At this point we took off our ponchos as it was no longer raining at all. As we progressed the climbing became more and more difficult, and I continued to note that if it got much more difficult there would be no way I could make it. Make it I did though, as the climbing got more and more ridicules, to the point where I went from thinking about how much it would suck to slip and die to thinking how it wouldn't be that bad.

Along the way I caught up with Todd taking a break. As I was taking the break I noticed how cold I got from not moving. I started to regret my decision to bring exactly no cold weather gear up with me. After a quick power bar and beef jerky meal I set out again. Shortly after this though, we reached what is known as the tabletop.

The tabletop is an area where it levels out, this was the flat section we saw on our incline charts. Todd as always was far ahead of me at this point, and I was alone on this tabletop. I really enjoyed it up there, it was very foggy, and I had never been around alpine plants. I kept thinking how it looked like a alien world from the original Star Trek. I caught up with Todd and we stayed together from there to the summit.

After maybe a mile on the flat table top I had been spoiled, and when it started to incline again I was convinced it had to be a few hundred feet from the summit. As there was no visibility, we could only see about 100 feet ahead, there was always a hill about there that we could see. We would always guess that it was the summit, and as we approached we could see another hill farther away. That happened about 10 times.

When we finally reached the summit the view was ok. Still very cloudy, but we were mostly above the clouds. We hung out up top for about 15 minutes, and then began the hike down. I was sure that going down the boulders would be impossible and was planning on falling to my death. On the way down the clouds cleared and we got probably the best view of the trip. As we looked back at what we had just climbed down we both thanked Odin that there had been no visibility going up, as it would have been quite intimidating. Todd insisted that I get a picture of it, as it was very impressive. Unfortunately the picture doesn't come close to capturing what it was like in person.

Not long after that we reached the metal bars that marked the beginning of the boulder climbing. I was surprised I had made it past it with out dieing once. Once back in the treeline the hike down was pretty easy. We noticed a few people headed up. The views at some points were pretty good here too. We got down at about 3pm.

At our lean to we were greeted by two friendly chipmunks. It turns out that when the ranger said, "don't leave any food out" he was serious. I hung out with them for a while, as Todd got dressed in a neighboring lean to. I then took a refreshing baby wipe shower and we drove back into town for some lobster dinner.

On the drive back into the park I noted we had barely any gas. This added some excitement as there were no gas stations near the park, and the few in town probably wouldn't be open early in the morning when we would be leaving. That night we asked about getting out in the morning as they closed the gate during the night. We were told the gate was more of a suggestion, and that we could just open it to leave.

Steve:

We woke up early, and headed out. We let ourselves out of the gate, and started down the road hoping not to run out of gas. We managed to make it to an open gas station, and filled up. Then we were back on I-95 for a few hours, then back on Rt 2. On Rt 2 we noted how early we were getting up as we had been driving for hours and kids were just now getting on the school bus (we also noted how bad it would suck to be a kid in Maine waiting for the school bus).

The drive to Vermont was uneventful. Vermont was probably the nicest looking state on the trip though. We did manage to get lost at the very end of the trip. We ended up at Mount Mansfield though.

Steve:

We drove up most of Mt Mansfield, but hiked the last mile or so. The road up was worst than Mt Washington's, although there wasn't as many other cars. As usual there was no view, and it wasn't raining, but it was rainy. The summit was incredibly windy. Todd walked right by the marker and I had to call him back. To be honest neither of us were certain it was the marker, but it was a marker and the trail was heading back down, and we didn't want to hike any more in the crazy wind, so we agreed it was.

Once we were 100 feet away from the summit the wind calmed down a lot. We got some slight views on the way down (it seemed Odin always rewarded our summiting with views on the way down, never on the way up). At the car we met two guys that were hiking down, they joked about us driving them down, and one mentioned he was heading to NY (as were we), and asked where we were going. I quickly lied, and then noted that I hoped I saw him in NY.

The drive down was pretty crazy. The road was nothing but constant blind curves. At the suggestion of Todd I resorted to constantly honking the horn, I'm sure that helped the mountain ambiance of anyone hiking.

The drive to NY was fairly short. However, along the way we noticed that Google's directions (which we had smartly not looked at until on the trip), took us by ferry from CT to NY. Neither of us had ever traveled by ferry before, and we assumed it would be a insane process that would likely involve a fight with a troll. We had the option of winging it and trying to find a bridge or giving the ferry a chance. We decided to try the ferry and it turned out to be not so bad (with significantly less troll fights than we had predicted).

Once across the lake it was a short drive to the town where we would have to find a hotel for the night. Along the way Odin blessed us with the craziest downpour rain of the trip. It was to the point that even with the wipers on high I still had no visibility (to be fair the wipers more asked the water to leave the windshield, rather than actually wiping it off). Once in town we stopped at a cheap hotel and moved all our stuff inside.

Steve:

This was our first hotel stay of the trip, and it was great. All of our stuff was completely soaked, by sweat and rain. It turns out that soaked clothing balled up in the trunk of a car doesn't dry out as much as you'd expect. The main problem was our boots were very wet on the inside. We did a load of wash in the hotel, took showers (Todd turned down my suggestion for a speedier combined shower), and ordered a pizza, camping has never been so great. After watching probably the funniest thing we've ever seen on Fox News, Todd went to sleep right away. I feel asleep shortly thereafter.

Steve:

In the morning we checked the weather and were surprised to see the constant rain of the previous night had left. We then checked our boots which were on the heater all night and were again surprised to see they were as wet as the previous night, oh well, you can't win them all. We drove to the park, got a little lost trying to find the enterence, and paid the fee to a box at the gate.

The first leg of the hike was flat, and even downhill, I made my now infamous remark of, "well if it stays like this...". The hike up was long but rather easy, at least compared to Mt Katahdin. The last half mile or so however, did prove to be quite hard. The weather turned from cloudy to insane winds and light rain. The hike went from just hiking to climbing smooth rocks. Unlike Maine they were long, smooth and only about 45 degree incline, which made walking or climbing them awkward (Todd on the other hand had no difficulty, and was soon far ahead).

The summit was very miserable, the windiest of all by far. We didn't bother to rest up there, but rather the point a mile or so down where the trail split. At our resting point we saw the first of many people we would see heading up. As we made our way down, we noticed that we must have seemed like mountaineering pros, and that we were probably always the first ones of the day to the peak. One group we meet consisted of what seemed like some sort of intercity youth group. One of the kids was wearing basketball shoes, we both thought doing the last bit was nuts for us, couldn't imagine doing it in basketball shoes.

Near the base we noted we were on pace to beat the arbitrary average time given in one of our books, and this became our goal. We all but sprinted the last mile, I could feel the blisters forming on my feet, but as this was our last hike I didn't care. In the end our round trip time was just under 6 hours (with the average time given as 6-8 hours). We drove back to our hotel and showered again.

We walked around Lake Placid, going in some shops, and getting some ice cream and dinner. During the walk I started to realize how bad my feet hurt and started to regret the decision to walk around the town as opposed to drive to avoid paying for parking. Luckily it wasn't that far, and Todd didn't have to carry me back to the hotel. We did whatever (wink wink), and spent our second night in the hotel.

Steve:

We woke up, checked out and finished packing up the car. This was by far the coldest point of the trip. The TV said it was 32 out.

Steve:

The drive to NJ was pretty uneventful. Some of the views were pretty good. We found the highpoint, and drove up to the top. This was by far the clearest view of the trip, and really made us wonder how great the views would have been if we could see on the others. We didn't spend long on NJ, as we wanted to get home. Getting home however, would prove more difficult than we thought.

Upon driving in NJ the first thing that hit us was the fact that the highways in NJ are constant Nascar races. All through the trip we had been spoiled by roads were you set the cruise control and then stayed to the right, moving to the left to pass and then moving back. Even when the roads got fairly full it seemed to work simple enough. Not in NJ though, no sir. In NJ all the lanes are moving faster than each other. The concept of a fast land or slow lane are meaningless.

The second thing that hit us was that we were now lost. Despite being in our home state, and driving over 1500 miles without ever getting more than an hour's worth of driving lost, we were completely lost. After hours worth of trying to find the right way, and crossing the same river about 150 times, we managed to find our way onto the turnpike, and into South Jersey, which is truly our home state. A short while later and we were in familiar territory. We stopped by Todd's house, and unloaded his gear, and exchanged pictures. I then went home and showered up, and the trip was over.