If you ever wondered what Santa Claus does in the off season, keep reading…
Seeing the pure joy in someone’s face as they experience the White Mountains is a delight to behold. It’s like magic. Even if they don’t summit, being up there is enough for many people. In the photos later in this post you will see some of that pure joy on the face of our guest. He booked a couple of days with us. He wanted to hike Mt Jefferson — a 5713-foot “4000-footer” — on one of those days, but not partial to scrambles he opted for the easier albeit longer route via Jewell Trail. The second day was supposed to be the Twins but ended up being changed to the iconic Mt Chocorua — a 3490-foot “52 With a View” peak — for reasons explained below in the summary provided by Redline Guide Debra McCown. As alluded to above, neither hike resulted in a summit. Distance, time, and scrambles were to blame. But the joy, the (elfin) magic of the mountains, was clearly present, nonetheless. With that we’ll let Debra take it away from here.
Sunshine is Better than Summits
When you’re enthusiastic about a goal, it can be easy to overestimate your capabilities — until you get out in the mountains and come face to face with a challenging reality. The guest I guided this week had that kind of reality check in several ways.
On Monday he learned that his hiking pace on steep, rough terrain was not fast enough to achieve his objective for that day — the summit of Mt Jefferson — within the span of a normal hiking day. Feeling defeated by the relentless rocks on the upper part of the Jewell Trail (‘They are ubiquitous for sure,’ he told me), he opted to turn around and save his strength for another day.
His original goal for Wednesday was to tackle North and South Twin mountains, but it was clear after Monday that checking these off the 4000-footer list would be best accomplished on an overnight trip in the future. So, for Wednesday, he chose a more manageable objective that had long been on his to-do list: Mt Chocorua, which though less than 4,000 feet is still a significant challenge to many. After a planned rest day on Tuesday, he hit the trail with renewed energy Wednesday morning, hoping to check it off his list.
We talked ahead of time about the challenging rock scramble below the summit, and I even brought a rope in case he wanted to feel a little more secure going up. But when he saw it in person, he decided that, due to its physical and psychological difficulty, he would only want to complete it with a helmet, harness, and climbing gear. So, we turned around there — less than 100 yards from the top.
After that he made it clear that, despite not reaching any of the summits he hoped for, he still had a great time on both hikes. The weather was beautiful on both days, and he was challenging himself on the trails — and, really, that was the main thing he was after. He knows the mountains aren’t going anywhere, and we talked about a plan to help him accomplish his 4000-footer goals in the future.
Meanwhile, here’s my take: Any time you get to be above treeline in the sunshine, I consider it a win. —Debra
Day One: Mt Jefferson
Day Two: Mt Chocorua
