Woo-hoo...I'm a 9-er!

Only 37 more High Peaks left to climb! Brian, Pam and I headed up to Keene around 5:30 am on Wednesday (also Brian's b-day). This was Pam's first High Peak and she did an awesome job. She was much more prepared than I was for my first High Peak.

We decided on TableTop since it was supposed to be a gorgeous day. It was just about 35 to 40 degrees out when we left the trailhead. We kept up a pretty decent pace, made a pit stop, and de-layered by the time we got to the second trailhead. It started to get windy so we kept moving. We made it to the intersection and pointed out the Phelps trail to Pam...onward to the next intersection, only 1.2 miles. We were going to wait to eat lunch at that point but my belly had other plans. We went another few tenths of a mile and stopped so I could feed my face. That's when Brian demonstrated the fine art of falling into a spruce trap...poor guy!

After that quick break, we got back on track. A quarter mile or so later, Pam had a snowshoe malfunction. She was leading and Brian found a washer and nut where she had just stepped. He did a quick fix and tightened up the rest of the loose nuts and we were on our way again. He pointed out the snow fleas on the trail and the pine marten poop....what a guy! We made it to the intersection and found the well beaten path to TableTop. It wasn't too bad, but he said the woods would get tight and they did. This last section to the summit was very do-able, not as bad as I anticipated. We had some good views looking back down into the valley. We made it to the summit. Actually, we blew right by the summit sign. We backtracked about 30 feet and said "duhhhh". I tend to hike with blinders on---I'm either looking down or straight ahead, not up. Oh well. We made it! After another snack break, we started down. We remembered Pam wanted to take a picture of the old man's beard hanging on the trees...so we did that. Right after we passed the Phelps intersection, Brian felt a sprinkle. Wouldn't you know, by the time we got to the high water bridge, it started to rain---and of course, we didn't pack our cheapy ponchos. It rained when we came down the same trail after doing Phelps, again no ponchos. I think the Van Hoevenburg trail has it in for us. We kept plugging away and made it to the parking lot just before 4pm. Ten miles, eight and half hours, potty breaks, snack breaks, layering/delayering included---not too shabby for two newbies. This was a cake walk for you-know-who!