Movin' Out

I got a call from TDS this morning -- he's pretty excited to be finally getting back on the trail today. He's been resting for the past six days, waiting for the swelling on his sprained ankle to go down.

This is likely to be among the most challenging couple of days on his adveture thus far. TDS will traverse the entire Presidential range, and experience a net change of elevation exceeding 10,000 feet.

Here's a map of what's in store:



TDS will start out at Pinkham Notch, and hike to the Madison Springs Hut (red line from A to B) -- 8 horizontal miles and almost 1 vertical mile (the yellow line is approximately 2 miles). Since most sane people stop hiking the Presidents around early September, the hut will be closed. TDS will pitch his tent at a site nearby.

The next day, he'll hike all the way to Lake of the Clouds -- another 8 miles that will include a summit of Mt. Washington (point C). In case you're not familiar with Mt. Washington, it's the highest point in New England, third highest peak in the Appalachians, and the site of the highest recorded wind speed on planet earth (231 mph).

To say that the weather makes it a challenging climb/hike is an understatement. Yesterday, the temperature on Mt Washington was a balmy 21-degrees F, with a wind chill of -5 (50 mph winds) and freezing fog. TDS is timing his hike so that conditions will be more favorable -- the weather will likely be sunny with temps in the 30s with 25mph winds. A beautiful fall day for Mt Washington.

Here's TDS's Wednesday hike from a different perspective:



And here's a link to the Mt Washington Observatory (including a weather forecast):
http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/conditions.php

It will probably be at least 3 or 4 days before we hear from TDS, let's wish him well! Or as the French would say, "Bon chance! Laissez les bon temps roulet, mon ami!"

-rg