[at-l] Trip Report

Nice long Veteran's day weekend spent in the Pemi Wilderness of Tthe White 
Mountains in New Hampshire.  It RAINED.  
    We left CT about 3 PM after classes were out for the weekend.  I left my 
briefcase with papers to be corrected on my desk at school.  Eight of us 
piled into two cars with all our gear.  My car is a full sized Dodge Van the 
other vehicle a Ford Explorer.  The trip to North Conway was easy with little 
traffic.  We rented a ski lodge for one night.  
    At the lodge we rebagged food, Liptons, hot chocolate, cup of soup, 
oatmeal, the usual.  I distributed gear to those who needed to borrow stuff 
from the club.  No one wanted to carry the extra gear, but they had no 
choice.  Two members had never backpacked and one had been out with us once.  
So, this was to be a relatively easy hike with the option of bagging a 4 
thousand footer.  We were all in bed by 11:30 PM.
    Friday morning I got up early, took my last shower for a few days and got 
in the van to head for Bagel's Plus.  John and Eric came along for the ride.  
We met Hoops and M&M working hard in their shop.  We ordered breakfast 
bagel's and bagel's for lunches for the next few days.  As we headed back to 
the lodge it began to rain lightly.  After a great breakfast we put our packs 
in the vans and headed for the parking lot at Lincoln Woods on the Kancamagus 
Highway.  The rain was steady now.  We put on our packs and hit the trail 
along the Lincoln Woods trail.   The trail runs along an old logging railroad 
bed.  Therefore, the elevation gain is about 500 feet in 9 miles.  You hardly 
know you are going uphill.  Before we left the lodge we had to clean the 
entire building, therefore we had a late start of 11:00 AM.  After an hour of 
hiking we stopped for lunch at the bridge across the Franconia Brook.  Trail 
Mix Bagels with tuna and mayo -yum!!!  Just drizzyling now.  We walked across 
the bridge then turned left onto the Franconia Brook trail.  Except for a few 
tricky stream crossings the trip was uneventful.  We reached the 13 Falls 
Campsite at 3:30 PM.  We set up camp.  Hung a large tarp for community meals 
and got ready for an early dinner.  By 4:30 it was pitch black and raining 
steady.  We were in our sleeping bags by 5:30 PM.
    It rained very hard during the night.   But I could not stand sleeping 
any longer so I got up at 6:30 on Saturday morning.  To my surprise the 
students were already up.  They were geting water and preparing for a 
breakfast.  We talked about our plans for the day.  We had planned on 
climbing Mt Owl's Head but the Franconia River was impossible to cross.  We 
decided to climb Gale Head instead.  An easy clomb except for the 18 inches 
of snow for the last mile, we reached the Gale Head Hut at noon.  Another 
bagel with peanutbutter and jelly served as lunch.  We were sweaty from the 
hike and wet from the drizzle and rain.  The temp was about 38 degrees.  It 
didn't take long before we were cold so headed back down the trail.  Back in 
camp by 2:30 PM I took a little nap in my sleeping bag to ward off the cold.  
By 4 PM we were preparing dinner during a heavy rain.  Five PM found us 
heading for our tents and a long sleep.  
    Woke up at 6:00 AM on Sunday.  Again the students were already busy.  
There was a heavy fog but the sky was bright.  By seven the sky shown blue 
through the trees.  We took our time packing but were still out of camp by 9 
AM.  A beautiful hike back the way we came brought us to the Parking lot by 
12:30 PM.  We headed into Lincoln for a lunch of Pizza.  I asked the kids if 
they had a misserbly time because of the rain but the reply was "We loved 
every minute".    Another great hike dispite the rain.  The only negative 
part of the trip was that my knee was acting up again.  It has been stiff a 
swollen for the last three days since the hike.

                                        Art
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To:            Glenda D Hubbard <glenhubb@juno.com>
Cc:            AT-L@backcountry.net