Adventure with Alex

Today Alex and I had the pleasure of sharing a trail with Alex H and Sage H, some of the youngest kids to have climbed all of New Hampshire’s forty-eight 4000 footer’s, and their mother Patricia, author of “Up: A Mother and Daughter’s Peakbagging Adventure” and fellow adventure blogger.

We planned to hike Iron Mt, off of Route 16 in Jackson.

Iron Mountain

I had hiked this trail with my dog Bear maybe 7 years ago. When I arrived at the trail head at 9:45 Trish and the girls were already there. After waking Alex by moving him from his car seat to my back we exchanged greetings and started up the trail. Alex, of course, already had the girls coo’ing over him. He is quite the charmer that kid.

We crossed two open fields and a scenic farmhouse before entering into woods. The trail is a bit eroded in spots, and I imagined it wouldn’t be a fun hike in the rain. It was blue sky however, and the forecast had only mentioned a “slight” chance of isolated afternoon thunderstorms.

The girls relax at the first water break for Max. How did I forget to mention Max!? Max, was their four-legged companion who would prove to be quite the trooper through out the hike.

Great conversation with the girls about their recent hikes and chats with Trish about being a new parent, the politics of internet forums, and the different types of people you come across in the mountains made the steady mile climb to the summit go by pretty fast.

We enjoyed some snacks and water at the official summit marker

Trish had mentioned she wanted to continue along the trail to the scenic “South Ledges” and abandoned Iron Mines mentioned in the guidebooks. The weather still looked agreeable, and the hour early, so I was more than happy to continue. A few minutes off the summit I interrupted the girls chatting with their mother to ask Trish if she had heard something. We both stopped, then identified the roar of a jet passing high above. Relieved, we continued along to the south ledges.

Descending to the South Ledges

After reaching an intersection we took a right and quickly emerged on some large open ledges with excellent views to the west.

Alex & I on the South Ledges- Photo by Sage H

Alex enjoyed some time out of the backpack- Photo by Patricia H.

The view was great here. Earlier an older couple descending from the summit had unfortunately turned around at the summit and remarked on their way down about the lack of  a view. Just 20 minutes downhill from the summit was this excellent vista.

We returned to the junction after a few more snacks and made our way down to the mines. Care needs to be taken here as the trail is a bit nondescript, but small cairns show the way.

We passed a semi-impressive shaft that was filled with muck. I remembered it being filled with water on my last visit and was a bit disappointed to see it didn’t run as deep as my imagination had allowed it to 7 years ago.

We continued downhill past a few “tillings”, or mounds of rock from the excavation process however many years ago. I’ll do some research on this but I’m fairly certain these mines were probably from the 1800’s. Just 2 minutes past the point I had turned around years ago I rounded a corner to find a very cool site. A mine entrance, 10 by 10 feet in dimension, penetrated deep into the mountain.

I set Alex down, who had decided he’d take a nap, and grabbed my headlamp. The floor of the shaft was level, and I could only see about 20 feet into the shaft where a slight right bend beckoned further. I entered, while Trisha did her best to calm her excited girls who were about ready to sprint into the shaft. About 15 feet in I could see what looked like the end of the tunnel, about 40 feet past were I stood. Despite everything looking pretty solid I had a slight feeling of claustrophobia, something I have never experienced in my life. I’d squirmed through tight underwater passages while free diving in Okinawa, but this mine gave me pause. Boy, I would make a terrible spelunker.

The girls joined me and we shined our headlamps as far as the light would go. Patches of rock looked almost silver in the LED light, and I wondered if anyone had recently poked around in here for semi-precious stones.

After scouting around a bit more we decided we had probably found the best mine, but I would come back here in the future to be sure, perhaps by bushwacking up from Jericho Road, which is how I imagined the original miners must have accessed this area. I definitely need to research this place a bit.

As we started climbing back towards the summit a concern started growing in my mind. The humidity was pretty oppressive, and while one forecast had claimed 30% chance of isolated showers, we were approaching 1pm. I had half hoped to be back at the car by 1pm, but hiking with Alex, and new friends, is more social (and leisurely) than hiking alone. We were still a half mile from the summit, which we had to go over again to get back, when we started hearing the “boomers”. We quickened our pace a bit.

I told Trish and the girls about how local updrafts, evidenced by the leaves on the trees turning upside down, was a sure indicator the storm was about to break overhead. I didn’t see that happening yet, but decided to take a quick peak at my Radar Ap on my iPhone. A very small cell was developing  just to our west, over Crawford Notch. On the map it was represented by just a few small pixels of blue and green.

We are about 5 miles east of this

Trish asked how long I thought we had, and I guessed 30 minutes. It was obvious that the radar images were lagging behind what we were seeing as I could see the sky to the north had darkened and gone grey. Going north, up and over the summit, was our only way out. I knew Trish and the girls had been caught in thunderstorms before. I’d been caught a dozen or more times myself, hiking, hanging from cliffs, even once in a snow storm. I knew all about thunderstorm safety and what to do if you find yourself in the mountains during an electrical storm. None of that made me feel any better.

With Alex still asleep I picked up the pace. Trish mentioned if the storm hit us before we reached the summit she wanted to hunker down and let it pass. I agreed, but really hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The summit was less than .2 miles away, and from there it was all down hill back to the cars. I was pouring sweat in the 100% RH, and when a cool breeze hit me in the face I would have welcomed it, had I not known what it meant. Looking at the nearby trees, the leaves were flipping over.

We crossed the summit as the first drops started to fall. Both the radar, and view, indicated we were moving into the storm. This storm was not going to pass us to the north as I had hoped, but was growing wide overhead. Trish mentioned she was fine with me going ahead, and as I picked up my pace on the descent it started raining… hard.

Alex woke up from his quiet slumber to a different scene. Heavy rain was hitting him and Daddy was doing a cautious steady jog down a washed out trail. Not the most comfortable position to wake up in, he started crying.

I did my best to soothe him but I wasn’t about to stop. At my pace I could reach the cars in 20 minutes. I lost sight of the girls behind me, as their mother was wisely slowing them down so they wouldn’t fall on the eroded wet trail and risk injury.

A part of me struggled with going on ahead, as we had started as a group. And while they have way more White Mountain miles under their boots then I do, they were part of my hiking group. However, I had my 10 month old son on my back. I wanted to get him to the safety of the car. I accepted since I would only reach the car 5-10 minutes ahead of them it would be OK.

I reached the open fields 200 yards from the cars. There hadn’t been a flash in a few minutes so I decided to go for it.  As Alex screamed and cried I dashed across the two open fields leading to the parking lot. The car was still hot and muggy so I put Alex in his car seat, started it up for some AC, and hopped in the back with him to try to calm him down. He was giggling at me for hopping in the back seat, and smiling while I dried his hair and face with his blanket. Amazingly what was bothering him just 5 minutes ago seemed like a distant memory.

I looked back towards the trail head for the girls. How far back would they be? If I had someone to stay with Alex I would have already headed back up the trail, but I wasn’t going to leave him alone, even in the safety of the car. 3 minutes later Alex H appeared and ran over to tag the trunk of her mom’s car. Sage and Trish were seconds behind. I jumped in the front seat and yelled to Trish to meet with me back in town so we could say our farewells outside of the storm.

We drove down the dirt access road in what appeared to be a monsoon. When I reached Rt 16 I checked the radar again on my phone.

The Red Center is where we were 10 minutes ago. We headed south on 16 and pulled off in Glen, just on the edge of the storm cell. In the parking lot of Glen Juntion we shook hands, and checked out a small abrasion Sage had gotten on her leg during the descent. Earlier in the hike when Sage got a small scrape her mom said tongue-in-cheek “It’s not a real hike unless there’s blood or mud”. Well, we certainly could call this a real hike. We had a little bit of blood, a whole lotta mud, and a fair bit of thunder and lightning to go around.

I was happy to experience Alex’s 1st hiking storm in the company of such brave girls, and the cool-headedness of Trish. I wonder if Alex will have any memory of this hike. I know I’ll never forget it.