Friday, June 21, 2024
I had a great hike yesterday. It felt very real, very satisfying, fulfilling, and meaningful. it was energizing, at times exciting. I saw, felt, and enjoyed the presence of Nature in varied forms, the bright greens of leaves of trees and plants, the moss growing on rocks, tangled and twisting roots exposed by seasonal streaming and well-worn use of hikers. Singing streams as water flows down and over rocks. And the view at the top is spectacular. The Presidential Range lies to the west, Mount Washington and Mount Madison. I could also see a section of the campground called Midway, where I will be staying June 27-July 2. The hike was a risk, too. It is a 6.3-mile loop. The trail is steep and rocky, and there are leaves on it in many places, too. It had rained in the morning, it was very humid, and for about thirty minutes in the early afternoon it rained again. This made the trail somewhat more difficult, and I’ll have to admit, more dangerous. Slippery stuff, at least potentially.
I hiked up the south trailhead. It is 2.2 miles to “The Imp,” the rock formation from which the name is derived. (The last few photos in the gallery below are of the Imp from the campground.) It is a steep climb, somewhere near 2000 feet. The Imp has a steep drop-off, a cliff-like ledge with a 200-foot drop to the forest floor. From a distance, such as from that Midway section of Dolly Copp, one can imagine a side view or silhouette of a person, the Imp. While I was there, first thing I noticed is the view. Those mountains are fantastic. The second thing are the trees, the evergreen and deciduous forest that climbs the multiple rising ridges. I had thought to myself on the way up, in my sweat-drenched HPX t-shirt (Westconn's Department of Health Promotion and Exercise Science), how different yet similar the tree types are. The broad-leaf varieties, all have deeply green leaves, all contain chlorophyll, all utilize energy from the sun into energy they can use to build their structures and carry out their life processes. The variety of pine trees with the needles act in a similar manner. The genetics of these plants must be so similar, yet there are differences that result in such a variety of visual and functionally different beings. Some have leaves with pointy edges, some are rounded. Some pine needles are long and slender, others are short and thicker. Some need more water, some less. Some thrive at higher altitude, some at lower.
What is the reason for such variety? What determines a leaf's shape? According to a 2014 article published the journal EvoDevo, part of BioMed Central (open access: https://evodevojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2041-9139-5-47)
“But the tremendous variations observed in leaves are mostly attributed to their genetic control - the control of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) and signaling pathways that make a leaf, from a small bulge on the SAM, into a fully developed lateral outgrowth with diverse shapes.”
Some critical physical factors with related to this are altitude, soil composition, rainfall, and overall climate.
It took me one and a half hours to reach the Imp. I stopped a few minutes along the way twice. Once to figure out if the trail crossed a river, as there was a section that looked ambiguous. Once to talk with two woman I passed, who were having a difficult time with the bugs. “Eaten alive,” they said. They had a can of “Off,” with 25% Deet, but they indicated it did not seem to be working. Surprisingly, I had no problem with bugs. I had used some “Off” myself, back at the campground, but mine was 40% Deet. I was wishing I had brought my “Off” with me so I could let them use it. Note to self: Look into a Picaridin based repellant, as recommended by my friend John Micholson and the New York Times. Just as effective and safer ...
The hike to the Imp was strenuous. My t-shirt was nearly completely wet when I reached the top. I could have taken it off and wrung water out of it. Instead, I took off my backpack and let a welcome, cool breeze blow across me. It felt like air-conditioning had been turned on. I stayed at the Imp about fifteen minutes, sitting with the view while having a Chocolate Chip Cliff bar and some Orange Gatorade. Lunch in a beautiful spot! The Sun came out for a few minutes, too!
Then I continued along. It is 4.1 miles back to Route 16 and the north trailhead. The trail continued uphill for a short distance. Once it began descending, it became very rocky. The trail was not nearly as steep as it had been ascending, but it was still significantly downhill, having to descend 2200 feet in those four miles. I would surmise there are times in the year when the “trail” is a temporary stream. It just looks like a stream bed densely populated with wet rocks. There are also several small stream crossings, narrow and doable along exposed rocks. I was very careful, apprehensive and uneasy at times. I was patient. One slip here could be an absolute disaster. It took two and a half hours to reach the end of the trail. I changed my shoes, my Merril Hiking boots back into my Nike running shoes, to walk back the mile and a half to the campground, making it a nearly 9.5-mile hike in five hours.
There were times coming down the trail when I said, “this will be enough of this kind of hike for this trip.” I had previously figured I would hike Mount Washington in the coming week. I now recalled my time on thar trail two years ago, and my telling myself, “this just isn’t all that much fun.” I said that because the trail is just so rocky. It’s more like negotiating a walk from boulder to boulder, and not at all like walking on a nice, more or less even surfaced dirt trail. Part of my problem is data. I like to keep time, set goals and stick to them. These trails do not fit the norm, and I need to be patient, deliberate, and just go with the environment. And although yesterday, during the descent, I said “this will be enough …,” later in the evening I had a great sense of satisfaction and good sensation within. It was a great hike. Mount Washington is still in the plans …
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