Sunday, July 26, 2009

A Sense of Achievement

Obtaining a sense of achievement keeps a person more driven towards a goal or committed to a plan (workout program or otherwise) than almost anything else. When you're involved in a workout program that allows you to meet your goals, then you get a sense of achievement that gives you self esteem and confidence and it makes you feel fantastic. When you're involved in a workout program in which you get a sense of achievement just from finishing the workout, that's even better. There are two types of gyms out there. The kind where the workouts give you a sense of achievement, like Dynamic Strength and Conditioning. And the other kind, like the shiniest of the chrome and fern palaces (I won't mention their name, but it starts with a "G" and it rhymes with "colds") that run promotions like Cankle Awareness Month in July and have everybody doing extra toe raises. I'm not kidding. They're just finishing up Cankle Awareness Month. Apparently, when your calf and ankle kind of blend together they call this a cankle and the khaki-clad cardboard cutouts at Gold's are telling their members that they can spot reduce fat calves with lots of toe raises. I've also been working on my cankles, but I prefer riding my bike, hiking, jumping rope, doing lots of closed chain exercises driving power through my feet into the floor (like anything we do with a kettlebell), and in general, just doing really active full body movements like 100% of the exercises you do at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning.. You'll notice from the picture below that there is a definite lack of cankles as a result of my functional conditioning workout regimen:

Back to the topic.... When you come to Dynamic Strength and Conditioning you get a sense of achievement. You leave feeling like you achieved something special and pushed yourself to a place that most people on the planet never push themselves to. The people that leave our gym tell all their friends and co-workers what they did. They facebook about it. They email stories. They tell people about the time they were doing stair sprints and burpees for 20 minutes, thought they would die, couldn't believe they completed it, hated me for making them do it, but then loved how it made them feel after because of the sense of achievement it gave them. They talk about the kettlebell omelettes where we keep the kettlebell moving for 30 minutes without putting it down. They talk about the prison workouts and how fast they were able to get through them. If you ever worked out at a traditional gym, how often have you ever went to work and told everybody about the toe raises you did that morning? Why not? First, because nobody gives a shit. Second, because it doesn't give you that sense of achievement. It's unimpressive. Anybody can work one muscle at a time in isolation and stay fat and out of shape. That's easy. It's hard work to come to my gym and work your whole body hard to achieve your goals. That's impressive! Those of you that are coming to Dynamic Strength and Conditioning are working harder than anybody else and you're getting better results than anybody else :)

I get a sense of achievement from my workouts all the time. Yesterday was no different. I've been training really hard this season for my Mt W goal, as you all know. This week was another tough training week. I did some tough interval sessions on the bike and I did a couple tough workouts in the gym. Yesterday I entered one of the hardest races in New England, The Tour of the Hilltowns. This is a 57 mile bike race, over 5000' of elevation gain and two major climbs. To put the climbs in perspective, one of them would be considered a Category 2 and the other a Category 3 in the Tour de France.. Tough climbs. I was in the Master's field again, a field which is ridiculously strong with guys who spent years racing in pro fields. These guys kick my ass every time I race with them, which is why I keep coming back. My goal is to become a strong Masters racer.

In the staging area, the race official was telling us about some of the things to watch out for on the race course, like the potholes and long craters on one of the fast descents that they didn't have time to deal with since they got 2 inches of rain in 30 minutes the night before. Everybody knows tough roads is part of racing and you really just hope you get lucky enough not to hit a hole because in a lot of cases, when you're in a pack, you can't really avoid them. The race starts and the guys immediately start putting in massive accelerations. I think there were a few guys that were trying to blow the field apart well before the first big descent just to spread things out a little bit. I was feeling really strong and staying right to the front of the group, which is an unusual place for me to be in the master's. I was matching every acceleration and staying within the first 10-15 riders in our field of about 60. The field stayed together into the first major descent at about 10 miles. And then the potholes started coming. We're doing about 40 MPH and you start hearing it... POP! Psssshhhh.. "F--K!"... POP! Psssshhhhh.. "F--K".. Three riders flatted in the group.. Every time you hear the POP!, you hope it's not you but you can't really tell for a few seconds until all the air runs out of the tire.. I had a decent line of sight through the riders ahead of me so I was able to avoid a lot of the holes, which was great because we were flying. But then my line of sight closed up for a split second, and I rode right over a pothole. At 40MPH there's really no way to avoid a hole that quickly.. POP! pssshhh.. in my head I'm saying "don't be me, don't be me, don't be me".. the "pssssshhhh" sound faded so I thought it was behind me and I was OK.. But then the "thump, thump, thump, thump..." came and I knew I was out.. Unlucky.. I made my way to the side of the road. Now, if you watch the Tour de France, when a guy punctures there is a team car there within two seconds, they do a NASCAR 5 second pit stop, and then a couple of the guy's teammates who stayed back pace him back up to the peloton. So I'm standing there on the side road waiting for my team car and looking for my teammates. Hmmm.. Could be a long wait. Supposedly there was a neutral support vehicle in each field that had extra wheels, but with three flats behind me, who knows how long it would take for them to get to me. Luckily I had a spare tube and CO cartridge with me so I start changing my tube. I'm almost done with my tube change and the wheel vehicle comes up and stops. "Hey, you need a wheel?" then he sees me changing the tube myself and he says, incredulously "You're changing it yourself???". I told him I didn't know how long he'd be, what choice did I have.. So since it would have been quicker at this point to take a new wheel than to finish what I was doing with my wheel, I took the new wheel. I lost at least 5 minutes and knew there was no way I would see my field again for the rest of the day. It's crushing to get all psyched up for an event, start out strong, and with one quick stroke of misfortune have everything end for you. I was about 10 miles from the start, and about 40 miles and two brutal climbs of solo effort from the finish. The thoughts go through your head, "screw it, your day is over just go back".. But I'm in this for a sense of achievement and hell if I'm not finishing this race. So I set a goal to get to the finish as fast as I could without getting passed by any of the groups that started behind me, which is a bit unrealistic since I had 50 miles to go and probably a 3 minute gap on the group that started behind us at this point and groups will always be faster than solo riders. But it's a goal that would keep me working as hard as I could the rest of the way and make the most out of my race that has now become just another hard training ride.... So off I went at time trial pace, which was dumb because holding a threshold effort for 50 miles over two tough climbs isn't possible, and even if it was, it would probably kill me. I passed by a couple more riders that had also flatted. I kept going at a really hard pace and at about mile 18 I started to see somebody from my group ahead of me. I went into pursuit mode since I really wanted somebody else to ride with so that we could work together the rest of the way. I caught him at mile 20 at the base of the cat2 climb. This is a 3 mile climb at about 8-9% avg grade, it's brutal. Unfortunately, my pursuit of the rider ahead of me left me with little to stay with him on the climb and I was dropped. I was suffering a ton at this point. I got to the top of the climb and kept my effort up as hard as I could go. I still hadn't got caught by the group that started behind us so I was pretty happy about that. They wouldn't catch me until about mile 35, a good effort on my part to stay away from them that long. The group that caught me was a 20 rider Cat 4 break off a field of about 100. I'm not allowed to catch on with this group since it's the lead group from another field so I situp, let them pass, and then continue on. Over the next 10 miles I started passing racers that were dropped off their fields, looks of misery on their faces as they trudge into the finish. I catch a racer from the cat3 group that started ahead of us who had run into some mechanical issue earlier in the race and him and I ride together for a while. A chase group of about 20 racers from the cat4 field comes up behind us and we catch on the back of that for a couple miles.. As long as it's not part of the lead group it's not a big deal at this point. The cat 3 racer and I sit in for a couple miles and enjoy the almost conversation pace of the cat 4 group :) My legs needed a bit of a rest after spending the last 35 miles in solo TT mode and there was one major climb coming into the finish, so this was a nice break. We come into the last climb of the day which is about 5 miles long that's steep enough in 3 sections that they break the roadway up to add a "slow traffic" lane.. I decide I'm giving it everything I have the rest of the way so I stand up and ride away from the group. I turn around and they're putting in a hard effort to chase but I've opened up a decent gap on them. After about 1/3 of the climb, one of the racers from the chase group bridges up to me and we work together the rest of the way putting in a huge effort that left my legs and lungs ready to explode. We must have passed about 10 guys that were dropped from earlier groups like they were standing still as we charged up the remainder of the hill in the big ring as if we were fighting it out for first. Awesome end for a finish that really meant nothing in the standings, but meant everything in my head. I got a huge sense of achievement out of this because it would have been so easy to not finish, or even to just take it a little easier the rest of the way after I flatted. A brutal race course where you spend 3/4 of it solo and still give it everything you have is definitely a big accomplishment and a great show of physical and mental strength. And hey, I got a great workout on my cankles :)

Best,
kevin

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Hitting the Hills... Or Is It the Other Way Around?

This weekend I did a couple massive hillclimbs on my bike.. Saturday was a bike race up Mt Ascutney in Vermont and Sunday was a practice ride up Mt Washington in preparation for the big race on August 15th. The Mt Ascutney autoroad has 2300 feet of ascent over 3.7 miles. An average grade of 12% with extended sections of 18-19%. The Mt Washington autoroad is 7.6 miles with 4700 feet of ascent, an average grade of 12%, extended sections of 18-19% and the last 50 yds at 22%. These are brutal, relentless climbs that test you to your absolute maximum limits. The only way to understand how hard it is to climb something like this is to try it. And then once you're done trying it, do it again and try to do it as fast as you possibly can. This requires a level of mental and physical strength that most don't possess. Which is why there really aren't a whole lot of people doing it. To train for this I train on the biggest, toughest hills in the area around Wilton, Mason, New Ipswich, the Pack Monadnock Autoroad, and sometimes up into the White Mountains but those hills are easy compared to the ones I did this weekend. None of those climbs take more than about 10 minutes to complete and none of them, with the exception of Pack Monadnock, approach the steepness of the mountain autoroads.

This past week was a tough training week for me. From Monday to Wednesday I did two really hard workouts in the gym with kettlebells, sandbags and bodyweight exercises and I put in about 100 miles on the bike with some really tough threshold and VO max intervals. I went pretty easy on Thursday and Friday and showed up at Mt Ascutney feeling pretty good Saturday morning. I had never done the Mt Ascutney autoroad, which would come back to bite me later. I use a power meter for my training so I have a good idea of how hard I can push for extended periods of time. Racing with the power meter helps at the beginning of a race like this because you can pace yourself a little at the start to prevent blowing up too early. For example,
when the gun sounded, a bunch of guys in my field went off really hard. Too hard. They stayed out in front of me for about a mile, but then they would blow up one by one and I started picking them off. Going by them as they would be all over their bike huffing and puffing. Blown up. Only the strongest would stay out in front and be able to maintain that kind of pace. To be fair, it wasn't like I was taking it easy. Within 5 minutes my heart rate had climbed to about 95% max. But I was able to hold it there the whole way. My heart felt like a blender running on the ice crush setting for the 33:46 it took me to complete the race as I came across 36th out of about 200 racers. My field was clearly the strongest in the race placing more than 20 riders in the top 50. I was 13th in my field of about 55. The one part of the race that I made a mistake was near the top. The road flattened out for an extended section and I was thinking that I was very close to the finish and that maybe there was one last little kicker to climb at the finish. So I hammered on the flat section and gave it everything I had left, only to turn a corner and see a 1/4 mile wall that I had to make my way up. Devastating. I was way over redline and it was all I could do to make the last 1/4 mile, but I made it.. In a ton of pain...

Now that I'm done with the race, this is the part where you see why people that do hillclimbs are such a mental bunch. When I get across the line at these races it is so painful to stay on the bike that I usually just point the front wheel towards an empty patch of land, fall off and lay there for a couple minutes. I'm not the only one, by the way. One person who came across after me practically landed on me as he obviously had his eye on the same empty patch of land I had my eye on... Once I catch my breath, I'll get back on the bike and spin for a bit and look for somebody I know. So I found a friend of mine and pull over to him. I ask him how he did. He says "that sucked. but i think i PR'd" (means got a personal record).. Somebody else pulls up to us and, unprovoked, says "that sucked".. somebody else pulls up to us and says "holy shit, did that suck". I'm not kidding. Nobody says "wow, what a great race". Nobody climbs hills because it's fun. We do it because it sucks so bad that getting to the top is a huge accomplishment. When you tackle something like Mt Ascutney or Mt Washington you are among an infinitesimal percentage of people in the world who would even consider doing something like that, never mind actually achieving it. It pushes you to your absolute limit. Every time you do it, you prove something to yourself. And it's miserable. But the feeling after you're done is something that is very difficult to describe and it makes it all worthwhile.. Well, maybe not immediately :)

I was pretty happy with my result and I hit a new personal best for 30 minute power output. So I'm definitely getting stronger as time goes on. And then it was off to Mt Washington..

I get up Sunday morning at 4:45 so I can get some food in me a couple hours before I plan to go off at about 6:45. My best move of the weekend was to bring my little espresso maker on the trip with me. I fire up the espresso maker and start the process of my own version of doping. Quad-shots of Espresso, bagels, peanut butter, and bananas. Sufficiently, doped, I head off to the Mt Washington autoroad to get warmed up. My legs were feeling a little tight from the previous day's effort, but of more concern was my lungs. I was still suffering from some exercise induced asthma from my "ice crush" effort the day before and I was worried that I wouldn't have the lung capacity to push as hard as I would need to today. This was going to suck. Which, of course, is exactly why I was doing it :) I was warming up on my rollers in the parking lot waiting for my buddy Bill to show up. Bill is one of the top hillclimbers around and has climbed Mt Washington 5 times finishing top 10 in the race on a couple occasions. While I was waiting, a woman and her husband showed up and parked next to me while i was warming up. The woman was getting ready to climb. Here's a little excerpt from our discussion:
Me: "Ever ride it before?"
Her: "No, how is it?"
Me: "It sucks beyond belief."
Her: "Hahaha."
Me: "No really, I'm not going to lie to you, it's miserable."
Her husband: "Hahaha glad I'm not doing it, have fun honey..."

She quickly warmed up and headed out a while before Bill and I went off.. I ended up passing her later on at about the halfway point and she was suffering big time.. I gave her a "Cmon, you're doing great!" as i went by and she responded with "Unnhh".. It was nice to see the development of a true hillclimber.. Now when she gets to the top she'll be just like the rest of us as we commiserate with each other mumbling our mantra, "man, that sucked."

Back to the story.... Bill showed up, we finished our warmup and headed up the mountain. I heard a "ping" come from my rear wheel which I thought sounded like a broken spoke but when I looked around I didn't see a spoke flopping around so I kept going. Come to find out later, one of the spoke nipples had sheared causing the wheel to come out of true to the point that the wheel was just slightly rubbing the brake in one spot. But I'm working so hard to get up the mountain anyways that I never noticed it. Oh well, the suck factor goes up by a little for the day. Whatever.

When I climb the mountain I know I'm in for unspeakable pain but I try to keep my sense of humor as long as possible. I crack lame jokes to people as I pass by them "Are we there yet?", "Mind if i get in behind you and draft for a little bit?" (remember we're moving about 6 MPH).. My sense of humor usually lasts about 30 minutes and goes away right about the time you get above tree line and start getting pummeled with wind. Today's ride was no different. Within the first mile my heart rate settles out to about 168 bpm which is about 92% max. A little less than the "ice crush" rate I maintained on Mt Ascutney yesterday, but still pretty damn high, and my lungs were already searing. Legs warmed up nice and my power numbers were right where I wanted them. Get through mile 1 pretty easy even though it's a nasty 12-14% grade. During the next 2 miles there are extended sections of up to 18% grade which most people have never seen on a paved road before. Between mile 3 and 4 every part of your body is in pain and there is absolutely no position, sitting or standing, that provides any relief. And I'm not even half way there. This is where the mind games start for real. "Dude, you're not even half way. You're never going to be able to keep it up.". But I do. Once above the treeline at about mile 4 I'm a little over half way there and I'm getting long looks of what's to come and it's really, really ugly. I can see half a mile up the road at a time some times and it's just so steep and I'm in so much pain that my mind is screaming at me to quit. But I don't. I keep turning the pedals as if my life depended on it. Not only that, but since I'm trying to accomplish a PR, I'm turning them as hard as I can. My heart is beating out of my chest at about mile 5 as I turn into a half mile stretch of gravel that's at 18% grade with a 50MPH headwind that freezes my fingers and practically knocks me off the bike a couple times. Now we're having fun, right? Um no. Did I mention how bad these rides suck? The last couple miles are a blur. My lungs are gurgling, there's shit coming out of my nose and mouth that's freezing to my cheeks and eyelashes with the wind chill at about 30deg. My lower back is killing me. My legs are killing me. My arms are killing me from pulling on the bars. I stand up, it hurts. I sit down, it hurts. I pass people that have gotten off their bikes and started walking. I would rather die than be one of those people. I didn't come to walk my fk'n bike to the top of this mountain. I get to the top of long steep sections that end into a turn, hoping to get around the bend and see something flatter. But it's not. It's as steep if not steeper than what I just came off. Then at mile 7 I enter the cloud. It's cold and wet and the scene is surreal. Moonlike, with nothing but rocks and fog all around. (I know this from when I was on the Moon and that's exactly what it looked like).. I come to a flat spot and I know I'm getting close to the finish. I hammer the flat spot and come into the last uphill section of the climb. I hear the people cheering at the top as I come around the last little kick in the teeth which is about 50yds at a mind-numbing 22% grade. I cross the line and look at my clock, just under 1:18. A new personal best. This is at the end of one of the toughest training weeks I've put in. The day after a monster effort up Mt Ascutney. A 50 MPH headwind at the top. And a rear wheel that had a slight rub all the way. My goal is to hit 1:10 on August 15th. Cutting 8 minutes in 4 weeks may be unrealistic even under ideal conditions, but if there's one thing that's for certain it will be that I will give it my best. I left everything I had on Mt Ascutney yesterday. I ate, slept, got up the next morning and left everything I had left on Mt Washington. I set personal bests on both days. The efforts sucked beyond belief and my body is hurting a lot. But I accomplished things this weekend that most people will never accomplish in their lives and, for that, it's all worthwhile.

And now.... I'm going to eat a giant bowl of Jake's Ice Cream...

Best,
kevin

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Does Everything Have to be an Adventure?

One of the guys that's been coming to the gym since just about day 1 set a goal for himself to climb Mt Washington. Kirk's on the back end of his 50's and when he first came to the gym, the climb up the stairs was about all he could take, so tackling the tallest, nastiest peak in the east is no small accomplishment. Actually, climbing Mt Washington isn't an easy accomplishment for anybody regardless of age or fitness level. It's one of the most strenuous climbs around. Kirk has been training with us 3 days a week for the last 8 months and he's gotten incredibly strong. He's bounding up the 6 flights of stairs to the gym and he's doing 20+ box jumps on a 24" box in a 40 second interval. He works his butt off with kettlebells, medicine balls, and bodyweight exercises, side by side with guys and girls in their 20's. This guy is fitter than most people half his age. When Kirk, Alison, Danielle, Michele, Jake and I set out to hike Mt Washington on July 4th we expected a challenge but we weren't expecting it to be the adventure it turned out to be. But Mt Washington has a sign at the top that says "The Worst Weather in the World" for a reason, and even though it was July we really had to work to achieve Kirk's goal of summitting that day.


Like any hike in the Whites, it started out with a nice walk in the woods through sheltered forests and past falling waters. Fairly mild grades, but nothing too steep. Right about the time that Kirk commented "this isn't too bad", the trail turned upwards so that we were climbing about 1000ft per mile for the next couple miles. Pretty steep. The forecast called for possible

thundershowers and a little rain, but up until this point it was really just cloudy. The only wetness in the air was from the endless waterfalls that we were passing on the Amonoosuc Ravine Trail. Absolutely stunning trail. What we lacked in views due to no visibility from the fog and cloud cover we got back tenfold from the beauty of the headwaters of the Amonoosuc River and the never ending waterfalls. We got to treeline and put on our rain jackets since it was misty out, but left the rain pants in the packs since it really wasn't that bad. As we were to soon find out, this was a big mistake. We hiked up to the Lake of the Clouds Hut, which is a really cool AMC full service hut. We took a short break and I grabbed a cup of coffee. The coffee they use is called Java Juice. It's an extract that you mix with hot water. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever tried. I'm thinking the "Java Juice" is some kind of Dung Beetle extract and the people at the hut use it to ensure nobody is hanging around drinking coffee. Because there's no way anybody is having a second cup of that crap.


The peak of Mt Monroe is about 3/10 of a mile from the Lake of the Clouds Hut so we decided to summit that first before heading towards Mt Washington. This is where the day became an adventure. We're above treeline and totally exposed at this point and it was getting really windy, maybe 30mph winds with 50mph gusts. Not a huge deal, at least it wasn't raining.... As we get within 30 feet of the summit of Monroe we start getting pummeled with sleet and some small hail. Initially I'm thinking, well if it's just sleet maybe my pants won't get wet and I'll have a chance to get my rain pants on when we get back down off the top of Monroe. There was no shelter anywhere and it was too nasty with the wind and weather to open up the packs and try to get the

rain pants on at this point anyways. We summit Mt Monroe, I do my customary peak handstand (which is really challenging when the wind is blowing 50mph and sleet is hitting you sideways in the face)

and we head back down, pants and gloves still dry since it remained sleet and hail to this point.. And then the rains came, and when it did, it came in drops the size of grapes. My pants soaked through in about 10 milliseconds, soaking my legs with the water running straight into my boots. Now we all have soaked legs, feet and hands as we scrambled back down Mt Monroe. The temps were in the 40's with the wind chill in the 30's. We got back to the Lake of the Clouds Hut in a much different state than the first time. There was a look of dread on a couple faces. Kirk found out that his jacket wasn't waterproof, and he also didn't have rain pants. But he did have a poncho, which I told him he should put on, secretly knowing the entertainment value of watching somebody hike up a mountain in 50 mph winds wearing a poncho :) Just kidding Kirk, I was honestly hoping it would keep you dryer.


We had Jake with us and he wasn't allowed in the hut, so Michele and I went down to a little emergency shelter they had under the hut and tried to dry off, hoping the weather would pass. It was decision time. The peak of Mt Washington was 1.5 miles away with another 1400 feet of climbing and totally exposed. There was just enough visibility to see from one cairn to the next, the sleet, rain and hail was being driven sideways by winds that were increasing to a sustained 40-50mph, the wind chill was in the 30's and our extremities were soaked. In these conditions we would be lucky to make the peak in less than an hour and a half. Easy decision, right? We should have turned around. But like I said to Kirk (half-jokingly), "Anybody can summit Mt

Washington on a sunny day.".. So we went for it. This was probably stupid, and given the choice again I'd probably turn around. But Kirk had worked really hard to achieve this goal, we were almost there. We had plenty of food. The observatory at the top was open and we could have bailed at that point and got a ride to the bottom if necessary. And as long as we kept moving I knew we'd stay warm enough. So off we went. We trudged along without talking. Step by step. We marched right past the sign that says "STOP. People have died of exposure in the Summer in bad weather. If there is bad weather then turn around.". We hiked with heads down because the sleet was stinging our faces if you looked up. Miserable conditions. But I was surprisingly upbeat at this point because it was challenging and I enjoy challenges. Plus I was still feeling strong and wasn't tiring at all. Would have been nice to have a nice leisurely hike up the mountain with spectacular blue sky views, but I enjoy being tested. And we can get views on another day. Today was about getting to the top regardless of what was thrown at us. After a good hour or more we finally got to the top. I turned around and I see Kirk sprinting with a huge smile on his face. How great is that? It's July 4th and it's like February and this guy is sprinting up the top of the highest climb in the Whites with a beaming smile on his face... People are getting off their tour busses in amazement as they watch the 5 of us plus a dog walking out of a cloud towards the observatory. They ask us "you didn't just hike up here did you?".


At the summit, goal completed (at least the part of getting up the mountain), Kirk is a very happy man despite the atrocious conditions we've been climbing in..



We hung out at the top for an hour hoping to warmup. I had a really good cup of coffee, but to be honest, compared to the Java Juice I had at the Hut anything would have tasted like cappuccino in an Italian cafe at this point. We were eating our trail mix, bananas, and energy bars while watching the tour bus crowd stuffing their faces with hot dogs and nasty, doughy pizza. People were in the gift shop buying those silly "This Car Climbed Mt Washington" bumper stickers.. So many people out there that need Dynamic Strength and Conditioning, so little time :)


The weather board in the observatory said that the winds were at 50mph sustained with 70mph gusts. It was raining and sleeting. We could have decided to try to get a shuttle to the bottom, but that wasn't going to be an option for me. And as it turned out it wasn't going to be an option for anybody else

either. After my customary peak handstand (which I couldn't hold for more than a half second because of the 70mph wind gusts) we headed back down. Warming up for an hour and then heading back out in this miserable weather was a real test. But the goal was to get down out of the exposed section as quickly as possible. So why we chose the Jewell Trail makes no sense to me now, (although I think it did at the time). An excerpt on the Jewell Trail from the AMC White Mountains guidebook: "...featuring a great length of ridge walking above the treeline with fine views, but this part is also greatly exposed to the weather and offers no shelter between summit and treeline. In bad weather, or if afternoon thundershowers threaten, it is safer to descend from Mt Washington via Lakes of the Clouds Hut and the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail, despite the steep and slippery footing on the latter trail."... Ok, so the weather sucks, afternoon thundershowers are possible, we want to get below treeline as quickly as possible. The guide says don't take the Jewell Trail. Let's take the Jewell Trail! In retrospect, we chose the Jewell Trail because the Ammonoosuc would have been really tricky in parts to descend in these wet conditions. So we chose exposure over technical difficulty because we felt the chance of injury was probably greater on the Ammonoosuc.


Going down was more difficult than going up. Above treeline it's all rocks that are covered with some kind of lichens that are wicked slippery when wet. So every step has to be taken carefully which slowed us down considerably. Plus, at this point we're starting to show signs of wear and tear. We've been out for about 6 hours, we're cold and wet because even with rain gear, when the rain is driven into you sideways at 70mph it finds a way under your gear, and there's no let up in sight. We're still trudging along with just enough visibility to see from one cairn to the next. We're coming down the Gulfside Trail looking for the Jewell Trail. We come across one sign that tells us we're going in the right direction, but when the Jewell Trail splits off from the Gulfside Trail about 1/4 mile past that sign, there is no other sign that tells us that. With our heads down, we continue following the cairns on the Gulfside Trail. I knew the book said that we would spend a good amount of time traversing a ledge but I started thinking we were spending too much time going sideways when we should have started heading down by now. As it turns out I was right, and luckily we only went about 1/3 of a mile past where we should have been. As we tracked back I started to see a line of cairns about 100 feet below us that we hadn't seen on our way past before because of the limited visibility and the fact that we were spending a lot of time with our heads down to avoid getting pummeled by the persistent sleet which hadn't let up since we came off Mt Monroe about 3 hours ago. There was no sign saying that the cairns below were on the Jewell Trail, but according to the map it had to be. So we got on it and stayed on it the rest of the way. By the time we got back to the cars we had been out 11 hours. Pretty exhausted and beaten down but definitely exhilarated. We had just climbed the toughest peak in the east in about the worst conditions imaginable for the middle of summer. And Kirk had just completed his goal! It was an incredible day and a great adventure and I'm really psyched that I was able to be a part of it.


All the best,

Kevin