Saying Goodbye to 2014 on Mt. Flume

December 31st, 2013, on Mt. Liberty's summit

Adam and I have made hiking our New Year's tradition, and it's now officially a tradition because we did it two years in a row. Last year we conquered Mt. Liberty, our first "big" winter hike together, after a frigid night sleeping in the car. We planned on doing Mt. Flume and Mt. Liberty, a classic loop, but slept in later than planned and decided to skip Flume at the last minute. It was a very surreal experience - it was an overcast day with light snow falling on us, and the summit looked like a black and white photo.

The reason we cut out Flume last year was because the trail is insanely steep and notoriously difficult. I had no regrets about our decision not to do it, in fact I think it was smart of us, but it kept nagging me that we didn't just bag it while we were already there. When we started planning our New Year's trip Flume seemed like an obvious choice. It was close to the hotel we were staying at, the restaurant we planned to eat at, and we could finally revisit exactly one year after we bailed on it. Perfect!

... Except maybe not. I was a ball of nerves about the trip after my poor showing on our hike up the Hancocks, especially since this would be a similar trip. We would sleep out the night before, except this time it would be much colder, and the steepest section is just about the same length of the steepest section of North Hancock, where I had my little melt down. The hike up the Hancocks ended well, but it was hard to shake the thought that I might have a repeat performance. I told Adam I would only do Flume if I felt good, if not we would switch our plans to Cannon (another mountain that we failed to get up last New Years, for different reasons).

Cooking dinner by headlamp

Well, I didn't call the audible and we packed our bags for Flume. I was still nervous for how the Slide would go, but the biting cold took a front seat in my mind. The forecast called for 1 degree Fahrenheit with wind chills at -4 overnight. Our sleeping bags are rated to 23 degrees, and though we've honed in our winter camping setup I was still worried we wouldn't have a good night. I wanted to get as close to the base of the Slide as possible the night before, and the easy terrain allowed us to do just that. We made great time because there was so little elevation gain, which was nice but it made crystal clear just how the steep the Slide would be. As I mentioned, our camp setup was much more efficient and we tag-teamed setting up camp and cooking dinner. The cold really sunk into my bones while I cooked dinner; I had to get up and do jumping jacks every few minutes to keep blood flowing.

Yes, thank you.

It was indeed a cold night, and despite our 23 degree rated bags we stayed warm enough to not shiver all night. Our sleep setup was as such: double nest hammock with our bags zipped together (to share body heat), hot water bottle (I put mine inside a wool sock) at our feet, our fuel and other things we needed to keep warm inside the bags with us, mylar blanket in between the hammock and underquilt, and waterproof tarp above us. Everything was going fine until 2:30am, when I woke up for seemingly no reason. I tried and tried to get back to sleep, but every time I started to settle in Adam would snore, and I would jab him in an attempt to get him to stop. In retrospect, I should have just let him sleep so one of us would be rested, but my half frozen brain didn't work that way. Finally, at 4:00am we got up (we had planned to get up at 5:00, anyway). It turned out my sudden inability to sleep was hunger, even though I didn't feel hungry, because almost the second I ate breakfast I was ready to sleep. We took a few minutes to digest and I concocted scenarios in which we could continue to lay in a cocoon of warm down feathers instead of facing the cold.

Flume Slide Trail

We got moving at about 7:15am - not bad timing. I kept waiting to turn the corner and see the Slide, every time I saw a steep slope ahead I thought "oh, please, don't let the trail turn up whatever that is." The trail started to get rockier, which I knew indicated we were nearing the base of the Slide. When it did start to get a bit steeper I asked Adam if he thought we were on it yet, to which he replied "no, don't think so." I felt like he was wrong but laughed and said, "oh, bummer." We took about 5 more steps, looked up the ridiculously steep, rocky, icy path, and he said, "actually, I think we are!".

The Slide was hard, no doubt about it, but it wasn't the worst. It was impossible to go fast as each step required careful placement, so instead of a huge cardio workout it was more like a gigantic, prettier StairMaster that went on forever. Our quads, calves, and glutes burned to the high heavens, but it actually wasn't THAT bad. We knew it would be hard going into it, and that made it all the more manageable. It was mostly comical at times. That being said, it was heinously steep. Laughably steep. It was almost inconceivable that THAT was the trail. Such is hiking in the White Mountains, though.

Not an exaggeration, the Slide is really that steep

Things only almost went sour once. I had a good pace going, I was in my groove, the dooming feeling of rounding the corner and seeing the same insane grade to get up wasn't with me. I felt good, but I was also ready to get to the top. I placed my trekking poles uphill to use them pull me while I pushed up with my legs, they slipped on ice and I nearly face planted. I told myself "don't get mad, you're fine. Everything's fine." The same exact thing happened on the next step, I repeated my little mantra. On the next step I looked up and saw the junction - we had made it to the top of the Slide. I felt like a million bucks. We weren't even that tired, sure we had fatigued muscles but our energy levels were okay. After a few minutes of refueling and layering up we continued on to the summit of Mt. Flume and were awarded awesome views. We couldn't stay long - air temps were easily in the single digits and the wind chill was -20ish. At that point the air is just painful. It hurts to draw it into your lungs on a deep breath, it hurts to have it touch any exposed skin, it just plain sucks. 

Summit of Mt. Flume

View from Liberty 

We flew down Flume to the col between Flume and Liberty, it was a nice easy descent but the wind was still getting through the trees so we knew we had to move quickly. Our next climb was "easier" - we were already up high and just needed to climb out of the col onto the summit of Liberty. It was only "easier" on paper. There turned out to be a pretty significant elevation gain, and it was the only time I truly almost turned sour (way more so than the slipping trekking pole incident). I started to slip into the familiar "stop every 20 feet" drag that I was in on the Hancocks. When that happened on the Hancocks I was incredibly hard on myself to the point of being mean. I mentally screamed at myself to keep going, including profanities and other non-nicieties. Remembering how well that worked (SARCASM), I chose to say nice things to myself instead. It seams so juvenile and silly, but being nice to myself was so much more effective. Sometimes words or thoughts pop into your head for reasons you don't really know when you're in that kind of situation, and this time the word was "persist". 'Persist, persist, persist, you are strong, keep going, you can do it, you are strong, persist' I repeated in my head. This little pep-talk seems almost embarrassing now, but it really did work. 

Summit of Mt. Liberty 

Our descent was pleasant, it was hard packed ice and snow that was easy to navigate down with traction on. The only bad thing was that the air temps were still so low that we couldn't stop for long before losing feeling in our feet and hands. Oh, and my toe exploded. Either I didn't cut my toenail right or my toe had been frozen for a while and was thawing, but it started bothering me on our descent. About a mile after I first noticed it I suddenly felt like someone took a white hot fire poker and stuck it directly on my toe. I don't think it was solely my toenail because the pain was my entire toe and it was isolated from the rest of my toes. It was unpleasant, but not a trip ruiner. 

Finished!

What I feared would be a repeat performance of our last trip turned out be one of the best winter hike's I've done. It was certainly a tough challenge mentally and physically, but I was proud of myself and Adam for what we accomplished. I was even happier with myself for keeping a positive attitude and persisting through the whole experience without being so harsh on myself.

So what went so RIGHT?

Here's what went so right and things that I learned from this trip:

Cat Crap works

One of the most irritating things that sometimes acts a catalyst for my mood taking a swan dive into a pool of frustration is my glasses/goggles fogging up and clouding my vision. It's really obnoxious to be blind, guys. I used an anti-fog solution by Smith Optics and it didn't work one iota. My sister got me Cat Crap for Christmas, a product I'm semi-familiar with because we sell it at REI, but I didn't really believe it would work. I was wrong, it actually worked really damn well. I didn't apply it to my goggles and ended up ditching them for most of the day because they kept freezing after fogging up. It wasn't a 100% cure, but it definitely made a big difference.

More efficient camp setup

Every time we've gone winter camping we've learned something that we can do better, and we're finally our ducks in an efficient row. It makes all the difference when things go smoothly at camp.

Smartwool liners

Better glove liners

Up until now I have been using thin wool liners under my big waterproof mittens, that way I can still be covered when I take my mittens off for dexterity. I'm a big believer in wool, but I've gone through a pair of Smartwool liners and Icebreaker liners and both have holes in them. Icebreaker has held up much longer the Smartwool, they're still very usable, but neither was heavy enough for those conditions. I don't mind having a hole in the fingertips when I wear them around the city, but when it's 0 degrees it's not okay. I invested in a pair of Outdoor Research PL 400 Sensor gloves and it was the best decision I made about this trip. They're much thicker but they still fit inside my mits, and they save my hands for much longer than the wool liners did.

Hydration

I know how important hydration is. I practiced it and preached it all summer long, I brought it up probably 5-6 times a day. I'm not a new hiker, not even that new of a winter hiker/camper now, but I always seem to go into our winter hikes slightly dehydrated. It's nearly impossible to catch up on a hike. Water freezes, and it sucks to drink ice cold water when it's 0 degrees. I forced myself to drink as much as I could the night before and it made a world of difference. I drank water at every opportunity and I was much happier for it.

Being nicer to myself

I'm inclined to roll my eyes and laugh at the little speeches I give myself in my head, the very intentional positive language I used, because it sounded like it was straight out of some self-help book, but like I said before it made a world of difference. Working with myself instead of against myself was key. Last time I learned that I cannot motivate myself by being mean to myself, and this time proved that the opposite DOES work... for me, at least.

This trip was a great way to cap off 2014, and an great way to enter into 2015. I'm so glad we chose to take on Flume instead of Cannon, and even happier that it's no longer staring at me every time I look at my list!