Author Archives: Andrew Ziehl

About Andrew Ziehl

An avid outdoorsman.

The Bigelow Adventure

This outstanding trip may have been my favorite hiking trip of the year to date. Sweeney has already posted his take of the excursion, though I have a few notes and photos to add myself.

The trip itself was thought up by Sweeney when he and a friend hiked part of the range last year, so he had more accurate expectations of what we’d encounter. The plan was to drive up Friday, stow the kayaks at the eastern end of Lake Flagstaff, then drive to the other end of the range, and camp out near the lake. We’d hike the range with all our gear Saturday, and then kayak back Sunday, leaving some extra time on Monday in case we didn’t make it all the way.

In end the, nothing went as planned, but everything worked out extremely well.

Friday

Sweeney’s account of Friday does a great job of describing our adventure, which began a little sooner than I was expecting. We gave my Pathfinder a good workout on the 4×4 roads near the lake, and it’s a good thing it was up to the challenge. After fair bit of driving and scouting for the campground in the car and on foot, I was glad to finally pitch our tents for the night and have a few beers.

Saturday

I’ve been pairing down my back packing gear for a trip just like this, so I was pysched to have reason to bring it on the trail. I was not as interested in bringing my 70L internal frame pack when I only had ~35L of gear to put in it, so I borrowed Sweeney’s extra REI pack, which was much smaller, and fit everything perfectly. Since this was my first overnight of the year where we’d be on the trail, I really had a chance to test out some new purchases. My Big Agnes 2-man packed well, and I enjoyed the smaller, lighter sleeping bag and half-length pad I’d brought. We only shared our food and cooking system, otherwise we were pretty much soloing in terms of gear carried, which made for a good test, and allowed us some extra comfort.

I swear the leaves were colorful. Just not as colorful as bright orange.

The hike started slow but about three miles in we peaked Cranberry Mt. and got some great views of the lake and the rest of the range, the first of many. The foliage was in full color, but it’s a little hard to tell with Sweeney’s shirt out shining the color of the leaves.

Around Cranberry we ran into two guys doing the same trip as us, but in the opposite direction. They’d camped at the Horns, about half way, the night before. It was cool to hear that some others thought it’d be a sweet idea to do the traverse and then return by boat, but we didn’t run into them on the lake the next day.

On top of Cranberry, looking at Cranberry pond below, and the Horns ahead.

Sweeney, looking satisfied with the views.

Next was North Horn, one of a pair of steeply pointed peaks. We heard from a few sources that Horn’s pond, a glacial pond on the eastern side, has some great Trout fishing. Based on the number of fish rising while we were there, I’d love go to back and catch a few, but it’s a small pond, so it’s hard to say how many fish there are in it.

West Peak, with Avery not too far away.

We trekked on to West peak, the first over 4000, and made sure to pick up the pace to Avery, the last peak before we descended and took a fork to leave the AT and head for the Round Barn campground, where our kayaks were. We caught the sun setting on the windy rock on top Avery, and by the time we reached the trial junction 2 miles down, it was dark in the dense woods, despite the bright light of the moon.

Caught in the shadow of Avery, looking at Little Bigelow. The AT continues to follow the smaller mountains.

The campground was a maze of pine needles and more crowded than we expected, but we got settled in and had some time to unwind and enjoy the evening.

Sunday

This was the part of the trip that was a bit questionable. It’s been awhile since I’ve kayaked, never with gear, and never in Sweeney’s boats. The weather, and wind would also factor into whether we’d make the trip in one trip. We got a late start after repacking our gear and getting everything situated in the kayaks.

Even with a strong head wind that followed us the whole day. and some patches of rough water with white caps, it was a beautiful day to be on the water. It was clear, sunny, with just a bit of haze.

Sweeney had his GoPro snap a ton of photos. but I managed to get a few of the range.

As we rounded the last corner for the last 1/3 of the trip, we got a great view of the entire ridge we’d hiked the day before. From left to right is Avery, West, the Horns, and then Cranberry.

We made good time and finished the kayak ahead of schedule, even with a few stops. That meant we still had time to head to the bar Sunday night and then find a place to camp.

Monday

We’d headed partway back along the ridge to camp near another ‘road’ that lead to Stratton Pond, which was a great scene to wake to up. After packing up we, a bit unwillingly, headed back to MA to drop off the gear.

The Pathfinder, just before we unloaded the kayaks.

Miscellaneous Interlude – Biking, Running, and Eating

No photos to see here, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about a few other things I’ve been up to recently.

First off, bikes. I have a small sample size that says biking is kind of addicting. Originally I bought a bike off my friend Dwight to commute to work, and replace a old mountain bike of mine that got stolen. One day I got fed up with being crammed on the Orange line, and started biking the 4 miles instead. This was the first step down a road to a new, expensive hobby. Soon I was biking everywhere, mainly utilitarian. These days I bike generally at least 6 miles day.

It wasn’t until a warm late summer day though, that I really got hooked. Everyone was too busy to go climbing, and I really needed to stretch my legs–so I grabbed my bike (a Trek hybrid, by the way) and rode around the Charles, to Newton, the Science Museum, and back. My bike isn’t really built for speed, having nice fat hybrid tires, and straight handlebars, but it’s solid as a rock, which is great. Up until that day, I felt like I would only really use my bike to get me where I needed to go. But I got sucked in. Now a bike ride sounds like a it could be a real adventure.

And Sweeney, who at first was apprehensive about getting into yet another hobby after just starting to rock climb, confided to me that he got hooked on biking after 1 ride last Thursday. I guess there’s no escaping it.

A Scenic tour of Mission Hill

Also worth a minor note, was running the Mission hill 5k road race 2 weeks ago. It seemed like the thing to do, and though I don’t consider myself a runner, it was fun to compete and do the run with some friends. Since I’ve only run maybe 2 other times in the past two months, I set myself some nice attainable goals– 1) Don’t stop jogging, and 2) Beat 30 minutes. Given that it was pretty hilly, since it is Mission Hill after all, I was satisfied with achieving both of those.

Next time I’ll make sure I get a little more speed in my gait so I can be faster. I’ve never run a 5k before, so I was kind of in the Tough Mudder mindset–keep a nice steady pace so that you can tough it out for the long run. Training a bit might help too, but I don’t like running in the city too much, so I usually just do hill sprints if at all.

New adventures in food consumption

Also, just over a month ago now, I realized I was spending a tad too much on eating out–mainly just buying burritos every chance I got and bringing them home. I decided a drastic change in my eating habits might be a good way to get more convicted to buying groceries. With this notion in mind, I decided to start eating a “slow-carb” diet, a version of which Tim Ferris describes in his book The Four Hour Body.

First of all, let me inform you that I have no intention of losing weight. In fact, at my current morning weight of ~168, I plan to gain another 5-10 pounds. I wanted to try the slow carb diet mainly for its simplicity. Basically I eat as much scrambled eggs, meat, fish, veggies, and beans as I want. I also have been drinking a fair amount of 2% milk, since it’s a good way to get extra calories to gain weight. This keeps my shopping list fairly short–if I can’t walk out of the grocery store carrying everything for a week in one hand in a basket (one very full basket), I probably have done something wrong.

One day a week (Saturday), I get to eat anything I want (carbs). Basically I see who wants to hit burger joints, and I attempt to eat ridiculous amounts of pastries for breakfast, and devour entire pizzas. This is great, since I’d say overall I eat healthier, and I can only eat so much junk food in one day. A stipulation I should make here is that when I’m active for most of the day, hiking, for example, I generally eat more carb heavy since I feel like I need to replenish what my body is using.

Results and thoughts? I’ve had a few realizations in the past month. I’ve definitely leaned down a bit, which is great. Eating to the diet isn’t very difficult mid-week, though I tend to have a few Bolocco bowls throughout the week. Salsa and hot sauce make everything tasty, something I didn’t think to take seriously until 2 weeks in.

Another thing is I am fairly active, so if I eat a few meals that are a bit too small, I end up hungry and losing some weight, which is no good. In a given week, I workout for 3 hours doing barbell routines, ride 6 miles daily, and often spend at least 1 or 2 of the remaining days of the week doing something active like climbing or hiking, if I don’t have other plans. After a few weeks I noticed I was losing a bit of weight, so I just started drinking more milk, and sometimes having a protein shake after the gym. Ferris’ diet plan makes various allowances for this sort of thing.

Three weeks in, the day after my “cheat day” I had some leftover pop-tarts, and had a really strong urge to stop eating slow carb. I was out of food and knew it would be easier just to buy something rather than come back to cook up lunch. Don’t leave leftover sugary food. The thing is, I realized I was wussing out. It really isn’t hard for me to eat slow carb, I usually cook the same type of meals most weeks, slow carb or otherwise. The simplicity and diet of slow carb is just a motivation to cook. The snacks will be there next Saturday, and I’ll be sick of them by the end of that day, again.

Kinsman day hike

I’m doing a bit of back posting here, since I’ve been busy. Having just returned from our Bigelow hike/kayak trip though, I figured I need to catch up. Three weekends ago now Sweeney, Deb and I went up near Cannon Mt. to hike Kinsman. Brian beat me to the punch, but I figured I’d contribute my footnotes and photos.

View from the peak, looking at Lincoln and the Fraconia ridge.

We got a late start but managed to get in a solid hike. As Brian mentioned, we didn’t really have a game plan, and ended up doing a fair bit of elevation change in the end.

I’d planned to hike Kinsman last fall, but rerouted to Chocorua instead due to the novelty. As expected Kinsman had some great views, and it was cool looking over at the familiar ridge of Fraconia, where I spent a decent number of days hiking last year.

Chillen' on the peak, soaking up the view. Caught Sweeney in the act of piecing together a panorama.

Looking south towards Loon

Hikes like this remind me how enjoyable Fall hiking is. It’s hard to beat a cool, clear fall day in terms of hiking weather. Kinsman was also a great warm-up for the Bigelow range traverse.

Rumney and Rock Rimmon

Since my buddy Matt is back in NH for the time being, and I wanted to go climbing, I made the trip to pick him up and head off to spend the day on some rock.

First stop: Rock Rimmon in Manchester, NH.

Rock Rimmon

I did some quick research on climbing in southern NH and this looked promising, but when we got there it was a bit of a let down. We had a bit of trouble finding it, and eventually hiked in on some 4×4 trails to the top of the cliff. There were a few sets of bolts on a slabby face, but overall the rock looked a little bulbous and weird to me. There wasn’t really a shear face. Maybe the locals know something we didn’t, because I’ve heard there is some alright climbing there.

Either way, we decided to push on to what would definitely be good climbing–the Rumney crags.

Rumney

I’d only been to the cliffs once before, last fall, during a climbing trip that turned into a long day hike due to heavy rain the night before. Still, I knew how to get there and was sure we’d get some decent climbing in. Rumney is kind of the sport climbing mecca of northern NE, and has a few hundred routes.

We got there and had lunch by early afternoon. I had forgotten that my guidebook covered Rumney a bit, and so we walked somewhat blindly up to the routes on the Meadows. I picked something that looked fairly easy and led it. After I came down, we ran into some climbers, who kindly got out their guidebook and informed us the route was a 5.7, one of a few on this face.

The first route, a 5.7 face climb.

Like most routes at Rumney, it would've been very hard to use trad pro on this face, hence the bolting.

Given that Matt is still getting his bearings, he had a little trouble with the route, so I climbed it again and cleaned my gear, then rappelled down.

We decided to move on to the 5.8 crag, another wall down the street, in hopes of finding something easier. I led another route, with minor difficulties, though while I was leading it, I realized Matt wouldn’t have much luck trying it out. It was an easy scramble up to a tricky crux, with a straightforward finish. Really the crux was the only tough part. With this realization though, we decided I’d rappel and pull the gear.

We explored the cliffs a bit more, but then headed out. Overall it was a good day, though next time we’ll have to get on some routes both of us can climb. The second pitch I led ended up being a 5.8 just because of the crux.