Kristin Janz

I’ve been lax in blogging for a while, so I have a lot to catch up on. It would take a ridiculously long time to write about everything I’ve been up to in the last few weeks (which, sadly, hasn’t included much writing), and I’m not sure even my mom is sufficiently interested in my life to read the ridiculously long post that would result. So, a little at a time.

The last weekend in August, Donald and I went backpacking in the New Hampshire White Mountains. Backpacking being distinct from car camping, of course, in that you have to carry everything you need to a campsite in the woods, instead of being able to just drive up to one and pitch your tent. I used to go backpacking quite a lot, but I think this was the first time I’d gone in almost 5 years. Donald hadn’t gone since he was a Boy Scout, so he had to rent a backpack, sleeping bag, and camping mattress. Which made it a more expensive trip than you might think. Especially since, despite his Y chromosome, he wasn’t able to resist the lure of impulse shopping at REI when he picked up the equipment, and ended up with some new hiking clothes as well (in which he looks very cute, I might add).

We decided to use the Nauman tent platforms, next to the Mizpah Spring hut, as our base of operations for the weekend. This is just a little southwest of Mt Washington, the tallest peak in New Hampshire. It’s actually just a little below a ridge of mountains that extends south from Washington: Monroe, Eisenhower, Pierce and Jackson–known as the Southern Presidentials. The western slope of this ridge goes down to Crawford Notch, one of the main north-south routes for cars and trucks through the White Mountains; the eastern slope descends steeply into the Dry River valley. We chose Nauman tentsite because it was less than a 3-hour hike from the parking lot, but also reasonably close to some interesting hiking. We figured we could hike up to the tentsite on Friday, sleep there on Friday night, then leave the bulk of our equipment at the tentsite on Saturday while we did a hike up along the aforementioned Southern Presidentials. Sunday we could hike back out, and drive back to Boston.

We left quite early on Friday morning, and it was a good thing, because when we got to the parking lot around 10:30 or so, it was already pretty full. Nonetheless, we found a spot along the edge, shouldered our packs, and started uphill.

I firmly believe that anyone who plans to write epic fantasy novels that include long treks through the wilderness needs to go backpacking a few times, in order to begin to understand what it’s like to have to carry everything you need on your back. And then imagine doing it without waterproof-breathable clothing, or high-tech lightweight gear. Or ziploc bags. For fantasy writing research, it’s actually best, in fact, to go backpacking in the rain. Fortunately, we didn’t have the chance to carry out that level of research on this trip!

We reached the Nauman tentsite early that afternoon, and again, it was a good thing we left as early as we did from Boston. We had no trouble finding a platform, but I think they just about filled up that night, and on Saturday night they had to put hikers in the overflow area.

Nauman was a pretty good place to camp. Since it’s next to a hut, we didn’t actually need the water purifier we’d brought, and could get free, purified water from inside the hut. They have an outhouse, so you don’t have to dig little holes in the woods. And they have sturdy metal boxes to put your food in, to keep the bears away (we didn’t see any bears at all that weekend, though we did see a mouse hanging around the food storage area). They charge $8 per person per night, and there’s a caretaker to keep an eye on things, and maintain the composting toilet (which he said is the worst job on the planet).

I always shy away from the expensive bags of camping food you can buy at REI or similar stores, and just bring food from the regular grocery store. On Friday night, we had steak, accompanied by couscous and cherry tomatoes. All the other campers were very jealous of our steak, as they smelled it cooking. It might seem like a bad idea to bring raw meat where there’s no refrigeration, but if you freeze the steak overnight before you leave, it will be just thawed after spending the day in your backpack. It’s probably only a good idea to do this for the first night of the trip, though. Also, it is kind of messy, because you want to do a good job of wiping up any raw meat juice (also known as blood) that might spill out and attract bears, and of course you have to make sure the meat is wrapped well in several layers of plastic…. Anyway, it is tasty, and a good way to make everyone else who’s eating those expensive bags of mediocre backpacking food very jealous.

Saturday morning, we set off for our hike. It wasn’t very hot, the skies were clear, and it promised to be a lovely day for hiking. We still took plenty of warm clothing though, just in case. It’s always a good idea, when planning to hike above treeline in New Hampshire, to be prepared for anything from 80 degrees Fahrenheit, to a blizzard. Even in the summer. Hypothermia is one of the leading causes of death among hikers in this region (the other is being struck by lightning).

Nauman is just below the ridge between Mts Pierce and Jackson, so our plan was to hike up to the ridge, then head north over Pierce, Eisenhower and Monroe, enjoying the great views. Then back.

The view south from Mt Pierce

Here’s a picture from the top of Mt Pierce, looking south towards Mt Jackson and beyond. As you can see, it still looks like a great day for hiking. However, looking north, as the elevations of the mountains we were planning to hike over got higher, there was a lot more cloud cover than we’d expected.

That's not a silly grin on my face, I'm gritting my teeth against the cold wind!

By the time we got to Eisenhower, it was so cold and cloudy (and windy!) that we even wondered whether it would be safe to continue. But the weather forecast wasn’t calling for rain, so thunderstorms seemed unlikely. (Donald was able to get cell phone reception on the top of Eisenhower, so we could check the forecast on his iPhone. Ah, wilderness!)

Panoramic views from the summit of Mt Eisenhower

After a snack, and enjoying the panoramic views from the summit of Mt Eisenhower (ie, staring into the interior of a thick gray cloud), we started off for Monroe. And that mountain kicked our butts! The thing about going from Eisenhower to Monroe is that there’s this one really steep section that you think is the last ascent to the summit. Then you get to the top of that, and you see a LONG stretch of path ahead of you and, quite far in the distance, the actual summit of Monroe. (The false summit is called Mt Franklin, but it doesn’t really count as one of NH’s 4000-foot peaks, because it’s not at least “200 ft. above the low point of its connecting ridge with a higher neighbor.”) Not only that, Monroe is a double mountain, so there are two peaks you have to climb over in order to actually have summitted the mountain.

From the top of the second (and higher) peak of Monroe, you can finally see Lakes of the Clouds hut, just below the summit of Mt Washington. When we got there, the clouds had finally lifted from Monroe and most of the ridge, but the top of Washington was still shrouded. However, just after turning around to go back to our tentsite (after a potty break down at the hut), we looked back, and saw that the last of the clouds were finally melting away.

The last of the clouds lifting from the summit of Mt Washington

Fortunately, on the return trip, we didn’t need to climb over Monroe and Eisenhower again, though we did need to go back up and over Pierce (and Franklin, for that matter). The entire hike for Saturday was 9 1/2 miles, and it took us 8 1/2 hours (including breaks). 5 1/2 hours there, and 3 hours back.

Here’s a picture, looking back along the ridge from Mt Pierce, all the way to Washington (which we did NOT attempt to climb that day).

A look back at what we've accomplished

The sense of accomplishment I feel in looking at this picture is, unfortunately, somewhat diminished by the fact that the tentsite caretaker can make the trip that took us 5 1/2 hours in 1 1/2. Hmm. Well, neither Donald nor I claims to be in the best shape these days….

We were pretty glad to see this sight.

Our campsite, back at the Nauman tent platforms

I actually overexerted myself during the hike. I was having a lot of trouble, earlier in the day, with my hat, because the shorter layers of my hair aren’t long enough to stay in a ponytail or braid, and they kept coming loose and sticking against my face or neck. So eventually I just took my hat off so I could wear my hair in a high ponytail on top of my head, which worked better. Unfortunately, this was on the way back, and it was quite sunny and hot by then. Also, right at the end, I kind of had to pee, but it would have been really inconvenient to get into the woods on either side of the trail, and we were pretty close to the campsite, so I just decided to wait, but I didn’t want to drink any more water, or I wouldn’t have been able to wait … well, I should know this by now, but deciding not to drink water when you’re exercising hard is never a good idea, if you’re thirsty. Also, I’ve been drinking coffee pretty regularly, and hadn’t had any caffeine that day. In any event, by the time we were cooking dinner, I felt quite ill, and had a terrible, splitting headache. Also I was sore, and had twisted something in my left ankle. And my right knee. I managed to cook dinner (I’d brought some boil-in-the-bag Indian food, curried chickpeas and saag paneer, along with a Pringles-like can of poppadums), but I kept feeling worse and worse, so Donald kindly offered to clean up the dishes for me so I could just rest and get ready for bed. (And no, I wasn’t pretending to be sick to get out of cleaning duty!)

Thankfully, I felt much better in the morning. Though my ankle still hurt. But we both managed the (relatively) short hike back down to our car. We were moving more slowly though; it took us as long going down as it had going up on Friday, when we were fresh and energetic.

It was quite an enjoyable trip, despite all the pain and suffering! I thought the spectacular views made it all worthwhile. Though I’m not sure Donald is 100% convinced on this point. On the way down, we ran into a woman who was going camping with her two children. She told us that her husband had no interest in going. Later, I asked Donald if that was going to be me and our children in the future. He laughed, then said, “I’ll go sometimes.”

Another exciting thing about the trip is that I found lots of yummy edible mushrooms! Only one chanterelle, but lots of hedgehogs, and lots of winter chanterelles (I didn’t pick as many of these, though, because I wasn’t 100% sure of them at first; I put them in a separate bag and then confirmed their identity with my mushroom book once we were home). Donald thought the mushrooms were tasty, too; though he wouldn’t eat them until I had shown him pictures in the edible mushroom book that looked exactly like the mushrooms I had picked, and he had read the descriptions himself to be sure that there were no poisonous look-alikes. But he agreed that they were much better than ordinary white mushrooms from the grocery store.

So, that was our New Hampshire trip! Over the next few days, I’ll write about our trip to Texas and Lousiana (which we just got back from).

Donald and I went camping in the New Hampshire White Mountains this past weekend. I took Friday off, and we drove up early Friday afternoon to avoid most of the weekend getting-out-of-town traffic.

We stayed at the Waterville Campground, just around the corner from the Waterville Valley ski resort. It was pretty quiet there, though that may have been partly because it was a slightly rainy weekend. Or maybe because it’s a small campground without a lot of luxuries. Like showers, or flush toilets.

We had a very late lunch on Friday on the drive up (at the Common Man restaurant in Ashland; we both agreed that of the two free cheese dips, we like the cream cheese dip better than the cottage cheese dip, and that their homemade root beer isn’t as good as the homemade root beer at the Woodstock Inn). So we sort of skipped dinner, and just ate occasional snacks through the evening. I wanted to toast marshmallows, but we were having trouble getting a fire going, with damp wood, and rain starting to fall. Eventually we cheated by dousing the wood with some of the white gas fuel for my camp stove. Oops! Too much fuel. Don’t try this at home, kids! No harm done, though, and the gas kickstart did get the damp wood burning long enough for me to toast 3 or 4 marshmallows. Donald passed on the marshmallows; he said that he enjoys toasting them (with a better fire), but doesn’t enjoy having to eat them afterwards. It’s kind of funny that I’m way more of a food snob than Donald, but I love marshmallows!

We went to bed early, since it was dark and there wasn’t much else to do. On Saturday morning, we were up bright and early for a hike. Well, we were both up for our own definitions of bright and early. I got up at 7, ate some fruit, granola bars and nuts (and a marshmallow or two!), and read my new books on edible wild mushrooms and edible wild plants until Donald finally got up around 9.

Once we were both ready, we drove another hour north to hike Mount Garfield. Donald had forgotten his hiking boots at home, unfortunately, but a good part of the hike up Mount Garfield is easy going; though there’s some steep scrambling right at the end.

Here are some pictures from the top of the mountain:

The view from the top of Mt Garfield

More of the view

I kept trying to get a picture of Donald, so I would get his attention, and he would look at me just until I had focused the camera and then look away before I snapped the picture. This is about the fourth or fifth time I’d made him look at the camera, which is why he looks so irritated.

Don't you already have enough pictures of me?

I’m incapable of not making a stupid face when a camera is pointed at me.

Bad picture of me

Sleepyhead!

I didn’t want to sit right at the top of the mountain, because some darkly threatening clouds were moving in, and I didn’t want to be at the highest point for hundreds of yards in any direction. Donald thought I was being excessively paranoid, but he hasn’t been caught on top of Mount Monadnock in a sudden, vicious thunderstorm. Not fun! So we sat for a while on one of the ledges a short distance below the actual summit.

Hmm ... are those cumulonimbus? (or is it cumulonimbi?)

I also got a nice picture of Donald without his shirt, back at the car, but he said that if I put it on my blog, he had a nice picture of me in my bikini, showing a considerable amount of cleavage, that he’d be happy to post on his own blog. So I thought better of it!

The hike was 9 1/2 or 10 miles, round-trip. The hiking book said it would take 5 1/2 hours, and while I used to be able to beat the book time pretty consistently, I’m not in my 20s anymore. Our total time was around 7 hours, but that included a half hour break at the summit, and several short breaks during the hike, especially on the way up. Also, Donald can hike faster than I can uphill, but I’m faster downhill, so if we hike together we’re probably slower than if we hiked separately. But that wouldn’t be very romantic, now, would it?

It didn’t rain on us on the way down the mountain, but it did rain pretty hard while we were eating dinner at a restaurant between the trailhead and our campsite (the aforementioned Woodstock Inn, of the excellent root beer, and even more excellent–in my opinion–actual beer). We both felt it was too much effort to actually plan ahead for meals, so we just ate out (and bought stuff at a local grocery store for snacks). The Woodstock Inn has good food, but their portions are enormous. Rachael Ray size! I ordered the potato skins and a salad, and I really should have ordered a half order of potato skins, because it was just enormous. They were really good, though. A lot of places think potato skins are 5 neat shells of roasted potato half with a bit of cheese and a few bacon sprinkles; these were actual skins with a lot of potato flesh still attached, deep-fried, then thrown into a dish and smothered with melted cheese and bacon crumbles. Oh, and they actually gave us a reasonable amount of sour cream, too. Donald was all sensible and ordered the swordfish. But he passed on his vegetable accompaniment to eat some of my potato skins (potato is a vegetable, right?).

It wasn’t raining too terribly hard on our walk back to the car (the Woodstock Inn is very popular, so we couldn’t find parking right next to the restaurant). It didn’t start raining hard again until around 1 am, by which time we were both safely ensconced in the tent.

Other interesting things from the weekend: I tried this DEET-free insect repellent that I got at a local store; it contains cedar, mint and citronella oils in a base of corn oil. It was supposed to be really good against black flies. I think it worked okay, but I’m not entirely sold. I don’t think it lasts as long as DEET-containing repellents, and it’s kind of messy to be slathering corn oil on yourself constantly. It doesn’t taste as bad as DEET, though, so it doesn’t interfere as much with eating, and it’s not as disgusting if you’re sweating a lot and some drips into your mouth. I’m not convinced it would do the job in really heavy mosquitoes, though.

Slugs seemed to really like our sandals. We would leave them outside the tent at night, and in the morning they would be covered with slugs. It was kind of gross. But not as bad as the large spiders in the outhouse.

We left late Sunday morning, and got back to Boston early in afternoon. It was a good trip! Next time we go camping, we might try backpacking. I guess we’ll have to be better organized; no hiking out of the wilderness to the Woodstock Inn for dinner, I suspect!