On the first week-end in May, Jeanette Hamilton and I had the pleasure of going on a Wild Wilderness Walk for Women with Bev Johnson, Stephanie Martin, Beth Dyer, Sheila Putnam, Paige Boisvert and Leah McDonald. Our destination was the Joe Dodge Lodge at the Pinkham Notch in New Hampshire.
We left Chebeague on the early boat so we arrived in New Hampshire by 10 a.m. We were too early to get into our rooms so some of us had a lunch packed at the restaurant and headed out for what Jeanette and I thought was going to be a little walk on a little flat dirt path. Loaded with lunch, water and munchables, we were off. It didn’t take long to discover we were really heading up, up, up. I had never climbed before so you can imagine my amazement when I discovered I was really climbing up Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington. Halfway up we stopped to have our lunch, and other hikers with skis, sleeping bags, blankets and tons of water went flying by us.
Jeanette and I know our limitations and started back after lunch. To our delight we came upon a waterfall with a nice place to sit that we had completely missed on our way up because we were watching our feet. When the rest completed their climb and joined us, we checked in to our rooms, cleaned up and went to supper which was a great Yankee Pot Roast at the Lodge, followed by a talk by a naturalist on bluebirds, which was most informative. We all crashed after that but were up bright and early the next morning. After a great breakfast we once again started out. This time Jeanette and I kept up, but both of these trails were hardly walks as we’d been led to believe.
The first trail was fairly short but straight up, and when we did get to the top we sat on this square flat rock looking across at Tuckerman’s Ravine. It was beautiful. I found it hard going up and stretching these little short legs across many streams, so coming down seemed easier. The second trail was longer, but every once in a while we actually came to a flat place. When we got to the top we were across from Wild Cat looking down on Creation. God did a really good job.
The trip was a big success even though “The Old Man” fell down from the mountain, and it wasn’t our fault. I would recommend to everyone to give it a try and I hope to go back next fall.