Hiking to the sun on Mount Fuji

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Dianne Fallon

On August 10-11, 2015, I climbed Mount Fuji on Japan’s first annual Mountain Day holiday. My article about this sunrise hike has just been published in the summer 2019 issue of Appalachia, with an excerpt here, along with more many more photos.

cover of Appalachia magazine

I was thrilled to get my summer/fall issue in the mail with my Mount Fuji piece.

Outside, the wind shrieked, as if a massive gale had taken hold of the mountain. Inside the hut, the sounds of other hikers waking up – soft voices, the rustle of sleeping bags, the ripping of Velcro – rose around me in the darkness. On the sleeping platform, zipped into my bag and nestled in between my 15-year-old daughter Jen and a petite Japanese woman, I tried to rest a bit longer in my 16 inches of space.  

The hutmaster had suggested rising at one a.m., but I thought we needed more rest, so I planned on a 2:30 a.m. wake-up.  But now I couldn’t sleep.  Although I didn’t want to wake Jen just yet, I squeezed out of my bag to get up for the bathroom.

I stepped into my hut slippers and outside into a thick mist and a dense crowd of humanity shuffling past the hut. Where had all these people come from? The wind had died down to a quiet whistle. Except for the crunch-crunch of boot-clad footsteps, the hikers moved quietly.

Looking up above the hut, I could see a line of white lights zig-zagging up the switchbacks of Mount Fuji’s cone.  The line was continuous and unbroken, as if someone had strung a length of holiday lights up and across the dark mountain. The lights bobbed and shifted as invisible hikers climbed up the trail.

For several minutes, I waited to use the all-gender bathroom, where men urinated in the urinals while women, eyes averted, waited to use the stalls.  In one stall, a hiker was vomiting, probably from the onset of altitude sickness.

After returning to our sleeping nest, I tried to rest, but soon realized that our host was right. With so many people crowding the trail, we had to start hiking if we wanted to reach the Mount Fuji summit in time for the sunrise. I woke up Jen. After dressing in the dark, we went downstairs to drink coffee and hot chocolate and eat a foil-packaged breakfast of rice and sardines. Not very appetizing, especially on a few hours rest, but we needed nourishment to power us up the mountain.

When we set out at 2:30 a.m., the air was still damp with mist, but the winds had dissipated. We stepped into the line of hikers with our small flashlights, although we didn’t need them because so many others had lights, creating a constant wave of low-level illumination. We began to hike with small steps, in sync with the others, a slow shuffle forward, the way the crowd moves as it exits Fenway Park after a ballgame.

The Big Dipper hung above us in the clear black sky. The temperature, by our New England standards, was mild, about 40 degrees F, perfect for hiking.  Most hikers were clad in heavy coats, head-to-toe wind gear, hats and gloves, but we were comfortable in our long pants, a couple of light layers, and windbreakers, and we warmed up as we moved along.

Hikers get organized at the “Fifth Station,” where most begin the hike to Fuji’s summit.

We didn’t have to hike very far to the summit, just two kilometers, but the going was slow, partly due to the throngs of people on the trail and partly to the altitude — especially the rapid change from the day before, from Tokyo’s sea level to the 11,000 feet at the hut. I didn’t mind the slow shuffle, because the pace matched my fatigue. In the darkness, no one spoke. The only sound was the crunch-crunch of boots on volcanic scree.  Moving with the crowd, I began to feel like we were part of something bigger than a hike.

When I planned this sunrise hike to Mount Fuji, I knew it would not be a wilderness experience. I knew that we would encounter many people and numerous food stalls on the trail, and that I would have to bring a hefty collection of 100 yen coins to use the bathroom (200 yen for each stop). But I accepted these conditions without complaining, because resenting the crowds could ruin the experience of climbing Mount Fuji.

What I didn’t know was that climbing a mountain with hordes of people offers its own rewards…..

Large groups of hikers set out to hike Mount Fuji on summer afternoons, leaving from the “5th Station” — about halfway up the mountain — and spending a few hours overnight in a mountain hut in order to reach the summit in time for sunrise.

A festive atmosphere prevails in the first kilometer of then hike. I have no idea what these figures represent — possibly Fuji bears? — but I’m guessing they are urging hikers to be safe.

Hiking uphill on Fuji’s slopes.

A bottleneck of people slows down hikers near Mount Fuji’s summit.

Waiting for the sunrise….

hiking downhill Mount Fuji

After the sunrise, we sloshed downhill through heaps of volcanic scree that filled our shoes.

At the end of our hike, covered with a thin film of volcanic dust, I fell asleep next to the parking lot for a few minutes before reviving enough to pay a short visit to the Komitake Shrine. Then we boarded the bus for the nearby resort town of Fujiyoshida,and dreamed of the soft beds awaiting us at our hotel.

To read more about my hike on Mount Fuji:

Subscribe to Appalachia, America’s longest-running journal of mountaineering and conserving, or order the summer issue at the Appalachia website. 

For more on Japan, see my post, “Travels in Japan: French fries, pancakes, and pickled plums.” I got really busy with work the fall after my trip to Japan, and didn’t finish all my posts, but I hope to publish more about my Japan travels in the coming months. I was anxious about visiting Japan because it seemed like traveling there would be difficult, but it was so easy and I loved it!

 

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New Year’s in Old Havana

Posted on June 7, 2019 by Dianne Fallon

Note: On June 5, 2019, the Trump administration announced new restrictions on travel to Cuba that are going to make life a lot harder for the Cuban people. However, U.S. citizens can still travel to Cuba under the “support for the Cuban people” category.

The dirty streets of Old Havana are full of people and dog poop, music, heaps of trash, tourists, and energy.  Abandoned buildings with trees growing from windows sit next door to restored mansions with elegant balconies, where the laundry of many families hangs from lines and railings.

One of the main streets of Old Havana, fully restored. Other streets don’t always look as pretty, but are bustling with people and energy. Notice the lack of cars, in the largest city in the Caribbean and Central America. This photo was taken on New Year’s Eve Day, a holiday, and traffic is heavier on  busy weekdays, but overall, traffic was always light.

I landed in Havana at the end of December, carrying a thick ream of cash, because you can’t use ATMs in Cuba, or credit cards. As advised, I brought a money belt to keep my cash pile safe. But after a day or two of wandering around Havana, I realized I didn’t have to worry so much someone stealing my money. Cuba is one of the safest places in the world (albeit with the usual caveat about not doing stupid things like pulling out a wad of bills and waving it in the air).

Except on New Year’s Eve.

On New Year’s Eve in Havana, at the stroke of midnight, Cubans celebrate the New Year by throwing out the old — old water, trash, bottles, and other things.  As we ducked into our casa particulare (a modest bed and breakfast), we heard a cacophony of smashing glass and splashing water.  This was the most dangerous moment of our trip, but we weren’t afraid.

Doing a classic car tour is a staple of visiting Havana, and owners take great care to keep these tourist cars in tip-top shape. But it’s not unusual to see less-polished 1955 Chevys rumbling around, along with ancient Russian Ladas. Cubans know how to use every part of a car — and of an animal, when it comes to food — although there is no official program for recycling bottles, cans, and similar items.

I had been a little anxious about visiting Cuba, and how it would all work out. Legally, U.S. citizens must travel under one of 11 (formerly 12) approved categories. In the past, unless you had family in Cuba, this often meant visiting as part of a cultural or professional exchange group, and these kinds of trips were/are often very expensive.

In 2014, President Obama opened up the possibilities for visiting Cuba, allowing individual travel within the permitted categories.  “Support for the Cuban people” is the box that most travelers now check, because staying in casa particulares or AirBnB apartments, and eating in private restaurants means U.S. citizens are putting money in the pockets of locals, and not the Cuban government. However, in 2017, President Trump reversed this policy, reverting to the previous policy, under which individual travel is not allowed (and then tightened restrictions further in June 2019). However, the reality is that once a door opens, it’s almost impossible to close it. When I learned that JetBlue offers a weekly direct flight from Boston to Havana, I booked our tickets.

Revolution Square, a vast paved over area similar to a stadium parking lot, and surrounded by government buildings, here with an image of Che Guevara. Billboards, walls, and other places are painted with revolutionary slogans and reminders, but no images of Fidel Castro, as he banned public images of himself after this death (except in photographs in museums devoted to history).

To stay within the letter of the law (e.g. group travel), we booked a tour with a small U.S.-based company called KBCuba, which offers biking and “multisport” adventure tours. These trips sound a lot like tourism to me, but the company says these trips are “OFAC approved.” I’m not sure what that means, but after scanning various travel forums and talking to the owner, I decided to go for it, booking the trip through The Clymb.com. We ended up traveling with one other family and a guide, visiting Havana, Cienfuegos, and Trinidad, including plenty of time to explore on our own.

In Havana, the Art Deco Bacardi building, now owned by the Cuban government. The government nationalized and seized the assets of private companies during the early years of the Revolution, which is one reason the US imposed the embargo. The Cuban government still owns the company that produces rum based on the original Bacardi formula, now called Havana Club (and it’s good). The Bacardi family moved to Puerto Rico and continues to make rum there today.

My stay in Cuba was not a relaxing beach vacation, but it was fascinating and much, much easier than I had anticipated, given the facts of cash-only, extremely limited access to wifi, and my rudimentary Spanish.  People are friendly and helpful, and many speak English.  Although all the streets in Havana have been renamed, and you need to make sure you have a map that shows the correct name, it’s easier to navigate the city streets, and to find an address. We also had great tour guides, including an economist-lawyer who lead us on an art tour booked through AirBnB, and our main guide Isis, a young woman who worked for KBTours.

Cuba is rapidly changing, as the government, which once controlled almost all segments of the economy, has now allowed private businesses to operate with more freedom.  Less than 10 years ago, a casa particulare could not even post a sign indicating that it had rooms for rent. Now, signs are posted everywhere, albeit they are official, small state-sanctioned signs.  In 2013, the government made wifi available to its citizens, but at $1 an hour, it’s expensive, given that the average government monthly salary is around $30.  Wifi users must go to a public park to access the government-owned network, ETECSA. In the evening, parks are full of people, most of them young, looking at their laptops or phones.

In this mural, painted on a wall on Mercaderes Street in Old Havana, artist Andrés Carillo depicts 67 figures from the history and arts in Cuba. The woman depicted here is a famous Cuban poet, but I forget her name. Information appreciated!

In Havana, we explored the city streets, ate great food, rode in classic cars, and visited the Museum of the Revolution, which is located in the former Presidential Palace, home to the one-time dictator Batista, and still pocketed by bullet holes when revolutionaries stormed the building (although I don’t think that Batista was there at the time, as he managed to escape to the Dominican Republic).

The old homeless guy that’s still remember in the streets of Havana. Touching his beard and his hand at the same time is said to bring good luck.

The U.S. still has a trade embargo with Cuba governed by a patchwork of laws, including one that prevents U.S. companies with foreign subsidiaries from operating in Cuba. (So I don’t really understand why U.S. airlines are now flying to Cuba, but I’m not complaining). The embargo stymies the development of the Cuban economy, but, as one person told us, it also provides an excuse for the Cuban government for the many economic problems plaguing the island.

In Cuba, universal education is the norm. Everyone has access to free health care, and the health care is generally good, with similar life expectancy to the United Sates.  Everyone who follows a certain course of study has access to a free university education, although they don’t necessarily get to choose what they study. Right now, Cuba’s biggest export is its trained professionals, such as doctors and engineers. The Cuban government sells their services to other countries, which provides the travelling professional with a bigger paycheck than they would earn at home (albeit the government takes the largest cut).  This pool of highly educated and enterprising people is probably Cuba’s biggest asset for the future.

Years ago, I visited Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of Communism  My general takeaway was that people felt beaten down , and that repressive years of Communist rule had fractured a sense of community, with individuals managing as best they could to make sure their family survived.  But I didn’t get this feeling in Cuba.  Instead, there’s a sort of sense among Cubans that they’ve lived through the ups and downs, the bad and good times, together.  In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced desperate times, with people scrambling to find food, and eating dogs, cats and even old mops.  But they never stopped playing music and cards, making art, and drinking rum together.

Mostly, visiting Cuba made me think a lot. What’s an economy? What’s fair, in distributing the benefits of economic activity? Where’s the balance between encouraging individual incentives and in making sure that everyone’s basic needs, like health care, are met? Finally, why does the Cuban government continue to believe that limiting freedoms will benefit the country and economy? Why does the U.S. government (especially now) believe that a strategy based on starving the Cuban people will make the regime change its ways?

Despite all, I’m optimistic for Cuba, which is bursting with educated young people who want to make things happen.  I can’t wait to see what they have accomplished on my next visit.

Fantastical shapes and colors of Fusterlandia

Exploring the home/studio of José Fuster in Fusterlandia, a neighborhood brought to life by art during the grim times of the 1990s, and now a popular tourist destination, thanks to Fuster’s pioneering vision of the power of the creative economy.

Notes and resources:

While in Cuba, I kept a brief journal listing daily activities and contact with people (by first name) so that if required, I could provide evidence of both a “full schedule” and activities supporting the Cuban people.

“People to people vs. support for the Cuban people.” ViaHero. Updated June 5, 2019.

“Treasury and Commerce Implement Changes to Cuba Sanctions Rules.” Press release, U.S. Department of Treasury, June 4, 2019. Also include links to additional information about travel to Cuba. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm700

 

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August days in Death Valley

Posted on December 10, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

During the summer months at Death Valley, birds sometimes drop out of the sky, killed by the extreme heat. Would our car die as well? As the car slid down Highway 190 into Death Valley, the temperature indicator continued to climb: 105, 110, 112, 115, eventually topping out at 123 degrees F. Would the tires hold up? Can cars even drive in such heat?

We’d hardly seen another vehicle on this road on this hot August afternoon. But when we pulled into the parking lot at Father Crowley Vista Point, we felt better, as plenty of other visitors joined us there for views of Rainbow Canyon.

We had read that birds sometimes sometimes drop out of the sky, and then, on a short morning hike, we found this little bird, still warm.

Visiting Death Valley at the peak of summer is a unique experience. It’s probably  not for everyone,  but I went there in August, 2018, and had a lovely time exploring the park, the largest outside of Alaska.

Although we had a car full of camping gear, camping was not an option. As we drove by, one lonely tent sat in the campground at Emigrant, and not a single tree.  The temperature here was about 119 degrees, and probably  15 or 20 degrees higher in the  heat-absorbing tent.  But summer is “low season” at Death Valley, and we scored a last-minute air-conditioned room at the Furnace Creek Ranch, motel-style accommodations with a mediocre family-style restaurant and a fantastic pool. Across the road, the fancy Furnace Creek Inn beckoned with all of its 1920s glamour and low summer rates, but alas, the inn was full.

In the winter, I could spend a lot of time exploring the nooks and crannies of Death Valley, which features mountains and canyons galore, as well as the lowest point in the United States, Badwater Basin. There is also the weird Scotty’s Castle, one-time vacation home to Chicago businessman Albert Johnson and his wife Bessie, along with their sidekick, the con artist/cowboy Walter Scott. Unfortunately, the Castle is closed until 2020, as it sustained severe damage in a 2015 flash flood.

In the summer, signs posted everywhere remind visitors that hiking after 10 a.m. is dangerous and not recommended. Thus, we set our alarms for 4:45 a.m., intent on greeting the day at Badwater Basin. By dawn, the temperature had cooled to a reasonable 100 degrees or so — a dry heat.  By 5:30 a.m.,  we were wandering around the Basin in blissful solitude.

Soaking up 282 feet below sea level as the sun rises as Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the United States.

By the time we left the Basin around 7 a.m., three or four other people had gathered. I love national parks, but they are often very crowded. Lack of crowds is a huge benefit in visiting Death Valley  and other parks off-season.

After the sunrise, when the temperature had climbed to a reasonable 105 or so, we headed up a nearby gravel road to the trailhead for the short hike into Natural Bridge Canyon.

The hike up Natural Bridge Canyon is do-able in extreme heat, especially before 10 a.m.

The hike — about one-mile round trip, depending on how far you hike in — offers some fun rock scrambles and interesting geological features.

Scrambling up the rocks in Natural Bridge Canyon.

Then, after a drive along Artist’s Palette loop road, (which shows off its best colors closer to sunrise or sunset) we returned to the air-conditioned visitor’s center to check out the exhibits, and then to our room at the Ranch for siesta.

The pool at the Furnace Creek Ranch feels very decadent in this land of little rain, but I still enjoyed lounging around in it during the hottest part of the afternoon as well as later in the evening, when the temperatures cooled to a balmy 105 degrees or so.  An abundant natural spring supplies water to the pool through a gravity-fed system, and the water is then re-used to irrigate the landscaping, gardens and the resort’s golf-course. Learning all of this — and that the resort is a California Green Lodging Certified property — eased any remaining guilt I felt about cooling off.

That evening, after a visit to the glamorous Furnace Creek Inn for a late afternoon snack, we headed to Zabriskie Point to catch the sunrise and watch the colors of the sunrise play out across the folds of the Death Valley.

Zabriskie Point at sunset. Don’t be fooled by my solitary pose — sunset at Zabriskie always attracts a crowd, even on the hottest days of summer.

Death Valley attracts many European visitors in August, and we found ourselves surrounded by a mix of French, German, Italian, Spanish and other voices.

After sunset, the temperature cooled down.

Evidence suggests that like many places on earth, Death Valley is heating up even further. Summers have always been hot at Death Valley. But in 2018, Death Valley had it warmest ever July, breaking the record set during 2017, with an average daily temperature of 108.2, six degrees higher than usual.  At the Furnace Creek weather station, the high temperature hit at least 120 degrees on 21 days. On four days, the temperature soared to 127 degrees.  (The highest temperature ever of 131 degrees Farenheit was “reliably recorded” at Furnace Creek on June 30, 2013).

An outdoor museum at the Furnace Creek Ranch showcases wagons, tools, and other artifacts leftover from the 1883-1889 borax mining era at Harmony Borax Works, near Furnace Creek. Various mining operations continued to operate in the park for most of its history, with the last mine closing in 2005.

A  “wet bulb” temperature of 100 degrees F (35 Celsius) and 85% humidity that equals 167 degrees is the maximum heat limit for human survivability, because the body’s cooling system can’t keep pace with the heat (see Leahy source, below).  The NOAA National Weather Service Heat Index shows the combinations of heat and humidity that produce specific “wet bulb” temperatures.

But wet bulb temperatures below 167 degrees also kill people. In 2015, a heat wave that generated wet-bulb temperatures of 122 degree F killed over 3,500 people in India and Pakistan. Chicago experienced a similar heat wave in 1995, and hundreds of people died. Thanks to climate change, we can expect more Death Valley-like days everywhere in years to come.

The Timbisha Shoshone people, who still call Death Valley home, knew how to  survive in this harsh environment. But Death Valley earned its name for a reason. At Furnace Creek, the spring-fed pools and air-conditioned rooms changed our experience of the heat from a threat to a novelty that we could experience, and then retreat from to a cooler environment.  But around the world, millions of people in hot zones — along with plants and wildlife — have no access to a cooler artificial environment. I wonder how we will adapt as major cities around the world routinely experience stretches of Death Valley days.

Being an optimist, or perhaps willfully blind, I’ll end by saying that I look forward to returning to Death Valley, but probably in another season, when birds don’t drop from the sky, and I can spend the entire day outdoors exploring this amazing national resource.

Good-bye, Death Valley, until I return in my camper van (a few years down the road).

Sources and resources

This cool map of Death Valley, from the National Park Service, displays in a couple of different ways.

“Death Valley posts hottest month ever recorded on Earth, for the second July in a row,” by Ian Livingston and Jason Samenow.  The Washington Post, August 1, 2018.

“Parts of Asia May Be Too Hot for People by 2100,” by Stephen Leahy.  National Geographic News, August 2, 2017.

 

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Hello to Manzanar

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

Back in 7th grade, when I read Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s memoir, Farewell to Manzanar, the wind and sand had buried most remains of the Japanese internment camp that Houston described so eloquently in her 1973 memoir. By the early 1970s, people had pretty much forgotten that the United States detained thousands of its own citizens in internment camps during World War II.

As a 12-year-old, the book blew me away — how could this have happened to families in the United States? I don’t remember asking my parents or grandparents about the camps, and we never learned about them in school. But Jeanne’s story stayed with me. Years later, when I was designing a humanities class called “Multicultural America,” I added her short but powerful book to the reading list. Now, I talk with students about Jeanne’s story, so she’s still with me (and still alive and living in California, as of 2018).

This past summer, I visited Manzanar National Historic Site, just south of Independence, California. As with Jeanne’s book, visiting Manzanar blew me away.

A replica of the original sign for the “Manzanar War Relocation Center.”

If I had come to Manzanar as a teenager, or even in my 20s, there wouldn’t have been much to see. The government dismantled the camp after the war, and the harsh winds of the Owens Valley had blown sand over the gravesites, gardens, and other camp remnants, literally erasing Manzanar and its history.

But thanks to Houston’s book, and the work of Manzanar Committee  — spearheaded by writer/activist and former incarceree Susan Kunitomi Embrey — we won’t forget Manzanar and the nine other detention camps set up for Japanese-American citizens and their older Japanese immigrant relatives.  These older immigrants — the Issei — were not citizens because until the 1952 passage of the McCarran–Walter Act, only white immigrants could become naturalized citizens.

Incarceree Ryozo Kado, a stonemason, built this memorial at the Manzanar cemetery in 1943. The Japanese inscription says “Monument to console the souls of the dead.” During the war, 143 people died in the camp, and 15 were buried here, although only five graves remain, including those of several babies or toddlers.

The residents of Manzanar made the best of a terrible experience, which to some people may suggest that “it wasn’t all that bad.” It sounds pretty bad to me. I can’t imagine the government tell me I had a couple of weeks to get my affairs in order because I was going to be held indefinitely behind barbed wire fences. Many Japanese-Americans lost businesses, homes, and lives they had built for themselves and their families.

Replica of  a family’s assigned room in the barracks at Manzanar.  On the August day that I visited, the temperature had cooled to the high 90s after a long stretch of 100 degree-plus days, which is typical summer weather in the Owens Valley, and this room was hotter on inside than outside. In the winter, cold wind blew through cracks in the hastily-constructed structures.

Life in the camp was extremely stressful, as is always the case when people are packed together in close quarters with little control over their own lives. At one point, a riot broke out in which two people were killed. In her memoir, Jeanne describes her father’s descent into alcoholism, and how the camp impacted family dynamics in other more subtle ways. For example, kids often ate with other children instead of their families, so the feeling of family togetherness gained through eating together was lost.

Replica of the bathroom building at Manzanar. My students always comment on Jeanne’s description of the bathrooms, which lacked stalls; Jeanne’s mother and other older Japanese women found using the bathrooms especially humiliating.

The government selected Manzanar because it was an abandoned town site, with land available for lease from the City of Los Angeles. Earlier in the 20th century, Los Angeles had more or less tricked the local farmers into selling off their water rights, and then drained the once-fertile valley dry by building a series of water-delivery canals. The land was originally home to Paiute Indians, driven off by the military in the 1860s.

Eventually, the involuntary residents of Manzanar built a community here, including basketball courts, numerous Japanese-style gardens, and a shady oasis known as “Pleasure Park.” Kids went to school, mothers birthed babies in a makeshift hospital, and teams played baseball and other sports.

The marker for Pleasure Park, also known as Merritt Park.
The gardens at Pleasure Park.  The Park Service  has excavated these gardens over the past 20 years, as the relentless Owens Valley wind had buried everything with sand. This park would have been lush and green during the war because the internees maintained it as oasis.

Manzanar National Historic Site was established in 1992. Controversy surrounded memorializing the camp from the moment the state of California designated it as  a historical site in 1972, and erected a roadside marker describing Manzanar as a “concentration camp.”  In the 1990s, when the Park Service first began to excavate, develop, and preserve the site, it was flooded with letters of protest, with at least one writer suggesting the camp was a “guest house.”

I’ve come across this desire to sanitize history in my own community, and it’s hard for me to understand. Some people seem to think that we should whitewash “the bad parts,” maybe because they think it reflects poorly on the community (locally) or, in the case of Manzanar, on the United States.

Many of the protestors  were WW II veterans. Perhaps some felt that an official remembrance of the Japanese internees in some way diminished the sacrifices they had made. During the war, they were fighting for an honorable cause. Reminding the country that Americans were held against their will perhaps made the cause seem less honorable. Or perhaps the veterans also felt forgotten. I know some would argue that this push to keep history “clean” results from systemic racism — controlling the narrative helps to maintain power — and I wouldn’t entirely disagree, but it’s complex. History provokes feelings that are often deeply personal.

After the war ended, Japanese-American families left the camps to pick up the pieces of shattered lives. Anti-Japanese sentiment and prejudice remained rampant, as this Manzanar exhibit illustrates.

Visiting Manzanar was an emotional experience for me, and I noticed other visitors dabbing at their eyes as they viewed exhibits. I wanted to ask some questions but had to pull myself together.  I mentioned Farewell to Manzanar, and the ranger told me that their chief interpreter, whose name I later learned is Alisa Lynch, also  was deeply impacted by Jeanne’s story, after seeing the movie version of the book in 1976.  The ranger told me that  lots of families visit Manzanar each year, often because children ask their parents to take them there because they  learned about the camps in school.  Many have read Jeanne’s book.

Sources and resources

“Bitter Feelings Still Run Deep at Camp,” by Martin Forstenzer, Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1996.

Dorothea Lange Gallery, Manzanar  National Historic Site, National Park Service. Lange, famous for her Depression-era photos of migrant Dust Bowl families, also took many photographs at Manzanar during World War II.

“Return to Manzanar,” by Nicolas Brulliard, National Parks Conservation Association, Fall 2016.

“Whitewashing Manzanar : Various veterans groups want to (bully) the government into denying the site of its historic meaning,” by Robert A. Jones, April 10, 1996.

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Exploring the streets of the mountains in the Onion Valley

Posted on September 14, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

On the map, Onion Valley looks remote and inaccessible, an impression confirmed by the drive on a twisting mountain road from Independence, California.

After a 15-mile drive from Independence, the road ends at the Forest Service campground, at an elevation of 9,600 feet.

In town, we pass the home of  writer Mary Austin, best known for her 1903 essay collection, The Land of Little Rain, a short collection of quiet prose describing the natural and human world of the southern Sierra and Owens Valley.  I had packed the Dover Thrift edition (weight 3 oz) and was looking forward to becoming re-acquainted with Austin.

As a literary type, I was thrilled to suddenly come upon Mary Austin’s house after we turned off Route 395 to head up to Onion Valley.

My three friends and I were logistically prepared for a five-night backpacking trip in the southern Sierra, where, wrote Austin, “all streets of the mountains lead to citadels.”  However, an unlucky accident involving a slashed toe (not mine) meant we had to consider a plan B. We had a day or so to decide.

The Onion Valley Campground, tucked into a small glacial valley and surrounded by mountains, was definitely remote. But not inaccessible. On this summer weekend, the campground was full to bursting with campers and hikers, including many coming off or starting out on the John Muir Trail.  But the campground, populated by tired hikers, was quiet. That evening, as a sliver of moon rose in the sky, we shut the place down as we read Mary Austin around the picnic table.

In the morning, the toe looked gruesome, but its owner was up for a short hike to test it. We headed up a rough trail towards Robinson Lake.  The map showed a 1.5 mile hike, but we missed the actual trail and ended up following a series of herd paths that took us up a steeper and longer route.

Robinson Lake, a 1.5 mile hike from Onion Valley that was more challenging than I expected. The water was FREEZING! (And I’m from Maine, so I know cold).

We spent the afternoon relaxing and exploring around the lake.

Another view of Robinson Lake.

The grove of Jeffrey pines on the shore of Robinson Lake would make a great campsite. With a permit, camping is allowed, although the lake mostly attracts day hikers.

That evening, as we enjoyed our rehydrated Good-to-Go pad Thai meal, we decided to call off the backpack. Instead, three of us would set off on the 9-mile round-trip hike to Kearsarge Pass, elevation 11,700 feet.  Our injured friend would pack up the campsite (as we had to move to another site) and try to meet up with us later in the day, when she felt ready.

The trail to Kearsarge Pass travels a well-packed series of switchbacks. Right from the beginning, the hiking was easier than the day before. Maybe because it was a better trail, or maybe because we were hiking ON the trail, and not bushwhacking.  Or maybe our lungs had adjusted to the altitude. Regardless, the 4.7 hike up to the pass, with about 2,000 feet of elevation gain, did not feel difficult.

On the dusty trail towards Kearsarge Pass. The horses are from the Sequoia Kings Pack Outfit pack station, which resupplies hikers on the John Muir Trail.

View of Heart Lake, one of five mountain lakes that hikers pass en route to Kearsarge Pass.

As hikers approach the pass, steep slopes of Sierra scree rise above the trail. The trail itself is hard-packed dirt, and easy walking, at least if you are coming from the roots and rocks of New England.

At the pass, we enjoyed a cocktail-party like atmosphere with as  hikers stopped to rest and chat.   Below us stretched a basin with Kearsarge and Charlotte Lakes, where we had originally planned to camp.  The John Muir trail beckoned.  

We didn’t get to complete our five-day backpack, but I wasn’t really disappointed. I was in the company of three fabulous friends with whom I rarely get to spend time.  And we had learned so much about what we could do, many years after our first days of hiking together.  Like all hiking, the hike to Kearsarge pass was a process of putting one foot in front of the other, many times.  The 211-mile John Muir Trail — and any trail — remains within our reach.

Okay, we weren’t carrying heavy packs, and we’ll need to do some training if we want to enjoy rather than just endure a 200-mile hike. But we can do it.

As Mary Austin wrote, “There is always another year, and another.” Now, as summer turns to fall, it’s time to start planning.

All smiles at Kearsarge Pass.

The view from Kearsarge Pass, including Kearsarge and Bullfrog Lakes. Our original plan called for us to drop down into this basin and set up a lakeside campsite.

Sources and resources

The Inyo National Forest Onion Valley Campground site provides information about campground reservations and wilderness permits. The Forest Service accepts permit applications six months in advance, and limits the number of permits. We applied for ours back in February.

The excellent John Muir Trail planning site of the Pacific Crest Trail Association is a great place to begin planning for an extended JMT hike.

Posted in Mountains, Travels | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Rangeley Days Redux: Moose, mountains, and memories

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

Rangeley, Maine – Our first day at the lake was windy and mostly gray, a good one for moose hunting.  We don’t always get our moose, but with the right timing and luck, we’d bagged moose last year and the year before. Could we score the hat trick?

Moose hunting in Rangeley requires strategy and preparation. First, timing. Dawn and dusk work best. Second, location: Route 16, heading towards Stratton, locally known as Moose Alley. Third, preparedness: cameras out, at the ready, not packed away in a backpack or purse.

The Coplin Dinner House offers farm-to-table dining and pub grub, in a renovated farmhouse just south of Stratton, Maine.

To carry out our plan, we drove up Route 16 and turned south in Stratton, on to Route 27, for a 6 p.m. dinner reservation at the Coplin Dinner House, a recent addition to local dining scene. The food was excellent, especially the roasted Brussel sprouts. A good meal prepared by someone else is one of my favorite gifts. Also, it makes me happy to see a young couple making it in rural Maine by establishing a successful destination restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

On the way home, as dusk settled in, we stopped in at the Town of Stratton public works garage, checking the muddy wetlands on both sides of the road. Legend has it that moose flock to these wetlands for the runoff from the town’s salt piles. However, over 15 years of looking, I have never seen a moose here. And, once again, no moose.

We continued down Route 16, as one set of passengers scanned right and the other  scanned left into the grassy meadows and dark stands of spruce, while also keeping an eye out for pulled-over vehicles, a sure sign of moose. We drove and drove, losing hope. But then, a few miles outside of Rangeley, we hit the jackpot: a car pulled over on the  right!

Mother moose and her calf, on Route 16, aka “Moose Alley,” between Rangeley and Stratton, Maine.

Spotting one moose makes me happy.  A lengthy roadside visit with a mother moose and her calf overfilled my cup of gratitude. Our second day in Rangeley, and already the week was pretty much made. Who cares if the forecast calls for a week of wind and rain? I have books.

Just outside of Oquossoc village, the fire tower atop Bald Mountain offers views of Rangeley and Mooselookmeguntic Lakes, and endless mountains. Most hikers climb 1.3 mile trail off Bald Mountain Road, but an alternate trail from Route 4 offers a slightly longer hike (connecting with the main trail).

The rain isn’t constant, and we find a window to squeeze in a hike to Bald Mountain, just across the lake.  A dozen years ago, when we were coaxing five-year-olds up the trail, Bald Mountain seemed like a major hike.  But now, climbing Bald is a warm-up for more ambitious adventures.  Other nearby favorites include Tumbledown Mountain and Aziscohos Mountain (see link at the bottom of the post), but I am always on the lookout for a new destination.

Blueberry Mountain (2,962 feet), just outside of Weld, seemed like the right fit for our group’s mix of hiking experience: a 4.4 mile round-trip to an open summit.  On Wednesday, we enjoyed an excellent hike under gray skies, including a walk on open granite as we neared the summit. I love the feeling of freedom I experience on a mountaintop.

Atop the summit of Blueberry Mountain in Weld, and watching the clouds roll in over Jackson and Tumbledown Mountains. Blueberry Mountain is located off Route 142, about a half-hour from downtown Rangeley.

Blueberry Mountain had its fair share of blueberries, but nothing like the bonanza of blueberries at the Wilhelm Reich Museum property, where the public is welcome to pick. The blueberry crop varies from year to year; this harvest was exceptional.  My freezer is full of blueberry anti-oxidants and I am ready for Thanksgiving, and my annual contribution of Rangeley wild blueberry pie. Baking that pie the day before Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holiday rituals.

My mother, now age 83, always joins us for the blueberry picking, but she can’t climb mountains. That’s why I love Quill Hill, in Dallas Plantation, a few miles outside of Rangeley (and off Route 16). A local contractor has built an elegant four-mile dirt road to the Quill Hill summit so that everyone can enjoy the spectacular 360 degree views. Visiting Quill Hill requires a $10 admission fee, but this hill is a labor of love, not profit.  Taking my mom to this sunset view makes me happy.

Sunset at 2,848-foot Quill Hill, where visitors enjoy views of the Rangeley Lakes, Western Maine mountains, and Flagstaff Lake.

We visited Quill Hill on our last night in Rangeley, so the evening there was bittersweet.  A beautiful evening, magnificent colors — but also a reminder that our time in Rangeley –and everywhere — is fleeting.

I need to remember it all.  The baby loon with its mother in Hunter Cove.  Sunny (and windy) afternoons on the dock.  Reading on the porch. Gathering around the campfire, as kids roasted marshmallows and loon calls echoed across the lake. On Saturday morning, I packed up these memories along with dirty laundry and leftover food.  After packing the car, I took one last set of photos,  and we hit the road, filled up until next summer.

From the dock, we can see the sun sets over Bald Mountain.

Sources and resources:

For a detailed description of the trail to Blueberry Mountain, see the excellent greatly expanded 2018 edition of the Maine Mountain Guide edited by Cary Kish. (Also, note that there is another Blueberry Mountain in Maine, in Evans Notch.

For more reading on Rangeley, see my post, “Rangeley days, now far away.”

For more info on Tumbledown, Aziscohos, and other great family hikes, see my post, “Round-up: Five great family hikes in Maine” (in which I also happen to discuss the Evans Notch Blueberry Mountain).

Posted in Family and Kids, Hiking, Maine places, Mountains | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Walking with the mothers at Vaughan Woods, South Berwick

Posted on July 13, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

South Berwick, Maine — On Mother’s Day this year, I went for a walk with the mothers in Vaughan Woods State Park.

Vaughan Woods is a popular local walking spot, as it includes, along with its three miles of trails, the imposing presence of the 1785 Georgian-style Hamilton House. Walking in Vaughan Woods was a wonderful Mother’s Day gift because I hadn’t been there in many years, and had forgotten the simple beauty of the woodland trail along the Salmon Falls River. After a cold April, everyone we encountered that sunny morning in May was happy to be outside, and we wished a good day to many mothers out strolling with children young and old.

Mothers have walked these 80+acres for centuries. Here are a few of pieces of their stories.

Walking along the trail beside the Salmon Falls River, we came upon the view of Hamilton House, built in 1785 by Colonel Jonathan Hamilton, an enterprising merchant and community leader. The Colonel married Mary Manning in 1771. Mary likely walked on this land with her two children, Betsey and Joseph, born a year apart. But Mary’s wealth couldn’t protect her family from the democratic afflictions common to all in the 18th century. Young Joseph died at age 15, and Betsey a few years later, at age 21, after giving birth to her first child, an infant who died a few months after her mother. When Mary Manning Hamilton died at age 50 in 1800, her obituary noted, among many other qualities, that she was “a peculiarly kind & tender Mother.”

One of the first European-American mothers to walk in this forest was Margaret Warren, mother of five, whose home was located on a high spot in the woods, and probably had a view of Cow Cove, since the site was likely soon cleared of most trees. Margaret, who hailed from Ireland and landed in Kittery, came here after marrying James Warren.

James was a Scotsman who had survived the 1650 Battle of Dunbar, where he was taken prisoner by Oliver Cromwell’s forces , then shipped out to the colonies and sold as an indentured servant.

James probably served the first part of his indenture at the Lynn Iron Works, but came with his master Richard Leader to Kittery – which then encompassed today’s town of South Berwick – around 1651 to build a saw mill at the falls of Great Works River (which enters the Salmon Falls River a short distance above Vaughan Woods). Somewhere along the way he met Margaret, and they married in 1654, by which time James had acquired his land.  They had their first child – or perhaps their first surviving child, Gilbert, by 1656.

The slight indention of a cellar hole mark the Warren homesite at Vaughan Woods.

The Warrens both had strong constitutions, with James dying in 1702, at age 81, and Margaret in 1713, who was probably in her 80s by then  (date of birth unknown).  Margaret and James lived in a time of sporadic but intense conflict between settlers and the Wabanaki. Her daughter Grizel Warren Otis, at age 24, and infant granddaughter Margaret — just a few months old — were taken as captives during the Wabanaki raid at Cocheco (Dover) in June 1689*.  I imagine that Margaret could see the smoke billowing in the distance as several houses burned across the river in New Hampshire.

As the crow flies, Cocheco was not far away — across the river and further inland. Word must have spread quickly, with Margaret soon learning of the death of her granddaughter, three-year-old Hannah, along with her daughter’s 64-year-old husband, the blacksmith Richard Otis.  She must have worried about Grizel and her fate.

Was Margaret hopeful when she eventually learned that Grizel had been taken to Montreal? Grizel, however, never returned home. She became a Catholic, took the name Madeleine, married a Frenchman, Philippe Robitaille, and started a new family. I’m guessing she was happier in Montreal, where she lived until her death at age 90. Unlike her old goat first husband, Grizel’s Frenchman Philippe was the same age, and together they had five children.

Margaret did not live to see the return of her granddaughter, Margaret, a remarkable woman known as Christine Otis Baker (Hotesse), who after many adventures landed back in Dover in 1734.  Christine-Margaret had married in Canada, but after seven years and three children, she became a young widow in 1714. Eventually she married Captain Thomas Baker of Deerfield, Massachusetts, whom she had met in Montreal, first in 1701 when he was a captive and then again in 1714 when he returned to Montreal on a negotiating mission.

French authorities would not allow her to leave Montreal with her property or her children, and she left her children behind to return to New England with Baker.  Although she later returned to Montreal to try to regain custody of her children, the authorities would not allow her to see them.  Christine soldiered on, had another son, and lived out her years, until her mid-80s, in Dover, New Hampshire, where she was well-known as a tavern keeper.

Almost 200 years after these events, another mother — a stepmother — served as indirect catalyst for reviving and remembering the stories of these earlier mothers.

Emily Tyson and Sarah Orne Jewett, in the garden at Hamilton House. Elise Tyson Vaughan, an accomplished photographer, was the photographer (Historic New England photo; citation below).

In 1898, Emily Tyson, the widow of railroad magnate George Tyson, and her stepdaughter Elise (Elizabeth) Tyson purchased the house on the recommendation of their writer friend Sarah One Jewett. The mother-daughter pair wanted to spend summers in Maine, away from the heat and pollution of Boston. By then, Hamilton House had fallen into disrepair, as the Hamilton fortune evaporated in the early 1800s (probably due in large part to Jefferson’s Embargo Act).  Several generations of the Goodwin family had tried to farm the property, but could not turn the tide on the steady decline of farming in 19th century Maine.

The two women restored the house to its former grandeur. Along with their York friend Elizabeth Perkins, they were leaders in the Colonial Revival movement** that led to a renewed interest in colonial-era history and the preservation of many colonial-era dwellings.

Elise Tyson married Henry Goodman Vaughan later in life, when she was in her mid-forties, and did not have children, but she nurtured artists and writers who frequented her home, as well as her own craft of photography.

Elise also was the mother of this park, donating the Hamilton House and the surrounding land to the state of Maine upon her death in 1949.  Now, on Mother’s Day and every other day of the year, we walk in her footsteps and those who came before.

The Warren home purportedly looked down upon Cow Cove, another historic location where, in 1634, the ship the Pied Cow anchored, and offloaded livestock and supplies to build the first sawmill at the Great Works falls. James Warren and other Scottish prisoners came 17 years later to work on rebuilding and expanding that first mill.

Notes and resources

Although you don’t really need a map to walk the trails of Vaughan Woods, the trail map here provides a good sense of the different locations described in my post.

Hamilton House, owned by Historic New England, is open for tours from June through October.  On summer Sundays, visitors enjoy concerts in the garden.

Thanks to the Old Berwick Historical Society for many specific dates and pieces of information from its information-rich website.

Sarah Orne Jewett’s romance novel, The Tory Lover, features Hamilton House as its setting, and features a cast of characters drawn from Maine-NH Seacoast history.

For more on the remarkable story of Christine Otis Baker, see Christine Otis Baker, Captured by Indians, Dover Public Library, Dover, N.H.

For more on James Warren and the Scottish prisoners of Dunbar, see “James Warren, #108 on ‘The Dunbar Prisoners’ List” at the website/blog, Scottish Prisoners of War.

Other sources for this post include www.geni.com, especially for Grizel Warren Otis Robitaille, and the Warren family genealogy at archive.org, especially for Margaret/Christine Otis Baker.

*On the Cocheco Raid: This raid was essentially a revenge attack upon Cocheco, in retaliation for an event near the end of King Philip’s War in which Major Richard Waldron of Cocheco invited hundreds of native people to his trading post for a peace parley. Instead, Waldron maneuvered the situation to capture 100s of native peoples, who were then executed or sold into slavery. The Cocheco Raid was one of the first events of “King William’s War,” or what many called the “Second IndianWar.” For more details, I highly recommend Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War by Lisa Brooks, which includes a companion website, especially Captivity at Cocheco.

**On the Colonial Revival Movement: I am aware that this movement also had its origins in the anti-immigration movement of the early 20th century, a time of peak immigration.  Tracing ancestry to the colonial era was a way of establishing legitimacy and superiority to the “hordes” flocking to America. That said, Colonial Revival resulted in the preservation of many buildings that might have been lost to the wrecking ball, as well as of documents, ephemera, and other clues that historians continue to unravel today to tell ever more interesting and complex histories of early America.

Vaughan, Elizabeth R. Full-length informal portrait of Emily Davis Tyson and Sarah Orne Jewett standing in the doorway of Hamilton House, South Berwick, Maine, undated. n.d. Web. 06 Jul 2018. <https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:bz60dd41p>.

Posted in Family and Kids, Hiking, Maine places, Seacoast (mostly) History | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

The Maniacal Traveler plays with maps: my local history posts, via Google Maps

Posted on July 4, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

This summer I am playing with mapping tools, which I eventually plan to teach my students at York County Community College to use in telling stories digitally.  Displayed here are my local history posts via Google Maps, many of which blend history with hiking, along with locations of nearby trails that I haven’t yet written about, and links to area historical societies.

Please click this link to display on a mobile device, which may or may not show a big white space below instead of my map.

If you click on the full screen square in the upper right hand corner, you’ll be able to  zoom in and out. The full-screen view also displays the legend.

This map is a work-in-progress; feedback appreciated.

Happy searching, reading, walking, and traveling!

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Back on the trail to Mount Belknap with Windows to the Wild

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

Click on the image to view the episode.

On a hot spring day in early May, I met up again with the crew from New Hampshire Public Television’s Windows to the Wild: host Willem Lange and producers Steve Giordani and Phil Vaughn. The resulting show, titled “Hiking with the Maniacal Traveler” was broadcast on NHPTV in May and now is available for online viewing here.

We had decided to do an episode focused on a hike to Guilford’s Mount Belknap, where a plane crashed in June of 1972 after vanishing shortly after take-off from Laconia Airport, in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. My 2015 post, One hike, many discoveries: A plane crash, fire tower and stone-age couches,” describes this hike, which I did with my son several years ago.

Initially, we planned the hike for mid-April, which I thought might be too ambitious, given the huge snow dumps we’d had three weeks earlier. The crash site is located on a steep rocky incline, where I knew deep pockets of snow and patches of ice would linger.   So it was good news when producers Steve Giordani told me they had to reschedule for May.

What I didn’t know then was that long-time host Willem Lange lost his wife Ida in mid-April. I never met Ida, but she sounds like she was an amazing person  — another maniacal traveler — as explained in a recent Boston Globe story, “Ida Lange, at 78; from a fraught childhood she became a community leader and her husband’s muse,”and by Willem himself, “We were inextricably engaged, truly for better or for worse.”

I learned of Ida’s death when we met up on Carriage Mountain Road in Gilford on the morning of the hike. Willem expressed to me that he felt like he hadn’t fully processed his loss, and was going about his usual routines of taking Kiki for walks, and preparing for the upcoming show, which had already been scheduled for airing on May 23.

We set off on our hike on Carriage Mountain Road. The winter gate remained closed, and we had to walk a mile up the road to the trailhead.  The extra mile was our first travail; others followed.  I won’t reveal more except to say that the day reinforced all the key fundamentals of hiking: know your limits; use your map wisely; and carry more food and water than you think you will need. Also, spring days before the forest has burst into its canopy are sometimes the hottest of the season, even if the temperature is seasonable.

But travails make for good stories. And as my 19th century friend Henry Thoreau tells us, “I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway.”

Our short hike to Mount Belknap took more time and patience than expected, but at the fire tower, I remembered, as Thoreau tells us, that  “On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning.”

A trail’s end selfie with Phil Vaughn (in back) and Steve Giordani, all of us still smiling at the end of our long day of hiking and filming on Mount Belknap. Steve and Phil are the producers for Windows to the Wild.

Sources and resources

“We were inextricably engaged, truly for better or for worse,” by Willem Lange. April 18, 2018, The Valley News. (West Lebanon, Vermont).

“Ida Lange, at 78; from a fraught childhood she became a community leader and her husband’s muse,” by Bryan Marquard. The Boston Globe, May 28, 2018.

In January 2017, I visited Orris Falls in South Berwick with Windows to the Wild, available here.  My blog post, Travels on the White Rose Road to Orris Falls, and featuring 19th century guest Sarah Orne Jewett (and others) inspired this episode.

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24 hours/four seasons: a spring hike on New Hampshire’s Mount Lafayette

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Dianne Fallon

On that 95-degree Thursday afternoon in May, we headed north from Kittery, seeking cooler air and adventure. But at 4 p.m., when we pulled into the Franconia Notch parking lot for the Old Bridle Path trailhead, the car thermometer read 93 degrees.

Undaunted, and knowing that we had “only” a 2.9-mile hike to Greenleaf Hut, we hit the trail — a mom, her teenaged son, and his friend, the latter two carrying packs heavy with sleeping bags, extra layers, and clean underwear (maybe). The mom still carried most of the load, including a reward stash of 3 cans: one Baxter Paloma beer, two Brisk Ice-Teas.  The teenagers quickly charged ahead, despite the drag of ill-fitting packs.

By mid-May, the lower section of the Old Bridle Path was dry, but I knew that snow probably lingered on the upper slopes of Mount Lafayette and on the upper third of the Falling Waters Trail. I’d been to Greenleaf Hut several times in the spring, drawn by the low self-service fee, and the opportunity to feel like I am traveling in a wilderness. On spring days, at least during the week, these higher elevations in New Hampshire feel wild and remote, barren spaces where you might be the last person on earth.

On gorgeous summer and fall days, hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of people hike to Lafayette, completing a 8.9-mile loop that includes two 4,000-foot summits and almost two miles of walking on the open and exposed Franconia Ridge. Weather can change rapidly on Lafayette and along the ridge, with a bluebird sky transforming into a dense fog cloud. Thus, I knew not to take 93 degree for granted. I had consulted the Higher Summits forecast, and knew what to expect: four seasons, 24 hours.

Hiking steadily up the Old Bridle Path, which climbs 2,450 feet from the trailhead to Greenleaf Hut, a steady stream of sweat dripped into my eyes and down my back. I gulped water, but could barely keep up with the sweat, or the boys.  Occasionally they paused to wait for me, and I nagged them to drink their water.  About two miles in, we burst out of the woods into the krummholz, the twisted low-growing spruce trees shaped by the wind. Gray clouds were gathering, but the temperature remained warm. I knew thunder might break out at any moment, and encouraged the boys to hustle to the hut without me, while I hustled at my own pace.

Clouds moving in over Franconia Ridge as we break out of the forest.

I made it to the hut by 6:30, about ten minutes behind the teenagers. The beer and the iced teas went down in minutes as we lingered on the back porch of the hut and watched dark thunderclouds roll in. Dinner was simple: grilled ham and cheese, a few carrots, some chocolate chip cookies. We shared the dining room with just two other hikers, who soon headed off to their bunks.  But not us, as the show was just beginning.

As darkness fell, lightening crackled across the sky and lit up the mountain. Deep booms of thunder shook the hut. The storm was glorious and magnificent, and we were safe and snug in the hut. Henry Thoreau’s observations, recalling his 1846 hike on the “Burnt Lands” plateau of Mount Katahdin, seemed fitting:

“This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night…Man was not to be associated with it. It was Matter, vast, terrific…rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact!“

When we went to bed around 10, sheets of rain poured from the sky, washing away the snow fields on the mountain’s upper slopes. By morning, the front had ushered in cool air, a fall day that called for sweaters and long pants.

At Greenleaf Hut, elevation 4220 feet, the intrepid hikers, undaunted by the morning chill, were ready for the morning hike to the Lafayette summit. The temperature had dropped about 50 degrees overnight (but some teens will never give up their shorts).

From the hut, we hiked steadily up the 1.1-mile section of the Greenleaf Trail that climbs up Lafayette.  This stretch is rocky and steep, but never feels too difficult because the views are unrelenting and magnificent.

Morning view of Greenleaf Hut, with Cannon Mountain behind it.

As we climbed higher, a misty cloud surrounded us, limiting visibility. My son, aka The Seal, finally pulled out his fleece shirt.

Hiking into the clouds towards the 5,261-foot summit of  Lafayette.

On top of the mountain, the wind was blowing hard, creating a windchill in the 30-degree range. Not full-on winter with a raging blizzard, but definitely winter, by almost any standards (including New England).

At the summit, the wind was strong enough to lean into. Such conditions — and even stronger winds — are common on Lafayette, and weather on the mountain often changes rapidly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing in the wind on Mount Lafayette

 

Taking a break from the wind in the foundation of a shelter built on Lafayette around 1860. The structure is long gone, but hikers today still appreciate the protection offered by the old foundation.

The wind abated once we began to descend from the summit onto the Franconia Ridge Trail, a two-mile open ridge walk.

Franconia Ridge, viewed as we descend Lafayette and head towards 5,089-foot Mount Lincoln, with Little Haystack, Mt. Liberty and  Mt. Flume following. The temperature remained cold, but the hiking kept us warm.

At Little Haystack, we turned right (west) onto the Falling Waters Trail.  Narrow ridges of snow called monorail, formed by the steady tromping of winter hikers all season long, typically linger on the upper stretch of Falling Waters until late May.  The monorail is deceptively treacherous, especially if the surface in hard and slippery (in such cases, microspikes advised).  The heavy rains made the snow soft, but we picked our way carefully along the monorail to avoid any slips that might twist an ankle or knee.

Thanks to the rain and spring run-off, the Falling Waters Trail was a drama of roaring cascades.

Cloudland Falls, the first of three cascades on the Falling Waters Trail as you hike down from Franconia Ridge.  This photo is a pale imitation of the falls we encountered that morning, after the big storm.

At Swiftwater Falls, we crossed the brook, and a short time later came upon Stairs Falls, where a large cliff with a slight overhang rises above the trail.  Here, I hurried the boys along to the other side of the brook. I believe this spot is where a five-by-three foot boulder dislodged from the cliff and killed a young woman from China ten years ago around this time of year (I hiked the loop with a friend that spring, about a week after the accident). This kind of freak accident is very rare, but I do not like to linger by Stairs Falls.

Leaving the falls behind, we hiked the last mile to the car.  By this time and at this lower elevation, the morning was warming up: spring had arrived.  Four seasons/24 hours — what many would say is just another day of hiking to the higher summits in the White Mountains.

Sources and resources

This hike took place on May 18-19, 2017, with record-high temperatures on May 18, as reported in this Washington Post article, “New England has the nation’s hottest weather.”

To read Thoreau’s entire account of his Katahdin hike (in which he did not reach the summit), see the KTAADN chapter in The Maine Woods, published after the author’s death in 1862.

For information on summit hotels and structures, most of them built during the 19th century, see Rick Russack’s article, “White Mountain Hotels and Summit Structures” at WhiteMountainsHistory.org.

To check current trail conditions (especially important in the spring, when ice and snow may linger many weeks after the ground is bare down below), see NewEnglandTrailConditions.com.

This Boston Globe article provides some details about the May 2008 accident that killed 28-year-old Shu Qin, a young woman visiting from China.

For a day hike, the recommended route for the Franconia Loop is counter-clockwise (up Falling Waters to the ridge and down the Old Bridle Path), to avoid hiking down some slippery sections of the Falling Waters trail. From Memorial Day through the mid-October, hikers can take a break at the hut to enjoy hot soup and cookies.

 

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