Winter Hike 2017

Tripyramid Trail on December 22, 2017. We bagged two peaks:

I must have taken about a hundred and fifty photos, but less is more. Other than the stuff we brought ourselves and the occasional revealed bit of pine, there was little color. Other than footsteps, voices and some running water near the base, there was no sound. We didn’t run into anyone else foolish enough to be hiking in late December while it was snowing.

Someone said to me in Sweden several weeks ago: The weather here is trying to kill you for five months out of the year. Up in the Great North of Lincoln New Hampshire, activity abounds while snow covers the ground and obscures the way.

Hehuanshan / 合歡山

The following photos are from Hehuanshan (合歡山) in late January, 2017. This was my second trip up there, and the first time I’ve seen ice there or anywhere else in Taiwan.

As you can see, the frost was only at the very top of the mountain. The nearby mountains are not unlike how I imagine the highlands of Scotland.

Ill-Advised Winter Hike 2016

December 28th, 2016: “Kinsman Mountain North Peak, elevation 4,293”

The first two photos were taken with my phone camera before the battery ran out. The rest were taken with my friend Victor’s extra high quality picture-taking device. Apparently after last year’s hike I didn’t learn the lesson of wearing correct-sized boots and my toe yet again turned blue from hitting the front the entire way down. This was not the only mistake I made in terms of gear…suffice it to say I remained warm enough and had a flashlight when it was necessary.

On the way up we (there were three of us) sloughed through a foot and a half of snow and created the path up to the top. There are multiple trails that lead up to the peak, so other than two older men who passed us on the way up, the few other people we met had gone up other paths.

All in all, the temperature was colder and the trees more frost-laden than the previous year.

Boston, December 22, 2016