Mt. Osceola & East Osceola, Our first 4K's, #1 & #2

Trip Status Updates

Just printed out the Appalachian Mountain Club's Four Thousand Footer Committee application. Excited that the adventure starts this weekend. #1,2 & 3 of 48!

                                                                                                                                                

My pack weighs 17 lbs, I hope I didn't forget anything :/

Heading to the summit of Mt. Osceola. at 2100 ft!                                                

                                       

Wow! What a day! We hiked to the summit of Mt. Osceola & East Osceola, our first two 4K's. It took us 9 hrs and 8.5 miles round trip. Thanx to Cristy and Rob for the encouragement to do the second peak, I was beat!

                                                                                                                                                  

Ready to try for our third 4'K today. We are headed up Mt. Tecumseh (4.4 RT). No Moose or Bear sightings yet but we have seen a couple of deer crossing the road.

                                                                                                                                                   

Yesterday we learned we could hike & climb 8.5 miles to two 4000 ft peaks. Today we learned we can't do it two days in a row. We submitted to Mt. Tehcumseh about .6 miles into the 2.5 mile hike, we are beat. Instead we returned to the car and rode the chair lift to the top of Snows Mountain and hiked a short distance to the Cascade Falls; really beautiful place. The mountains have been here a long time, we'll be back.                   

                                                                                                  -Facebook Posts, -5/23-5/27-

                                                                                                                                                   

Trip Pics

Clark's Trading Post

After a 3.5 hour ride from R.I, we finally reached Lincoln, N.H.. Here I wanted to visit the Mountain-Wanderer-Map-Book-Store that I've heard so much about on Facebook. Great place, not a huge store but loaded with White Mountain knowledge. After that it was Dunkin Donuts, clark's trading post & Subway for lunch before heading into Waterville Valley.

Overcast on Friday

After setting up camp we headed into the resort area where you can find just about anything you may have forgotten. This is a really nice spot to relax after hiking and the prices were fair.

Only Moose sighting

Linked up with Caitlin in Times Square, NY via Web Cam

Caitlin missed out on this trip and was in NYC outside a store on a webcam. Cristy hopped on the 3G laptop beside the campfire where we watched Caitlin wave while txt'ing back and forth. Tech is amazing being able to link a backcountry destination to the 'City that Never Sleeps'.

Heading up the Osceola Trail

We started up the Mt. Osceola Trail at about 7:30am. It is 3.2 miles to the Osceola summit and an additional 1.0 miles to the second East Peak. We knew that 8.5 miles RT was going to make for a long day.

Painted Trillium Flower

First viewpoint 

Rob & Devin on the summit, first 4K

5 at the Benchmark

If you don't know, this is a  U.S.G.S. Benchmark. These are used in surveying to mark the peaks. Sometimes there are more than one and there were two (that I saw) on the Mt. Osceola summit. Like Geocacheing some folks seek these out and they can come in different forms; for example,  Mt. Monadnock has these disks but also has drill holes in the rock.

So happy the summit wasn't obscured with fog

I've read that from this summit on a clear day you can see 41 of the entire 48 4K's in N.H.

Scotty's first 4K; Mt. Washington top left.

Second Benchmark

Cristy's first 4K

 The dreaded Chimney, 50 ft of steep rock 

Me descending the 'Chimney' alt. route

Cristy & Scott jr. descending the 'Chimney' directly

Osceola East peak, 1.0 miles more

I was really beat as were the kids. We soon decided not to attempt the East Peak but Rob & Cristy were encouraging us to knock off this peak while we were here so one by one we agreed. (after a good break)

#1 Cristy & I on Mt. Osceola, Mt. Washington behind

#2 summit of East Osceola

First river bathe

With no showers at the campground we were really funky, the kids had no problem jumping in the Mad River to clean up a bit. Rob also took the plunge after some 'temperature adjustment time' were as I opted for the bandanna sponge bathe; It was cold.

We had lot's of laughs around the Campfire both nights telling stories of our youth.

We had an awesome time hiking the Osceola's. We not only enjoyed each others company, but we also met a lot of nice folk's along the way. One such hiker was Katy; She was a great help assisting and spotting Scott jr & Cristy down the 50ft Chimney section heading to East Osceola which was really steep (I went around). We also befriended Amy Parulis on a side trip to Cascade Falls on top of Snows Mountain after our failed attempt at hiking Mt. Tecumseh. Amy is a contributing Blogger & gear tester for emsexploration.com and also a Guide for Eastern Mountain Sports in CT. Amy was hiking with her family; she and her dad just recently completed all 48 of the 4K's in addition to many other sports they enjoy. She gave us a lot of great info and tips about hiking New Hampshire's 48. We'll be going back soon.