No Danger on the Tripyramids.

Sunday October 16 2011,

    Went for a fall hike in the White Mountains against the advice of a store clerk I spoke with yesterday at Ragged Mountain Sports in North Conway, New Hampshire.  I’m not too sure why people are so free with advice or why most of it is so bad. I mentioned to him in conversation that I was going to climb the Tripyramids today and he warned me against it. The rivers are all at flood stage, he said. There are a lot of brook crossings, he said. There’s apt to be ice on the ledges up high, he said. The winds on Mount Washington are forecast to be 70 - 80 MPH and there is a long ridge-walk, he said. His sage advice unheeded, I went anyway.  Neither I nor my hiking partner Chris or Moses the hiking dog or any of the thirty or so other people we saw suffered any ill effects as far as I could tell.
     I looked at a map and saw that the brooks we had to cross were on moderately  steep terrain and knew that the water would have come down since the heavy rains on Friday.  I also knew that the conditions on Mount Washington would be greatly diminished  by lower elevation and shelter of trees on this hike. I asked Chris about the stream crossings since he had climbed these mountains  twice before. He couldn’t remember any tough crossings. If you do your homework before a hike, go prepared for the worst conditions you are likely to encounter and rely on your own experience and that of experienced hikers who know you and your abilities you will have a safe and enjoyable hike.  Chris and I could have and would have done this hike in any but the most extreme conditions. Torrential rains with the threat of flash floods or a blinding snowstorm might dissuade us but not much else.  The lesson here for me is, if you are going to be dispensing advice to hikers, you might at least find out what their skill level is first and if it surpasses yours, keep your advice to yourself or ask for some pointers.

Hiking sticks at the trailhead.

    Now on to the hike. I picked Chris and Moses up at 6:30 and headed for New Hampshire.  We were both looking forward to doing a big hike. North and Middle Tripyramid are to the Southeast of the Kancamagus Highway. There are several trails to their summits. We chose the Pine Bend Brook Trail.

One of many brook crossings

The trailhead is a gravel pullout with about enough room for two cars. When we got there at 8:00, there was only one other vehicle. We got ready to go and stepped off about 8:10.  We hiked up the little valley that contains the brook the trail is named for. It is pretty gradual for the first mile or two following and crossing the brook in several places. None of the crossings was difficult and we rock-hopped most of them, once crossing on a convenient log.  At the head of the valley, the trail crosses a last time and climbs steeply up to a ridge.

Recent rains made for many attractive waterfalls.

Me on the summit of North Tripyramid

We were halfway up the ridge when we heard voices down below and  kind of stepped up our pace a bit to stay ahead of them. I’m not sure what it is, pride, competitive drive or just foolishness but it bothers me when people pass me on the trail. We stopped a couple of times above a steep pitch to catch our breath and evidently the party below did as well because they never caught up to us.
    We made it to North Tripyramid by 11:00 and took the obligatory summit photos. Since there are trees surrounding the summit, the views are spotty at best. We soon set off to Middle Tripyramid and met the occupant of the car that we saw at the road and talked to him for a few minutes. He was from Londonderry NH and had started about 40 minutes ahead of us. Continuing on, we met a woman with a dog who had come up from the Tripoli road and soon after, a couple of guys who had come up the Sabbaday Falls trail.

Middle Tripyramid

View South. Passaconaway in the foreground Chocorua and the Sister in the middle background.

We made it to the top by noon and immediately dropped our packs and dug into them looking for food. There were nice views to the North and South from ledges. Views East and West were obscured by trees. Soon the group of people behind us caught up and Chris knew one of the women who was from Bethel. We had a leisurely lunch and chatted with this friendly group of four.
    Soon it was time to head down and we all began together. I had a nice talk with the gentleman of the group. We started meeting more hikers headed across the saddle between the two peaks and after crossing the North peak there were even more and we were steeping aside to wait for people to pass every few minutes.

A huge glacial erratic along the trail.

We met probably thirty people, the last of whom we wondered if they would have time to summit and get down before dark. We got back to the road about 4:00. At this time of year it gets dark around six so I was glad of our early start. As usual, a great day out in the mountains of New Hampshire.