Mount Osceola Hike

Mount Osceola and East Osceola Hike

Distance: 8.18 miles

Elevation Gain: 2871 feet

Type: Out and Back

Peaks: Mount Osceola (4315 feet) and East Osceola Peak (4134 feet)

Mount Osceola

To check out more 4000 footer peaks, we hiked up to Mount Osceola. We left (again) at 4 a.m. in Boston and we started hiking at 7 a.m. From the trailhead on Tripoli road via Mount Osceola trail, it is only about 3 miles to reach Mount Osceola. Because it was early in the morning, there were only a couple of people at the top. The view was dramatic. The valley surrounded by Mount Osceola and East Osceola seems somehow a hanging place for clouds. Therefore a line of clouds were there floating above mountain line and it made an unusual scenery. A little breeze sometimes pushed up clouds from the bottom of valley. It was great to see that. 

Then we headed for East Osceola. From Osceola to East peak, first 500 feet down then again 350 feet up. It is mentally hard when I go up and down a lot. Up up up up and down down down down is easier than up down up down up down up down (at least for me). 

Anyway at the top of East Osceola was in the clouds unfortunately. Well it was a good workout. Then we came back to the main Osceola peak. First time we were at the summit was 8:45 a.m. Second time when we came back from East Osceola was 10:30 a.m.  Now more people were at the top. Anyway we sat down and ate lunch and peaches. Two females 10 meters behind us were discussing whether they should go to East peak or not. After a long discussion they decided not to go, because one of them wanted to go to dinner at 5 p.m. in Concord, NH. As you can imagine from this conversation, this trail has many non-hardcore hikers. If you go to only Osceola not East peak, it is just 6 mile hike with 2000 feet elevation gain. Those hikers are not potato couches, but not hardcore either.

Because the past 2 weekends before this hike we had much steeper hikes, both of us though this hike was relatively easy and gentle climb. Bodies seem to adjust very quickly. 

After this good hike, we came home and ate nice Japanese dinner to conclude the day. 

 

Wildcat Mountain ABCD

Wildcat A,B,C,D hike

Distance: 9.4 mile
Elevation Gain: 3,340 feet
Type: Loop with a long spur
Peaks: Wildcat mountain A (4397 feet) and D (4062 feet)

Now day hike to climb New England 4000 footers: Wildcat mountain A and D.

A little weird name. Well, it kind of makes sense. There are four continuous mountains and they are named Wildcat A, B, C, D peak. Some are too close to be considered as an independent mountain. Therefore only A and D are listed on the 4000 footers. 

Lost pond

We planned a hike 1.5 mile shorter by starting highway16 at wildcat ridge trail. However, we found that the first 0.1 mile of the trail was closed due to the trail maintenance. Awww. Because of this, we drove 0.8 mile to a different trailhead and walked a lost pond trail unexpectedly. As the name indicates, there is a small pond along the trail. The view was nice actually (left picture). 

Then the trail merged to the original trail we had planned. Then the trail suddenly gets steep. 1000 feet climb in 0.4 mile!!! I had to use hands as well to climb rocky steep terrain. This is very New England-ish.

For me 1000 feet in 1 mile is a good climb. 1000 feet gain per mile takes 1 hour, this is my standard. For Californians,  a good example is Mission peak. It is a 1000 feet climb per mile, and 2500 feet elevation gain in 2.5 mile to the peak.  

Peak D

Next 1000 feet climb is in 0.9 mile. Not bad. After that, soon we arrived at Wildcat peak D. Wild cat peak D is a little different from other 4000 footers, because it is a ski resort in winter. Lift comes to the top of Wildcat peak D. Due to ski resort the peak D summit area is a meadow (trees are cut). In summer, lift is not moving and no skiing people, so it is pretty quiet, but a different scenery. The view from the meadow is magnificent. Big view of Mount Washingtons is in front of you like a big movie screen. I really liked it. I ate half of the sandwich here sitting on the meadow and enjoyed the view. 

Peak A

Next, we hiked a spur trail portion (1.7 mile). From peak D, via C and B, both are in the forest without signs or views,  finally reached the peak A. It was a very good view. The view includes Carter Dome, Carter hut, and Carter valley. A week ago we were at the top of Carter Dome and saw Wildcat peak A and Carter Valley. Now from the other side! 

Then we came back to peak D, then hiked down through ski trail. Ski trail is not for hikers in winter, but allowed to hike in the non-ski season. Ski trail has actually a nice view because surrounding trees were cut down. Since original trailhead and trailhead from ski trail is 1 mile apart, we had to do some road walking. 

Overall it was a good hike!

Kayaking @Neoponset River

We went kayaking in Massachusetts. Since this day the weather forecast was shower in the White mountain area, we chose to stay in Mass and did a small kayak.
Neoponset river is just 30 minutes drive from Boston. So we could sleep in. To go to the Whites we need to get up at 3:30 a.m.
Sleeping in, Mr.N had blueberry pancake as a stereotypical American, I ate rice and natto with green onion with fish as stereotypical Japanese, we went out for river. 

The launching area was a bit tricky. First of all, this area is poison ivy habitat, which concerned me. Indeed Mr.N found some poison ivy. I was very careful not to touch any plants to be safe. 

The river is nice. Both sides are full of lush green leafy trees. Those green reflect on the water and everything was shining in green, which was pretty. Summery view in Mass. At the same time tough part was that the river is very shallow and sometimes too shallow to kayak. Another challenge was many dead trees were floating in the river and avoiding them without making damage on kayak. In fact after 2 miles we had to turn around, because all the river was blocked by dead trees with many branches. 

Dead logs was a hardship, however, that brought fun as well. A lot of turtles were soaking up sun on those logs! We saw from big ones to small ones. Fun fact: sometimes small one is sitting on a big one. Once I saw a bit one trying to climb on a small one....poor tiny one.  

One of them was the highlight of this kayaking. A very small one was enjoying sun on the old tire (somehow abandoned in the river). Usually when a kayak is approaching, turtles are jumping into water and immediately disappear. This tiny turtle, somehow, not really scared, and it went into water at last minutes. In the water it was not scared much and just floating around near the tire. It is not common for kayakers to spot swimming turtles, but this time we enjoyed observing small turtle swimming. Its head was in the water for a couple of seconds, then come up above water to breathe. As we left I looked back and saw the turtle came back on the tire. The turtle seemed to fond of the tire very much. Cute!

Although this river had some difficulty, it was nice to see this cute one. 

South and North Twin Peaks: Day Hike in White Mountain

Again day hiking in White mountain in New Hampshire. 

Distance: 11.5 miles

Elevation gain: 3675 feet

Type: Out and back

Summits: North Twin Mountain (4764 feet) and South Twin mountain (4892 feet)

At the end of July we did a nice day hike in New Hampshire. On that weekend, weather forecast was sunny on Saturday and rainy on Sunday, so we decided to take a dashiki on Saturday. Again, we left Boston at 4 a.m. This is actually as hard as, or even harder than climbing mountains. 

trailhead

OK. From the trailhead the first 2 miles is a gentle climb. At mile 1, official trail crosses the river, then comes back again by crossing the same river. We found the new unofficial trail formed to stay at the same side of the river. So we stayed there. Apparently a lot of people use that unofficial trail to avoid getting feet wet. 

North Twin

Next 2.5 miles has 2500 feet elevation gain, but there is a reward. North Twin Mountain. Nice view of waves of mountains all with lush leafy trees. There were three parties at the top and each party had a dog. 3 dogs were interacting in a different way. 1 is friendly, 1 is calm, 1 is barking with low voice. Funny and cute!

South Twin

From here we needed to descend a little then ascend to go to the South Twin Mountains. Continuous ups and downs are mentally tough. Up only, top, down only is psychologically easier for me. However, it was worth going to South twin as well. It was much better view at 4892 foot high. We saw a cute 13-year-old girl dog at the summit who was at the north summit again. She is not leashed, but well behaved and very calm. At the same time she is so strong! She didn't seem to be tired at all and went down strong! CUTE!

On this day the summit was nice and warm with a little breeze. It is unusual to be comfortable weather in the Whites. Lucky! 

Short Hike in Cape Cod

In July we went hiking in Cape Cod. Cape Cod is a peninsula in the south of Massachusetts in the U.S. There are a lot of beaches and they are National Seashore. In a normal year, many New England people go to Cape Cod for summer vacation, but this year with COVID-19, not many people go there. We usually avoid the crowd in summer, and hike in spring, fall, and winter. This year it is not crowded even in summer, so we headed for Cape Cod. 

Taking advantage of that, we went day hiking there. This day we started at the trailhead on the Collins Road, across the Ryder Pond. The trail at the beginning was nicely wide in the pretty green forest.

Lush green was so vive! We continued walking for another couple of miles towards the cliff. Under the cliff is ocean. Atlantic ocean is not my ocean, however, it is still nice to see it. (my ocean is Pacific ocean, because I am from Japan.) 

On the beach some people were walking and sitting, but it was not crowded at all. They were able to have long social distances. 

We sat on the cliff and ate lunch by looking down the ocean. Looking at the ocean for a while, we noticed that there are at least 10 seals swimming in the ocean. Mostly very close to the beach, but never land on the beach. Interesting! Even from the far away, I was able to tell they are cute. Next time we will check them out from the beach. 

Then we carried on walking. Then a problem came. The trail got very very narrow and it was inevitable touching plants. The trail was not maintained much. My immense concern was that there might be poison ivy in the plants. I or Mr.N can't really tell how poison ivy look like. We are familiar with poison oak, which habits Western half of the U.S., but not well with poison ivy. 

Because I am SUPER MEGA allergic to poison oak, I know that touching poison ivy will be a huge problem as well. The allergen to cause skin inflammation is urushiol, the oil contained in both poison oak and poison ivy. 

My nightmare flashed back. I had a handful experience of getting severe, 2 month lasting lash from poison oak in California. 

Due to that, we had to head back to the trailhead. On the way home we bought Tecnu. This is the only effective preventive method to maximize the potential not to have rash and inflammation from poison ivy/oak.
As an immunological point of view, urushiol, the oil from poison ivy/oak is first absorbed by skin. Urushiol itself can't provoke any immune responses. However, once urushiol binds to protein in the skin, it will provoke immune response. Once immune system memorize those molecules, next time you will get strong immune response, which is rash. Now I have established the immune response, it is inevitable to escape from that. Tecnue is basically a solvent for oil. By rubbing Tecnue lotion on the skin, it can dissolve urushiol into the Tecnue. Then wash out the Tecnu. By doing that minimize the urushiol contents to bind to skin proteins. For urushiol to bind proteins takes 8-10 hours, so it is important to wash with Tecnu by end of the day is essential. 

Tecnue is sold at any pharmacy like CVS or Walgreen. If you are a hiker, it is good to have it at home. This immune response is established in anyone, at any age, at anytime!

Luckily I didn't get any rashes this time. Phew. 

週末にケープコッドへちょっとしたハイキングへ。

ケープコッドはマサチューセッツ州の南東部にある半島。ビーチがたくさんあり、ハイキングもできる。バイク（自転車）用のトレイルもあるし夏休みの行き先として人気な場所だ。ここは国立海岸として保護された公園になっている。

お金持ちの人は休暇用のバケーションハウスとケープコッドに持っている人も多い。夏にケープコッドに来る人は多いもののハイキングする人は少ない。ほとんどの人はビーチで寝そべったりレストランに行ってホテルに何泊かするというパターンだ。我々は違う。通常の年は夏は人が多いので春秋冬にハイキングに行く。しかしコロナウイルスのため今年の夏はケープコッドも閑散としているということでハイキングへ行った。

緑が生き生きとしている森を歩いて行く。綺麗な森で誰もいない　（１枚目の写真）。５キロほど歩くと崖の上に出る。そこからは海が見渡せる（２枚目の写真）。そこでサンドイッチを食べた。海をみているとアザラシが泳いでいるのが見えた。１０匹以上はいた。次回はビーチに行って近くで観察してみたい。

その後さらに歩いて行くとトレイルがどんどん狭くなり植物が足にあたるようになった。ここで問題が。。。ポインズンアイビーに触れると私はひどい皮膚炎を起こしてしまう。ポイズンオークとポインズンアイビーにはウルシオール（漆のオイル）が含まれていてそれが免疫反応を起こすのだ。ポイズンオークはすぐにどれだかわかるのだが、ポイズンアイビーはいまいち見分けられる自信がない。ということでそこでハイキングを中断してトレイルヘッドに引き返した。家に戻りテックニューで腕と足を洗う。これはウルシオールを洗い出して免疫反応を抑えるローションだ。もちろん時間が経ってしまえば完全にオイルが吸収されて免疫反応が始まってしまうので意味がないが８時間以内に洗えば通常は免疫反応を抑えることができる。５−6回ポイズンオークでひどい目にあっているので今回は3回テックニューで洗った。おかげで皮膚炎が出なかったのでかなりホッとした。綺麗な景色だったがポイズンアイビーが生えているかもしれない疑いで忙しい日となった。。。