Doggy Drama the night before equals Short and Sweet Hike the next day

Welcome to another episode in the goal to reach 100,000k. This week there was new excitement in the weekly drama... SNOW!!!!! But before we get to the hiking drama, let me tell you about the doggy drama! I took the day off on Friday and did a whole lotta shopping. My last trip was to Kittery Trading Post and because I was spending so much money, I decided to buy Nate and I a piece of fudge. I finished shopping, drove home and left the fudge in the car. Then I packed, Nate got home, and we took off to go see the new Warren Miller movie at the Attitash resort. We decided to leave the dogs in the car (because we are fabulous dog parents) because they don't sleep when they are alone in the car and they are so much easier to deal with when they don't sleep... especially when we go up north! They don't sleep well when we go up north and they typically pace all night and keep us up. Thus, tired dogs = good dogs!! We see the movie and we come back out to the car. Oakley is sitting in the front seat of my car... no big deal... I push her to the back and go to sit in my car when I look down at the floor. There was torn up pieces of paper all over the floor. I turn on the lights and see that the torn up pieces of paper are shreds of fudge box!! OH NO!!! Oakley ate all the fudge. Most of me was so mad at her because she ate my fudge, and a little part of me was worried because one of those pieces of fudge was chocolate. So, we drive home. I took the dogs for a little walk so that they would tire out a little more and then when we got back I fed them. So far, so good. Oakley wasn't being her crazy super silly self, but she wasn't acting all that bad. Then we go to get ready for bed, and Oakley started pacing. She laid down next to me and started whining. Nate was still up so I asked him to let her out. She went out, did her thing, and then came back in. Again, no big deal. She lays down next to me again, whines a little, stands up and projectile vomits all over the rug!!!!! No heaving! No little motions like something bad is about to happen, just stands up and vomits! Awesome!!! So another night of excitement at the house!! So, needless to say, we didn't get to bed until late and it was one of those weeks where we got to bed late and we don't sleep in much so... we didn't get out of the house until after 10am. Hike requirement, short and sweet! 

I was studying the maps and one of the hikes that looked short and sweet was a hike up to the top of Mount Willey. It's 1.6 on the Ethan Pond Trail to the Willey Range Trail and then 1.1 miles to the top of Mount Willey. From the looks of the map, we didn't quite hit the summit, but the trail started going down hill and I'm guessing the summit was in trees because that's what the top looked like. It was the boringest summit yet... but here's a little description of the hike via pictures... 

We drove up 302 and came upon... that's right... SNOW!!!!! And it was coming down good!! Thankfully, we had our gaiters and all of our snow gear (which we didn't use) so we were all set. 

We got through the first 1.6 miles and met up to the Willey Range trail without a problem. It was somewhat easy. We climbed a little less than 1300ft in that 1.6 miles. We then had to go 1.1 miles to reach the summit and it was going to be 1600ft. I have complained in the past about how the stairs are so freaking hard... Yeah, this hike, actually did have stairs!! 

and ladders!!! 

and more ladders!!! 

and more places that I had to grab onto a tree, put a hand down and pull myself over a rock!! It was a nice scramble!! :) 

As we were approaching the top, I looked around and saw that we were sorta socked in by the cloud/fog/snow... 

and we got to the top and we were completely socked in by the cloud/fog/snow! 

Nater and I at the top of the mountain. I got a new coat earlier this month and it was super handy!! It was really frigid at the top!! and in our self portrait, it covers my squinty eyes!!! 

And as we went down the mountain, the cloud/fog/snow started lifting and we were able to catch some views!! It was really awesome with all the snow all around!!  

Nate was giving me grief about going down the ladders. Something about how I wasn't leaning back as I was walking down. Thus, he got a picture of me sitting on my bum coming down the ladders!! 

Oh, look at that, JP can walk down a ladder... Just fine!!! :)

All in all, it was a very uneventful short quick hike!! Our elevation gain was 2,976ft. We were at 85,096. Thus we have 82,120 feet to go!! Almost under 80k... The top of Mount Washington, Adams and Monroe appear to be completely snow covered so it's almost time to start playing in the fun stuff instead of the lame walking down stuff... :)  Oh, and I forgot to mention, another 4000 footer bagged...

Announcing the Winter Goal

Nate and I rented a "winter chateau" with a couple friends again this winter. It's a really nice place: 3 bedroom pad with views of cathedral ledge from the monster front window and some lovely shag-like carpeting to complete the package. This weekend is the first weekend for the rental and we are heading up! I'm so excited to start our winter.

So to start our winter off right, I would like to announce our winter goal. We would like to climb 100,000 feet in elevation gain over the course of the winter. If we go from Pinkham Notch Appalachian Mountain Club to the tippy top of Mount Washington, we will have to do that about 24 times to track 100,000 feet in gain. However, Mount Washington is highly avalanche prone in the middle of the winter so we will have to do different spots and most likely do lots of laps! But again, I think it's doable and it'll be an awesome thing to knock off the to-do list! (I say "we" but I think Nate's just going along with me on this one. I don't remember if he ever said, 'yup, I'm in'. -- Just got confirmation from Nate via text message that he is officially in!)

This weekend, I hope that we can climb to the tippity top of Mt. Wash. I've actually never been up there and the forecast is calling for sunny skies and positive temps at the summit! Happy Friday everyone and let the snowflakes begin to fly!

Major fun today... get it... Major... Ha... :)

This weekend was a bit of a chill out and relax kind of weekend. I had to coach on Saturday so we couldn't go up north on Friday. Then after the meet on Saturday, we decided to just get some take out and hang out at the house. We got up late on Sunday morning and then Nate got a text from one of our buddies, Bryan, asking if we wanted to hike Mount Major today. We wrestled over it because we wanted to get some feet in, but didn't necessarily want to hike Mount Major... but it's an easy hike, it's about an hour away and it would be nice to hang with some friends. So we said, yes. We met up at Mount Major with the four dogs and hit the trails. It took about an hour to reach the top. Here are the pics from the top: 

Bryan & Nate checking out the surroundings. 

Nater Potater in his new free glasses smiling!! It's nice to capture smiling moments from the Nater. 

Lucy getting some lovin' from Mr. Nevins. 

Nate and I got our Avalanche Beacons on Friday so when we got the text, we told Brian and Bryan to bring their beacons too. On the way down, we played beacon hide and seek. At first it was a real person hide and seek but it was pretty hard because all of our gear is pretty obnoxious colored. It then became a hide the beacon and seek it out kind of game. Most of the way down, two people would hide two beacons and two others would go and find them. It was pretty fun and good practice on how to use the beacons.

Here are Brian and Bryan searching for beacons! 

I forgot my watch today, so I used RunKeeper on my phone. (who knows why it started us at Wolfeborro and zoomed us across the lake). Last weekend, we reached 86,422 feet. Today, we climbed 1,326 feet. 85,096 feet to go!!

"Why are stairs so freaking hard?" And other groans from our Mount Adams climb

Nate and I bagged another 4,000 footer and climbed the second highest mountain in New Hampshire. It was again not an easy climb and I was really, really sore afterward. I still don't understand why climbing stairs is so hard, but it is really hard! Plus on the way down, the trail we took was really icy so it was a long, slow climb down too. 

Here are some pictures of our adventure: 

This is something that I learned when I moved to New Hampshire. When the ground freezes, the ice starts to protrude from the ground. I have no idea how this happens or what it's called, but it's super cool looking.

This is one of the few times Nate let me take a break on the way up! ;) 

 I believe this is looking up towards Mount Adams but it could be Mount Quincy Adams because we summited that on too. I was just excited because we had reached the "alpine zone" so I knew that we were getting close. 

Mount Washington from Mount Adams. Last week, the mountains had over a foot of snow... this week... just a fine dusting... STUPID WEATHER!!! 

Nate and I at the top of the mountain. Definitely not pretty at all.. It was sooo bright up there!! 

A better picture of Mount Washington from Mount Adams. 

A very cute Nater from the top of Mount Adams. 

The dogs waiting for their hand outs at the top of the mountain. They get goodies at the top too. 

Mount Madison from the top of Mount Adams. 

I wish I had a lot to say about the hike, but I really don't. It was hard, long 6 hours of hiking. We summited the Mount John Quincy Adams and looked over and realized that we hadn't reached our goal. We decided to see if we could quickly scramble to reach the top. I was super happy we did because it was really cool up there and I felt really proud of ourselves for doing it. The whole walking down thing is getting super lame, but we wouldn't have hiked Mount Adams with our ski/ride stuff so I guess it's a good experience. The trails were all ice with a dusting over the top. I fell on my bum 3 or 4 times... I guess it's a good time to get the first fall on ice over for the season. My legs were spaghetti-like on the way down. I definitely didn't eat or drink enough. Plus, we just finished as it started to get a little dark. We weren't the smartest on this one, but we got it done and we were safe!

I have smartened up and started wearing my Garmin watch for our hikes. Last week, we were at 90,961. Garmin says we had 4,519 (I'm accepting the elevation loss because I forgot to turn on my watch right away). That means we have 86,442 to go. We are under 90k!! Hip Hip HOORAY!!!!

Bagged another 4k footer

After a big Thanksgiving meal yesterday, Nate and I drove up north to see what fun could be had in the recent snow storm. Wednesday, the mountains got a foot+ of snow while the seacoast got 0, which I guess that's better than the mountains getting rain too. We stayed at the house Thursday night, went to bed early, got up early-ish and waited for our friend Mr. Nevins to arrive. We met him at Wildcat mountain and began the hike-a-roo. Because there was lots of snow, but not a lot of cover, we brought our "resort" boards up and hiked with boards on our backs. It was slow... slow... slow and painful going. This is what I saw for a good two hours.... 

Nate was a huge sport and led most of the way up the mountain. I felt bad that I was all over his bum most of the hike so I tried to lead the way a few times. I would get about 30 steps and stop to rest because breaking trail was not an easy task. This was after I broke trail some of the way. I stopped to rest and got a picture of Nate and Mr. Nevins with Mount Washington in the background. 

This is another picture of Mount Washington from the top of the chair lift. It was a gorgeous, way to warm day! 

Here is another picture of Mount Washington from the summit of Wildcat Mountain: 

And definitely needed an Hipstamatic shot... 

Nater and Mr. Nevins in conversation or eating, I'm not sure... 

After we summited, we headed back down to the top of the chair lift to get some gear that we dropped off and got ourselves ready for the ride down! If you look really closely, you can see Scout in the middle of the screen... 

And Oakley modeled with Mount Washington in the background. She was waiting for Nate to get his gear all ready... 

So, I'd love to say that the first turns of the year were epic... but they were most definitely NOT epic. As we started the day, it started to get really... really warm!!! It was probably about 40 something at the top of the mountain. It was cold to change layers, but not that cold. The way down was like trying to get through mashed potatoes whipped with molasses. I am still somewhat new at snowboarding and am not comfortable with doing a wheelie and trying to steer. There were many, many times that I was on my bum, knees, head, back, etc. and Mr. Nevins got to hear the "I QUIT!" (Nate got to hear it too, but it's not Nate's first time at hearing that....)  Not one of my finest moments... but hey... what can you do?!? I ended up using my snowboard as a sled for probably a good half the way down. It was way better than walking and I was beyond frustrated snowboarding... again... not proud, but I had fun!! 

Prior to today, we had 92,911 feet to go in our quest for 100k. We climbed 1,950 today. Therefore, we have 90,961 more to go... sooo close to breaking through the 90k... but yet soooo far away!! Can't wait to see what next weekend will bring us!! 

Parting shot of the old school wildcat lodge... 

And last but not least, Mr. Nevins brought a memory card and got a very nice picture of me and Nater!! Thank you, Mr. Nevins!!! 

2011 Iron Mike Virtual Tofurkey Trot -- Copied...

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... My good friend, Kelli Jamison, threw out a good challenge and I thought I would copy her as I think it's a great cause.

When I was in college, we had the toughest diving coach, pretty much in the country. I remember going and running stadiums and the swimmers, me especially, would be crying and complaining about how hot it was or how hard the stadiums were and then the whole diving team including the coach would go bounding past us as if it was nothing. Then after practice, the swimmers would do 500 abs and the divers would do 2,000 abs after they spun, twisted and smacked the water for 2.5 hours. Mike was doing all the exercises with them. He was intense and the divers were intense and they were good. All of the swimmers and the divers respected Mike. After I left college, I found out that Mike had lung cancer and my mouth just dropped. He was such a strong human being and was such an incredible person. It was mind boggling that this man was going to be in the hardest fight of his life. He ended up passing away in April 2008 and they set up a memorial fund in his name.

So, here's where you come in. If you agree to run a virtual run with me, as in you don't have to actually run with me, but agree to run that day, I'll donate $5 in your name to the Iron Mike Memorial Fund for the first 20 folks that agree to run with me. So send me an email at jenaswam at gmail dot com or send me a message on facebook.

You can also donate yourself at:

Wildcat Aquatics – Iron Mike Memorial Fund
Lancaster Aquatic Center
416 Complex Dr.
Lexington, KY 40506-0219

So send me a message and earn yourself your turkey or whatever you may be eating on Thursday all for a good cause!!

Summit #2 for the year!

To continue with our little 100,000 feet elevation goal for this winter, Nate and I decided to hike up north and this time we brought a friend, the infamous Mr. Nevins. If you have not taken the time to check out his work, you should. He's pretty much the bomb diggity, and I'm not just blowing smoke up his bum so he can get us tickets... I really mean that! :) And after spending 6 hours with the guy, he's a pretty cool dude too. 

Since last weekend, we hiked up the east side of Mount Washington, we decided to hike the west side this time. We hiked along the Cog Railway which was pretty sweet. That is our normal skin path in the winter and I've decided hiking is WAY harder than skinning up anything. We hiked along the Cog Railway and when we got to Jacob's ladder, we skirted around the Railway and decided that we were going to hike over to Mount Clay instead of Mount Washington. By this time, the winds started picking up too and it sort of felt like the winds were pushing us up the mountain. It sure made it seem easier. 

Here are the dogs on the north side of the Cog Railway facing Mount Clay and Mount Jefferson. Please notice the amount of railroad debris that the dogs are running in. Sort of made me a little sad at how much wood was just left by the railway. I guess it's biodegradable so it will break down with time. 

Here are Nate and Brian scoping out the bowl for the winter. I have a feeling that I might need some Depends to start the winter. The boys have planned out some serious treks for once the snow hits and it might be a little scary for the newbie. But you can see how much snow is up there. It's not quite deep enough to ski on, but it's getting close!!! 

More snow crystals from the insane winds up there... 

Nate and Brian still scoping out ways to get down and get back to the car from the bowl... or something along those lines... They did a lot of talking and planning... And who needs a professional photographer when you have a girl with her Iphone... 

The dogs were digging the snow fields at the top. I'm not sure they were digging the winds, but they were chasing their shadows and running all around in the snow. You can see Mount Clay, Jefferson and Adams in the background.

Nate was having fun with the Hipstamic App. I swear this could be Sir Edmund Hillary looking up towards Everest... But it's just Brian Nevins looking towards Mount Washington. Nice work, photographer Nate! (the actual photographer on this trip snapped zero photos because he forgot his memory card.)

This was after we summited Mount Clay and were heading back. The winds were a beastly 40+ mph (and actually could have been pushing 50 or 60 at that point, but I can't figure out the time axis on the MWOBS site). As we were walking along the top, I was walking on the inside of Nate and there were a few times that I felt like I was getting stabbed with ice crystals in the face. It was pretty intense. And yes, my pants were frozen at the bottom but I wasn't cold. 

Trail marking at the top. We were on the Appalachian Trail there for a few feet... :)

Nate took a video at the top to see if he could some how video the winds. I do stumble at the beginning of the video because I was knocked over by the wind. It happened a lot. 

We considered summiting Washington too but it was looking a bit shady so I chickened out although there were no arguments from the boys. We totally had enough time to summit both, maybe next time... 

As of the last post, we had 95,744 feet to go. Nate brought the Garmin with us this time, but did not turn it on to track the climb so I can only use what I can find online. We had a little conversation about this last night and he was like, 'if we finish the year and we are 200 feet away then we can say we did it because we climbed up more after we reached Clay'. I told him that wasn't going to fly to which he then said that he would have to read the Garmin instruction book... :) We started at 2,700 feet at the base of the Cog Railway and the summit of Mount Clay is at 5,533 feet. Thus we climbed 2,833 feet yesterday and we have 92,911 feet to go.  

And a random little fact, Clay is not considered a 4,000 footer because it is too close to the col of Mount Washington. It is considered a secondary summit. 

4,256 feet down (up rather), 95,744 to go!

Before I begin the adventure telling, here is the view from our deck at the winter chateau... It's pretty rough... 

As I stated on Friday, Nate and I rented a winter place in North Conway with a few friends. Since there is not enough snow to do any skiing, we decided to hike Mount Washington and summit it because 1) I've never summited it and 2) because the weather is just going to get worse and 3) we made a goal to climb 100,000 feet this winter and we better get started. The forecast was saying it was going to be an exceptionally beautiful day so off we went.

It took us about 2.5 hours to get up to hojos which is about 1/2 up the top. 

Here is Nater hiking up the trail:   

Here is the infamous Tuckerman Ravine bowl: 

So in good old Nate and Jenny fashion, once we got to the base of the bowl, Nate was like, 'let's go this way'. We didn't go up Lion's Head Trail or continue going up any other marked trail. We literally went straight up the face of the mountain. Nate wanted to stay away from falling icicles and any other snow debris so we went to the right side of the bowl and went over boulders, through a waterfall, and then we started bushwhacking through some snow-filled pines: 

and while Nate was waiting for me, he was able to snap off this picture: 

After we got through that mess, I was pretty tired but a little thankful for the adventure because I was pretty spent and going through a boring trail would've been... boring. I was so worried about staying safe that I didn't necessarily notice how hard it was or how long it was taking. I just went up. Once we got through the yucky part, we had just a little bit more to get to the trail. Here's me working my way to the trail: 

Once we got to the trail, it was all uphill from there. After about 15 sets of 20 more steps, Nate pointed out one of the towers and was like, 'we are almost there'. I continued with my 20 more steps and was able to reach the summit. Here are the dogs making their way up the auto road to the observatory deck: 

Mount Washington used to have the record for the highest recorded wind speed. Some other mountain broke it but we definitely experienced the high winds and was able to see some pretty cool results of the high winds: 

The lodge was open, and the really nice man said it would be ok if the dogs could come in too. They needed to behave and hang out in the corner. Nate and I were able to change our socks and pants (bushwhacking through snow-filled trees causes one to get really wet) and we were able to warm up a bit. Oakley was a super dog in the lodge and showed off how thankful she was to be inside. Scout, on the other hand, wanted to be everyone's friend so anytime someone came near, he would start whining. We didn't want to annoy the world and wanted to get to the bottom before dark so we hurried up and headed out. 

Nate said it would be ok if we took the "safer" way down and we took the Lion's head trail down. Here's Nate heading down and Wildcat in the background. It's already snow filled and it looks like it is close to being skiable!! 

One last view of the bowl... 

Oh, I forgot to mention that Nate forgot the Garmin so we don't have the exact change in elevation but we started at the Pinkham Notch Visitors Center which has an elevation of 2,032 feet and we reached the summit at 6,288 feet so gained 4,256 feet while climbing Mount Washington. Thus, we have 95,744 feet to go!! Total uphill trip took 4.5 hours and the way down took 2 hours... AND I forgot the best story of the day. As we were coming down the Tuckerman Ravine trail, we heard some people coming up behind us. In our competitive nature, Nate was like, "We are not getting passed". I agreed with him and we tried to move down the mountain as fast as we could. The voices were gaining on us and all of a sudden, Nate was gone. He didn't run all the way to the bottom, but he might as well have. We only had about 10 minutes left of the way down so when he came back to meet me, I didn't tackle him, but whatever boyfriend points he earned on the way up, he lost them coming down!! :)

And out of the 10 shots we tried to take at the top, this is the only one where it looks like Nate was smiling. He claims his lips were frozen... and he was staring into the sun... both might be true!