Storytelling On ‘Ole Tecumseh

I still wonder why he just didn’t ask for a divorce.

I am standing in the parking lot of the Waterville Valley Ski Resort, peering down the access road in to the facility, and looking at the aptly named Mount Tripyramid.

If you look a little closer at this sawtoothed mountain, you can make out a white scar on what is known as “North Peak”. This is the slide, as in avalanche slide, of North Peak, and the course of the trail up Mt. Tripyramid. It rises about 1200′ (nearly 1/4 of a mile) in 1/2 mile and reaches a maximum grade of 38°! It was so steep, you had to scramble up it with hands and feet. Hands down, the absolute hardest and scariest trail I have ever hiked in my life…

The last time I climbed the North Peak slide, I was a 23 year old newlywed. And my brand new husband dropped an enormous boulder on me. As I desperately wedged myself with my feet, knees, and left hand to the various slabs of rock around me, I reached up with my right hand and caught the giant hunk of granite that was accelerating toward me. I can still vividly remember, more than two decades later, the tumbling of the rock as if in slow motion and wondering if I was going to be thrown off the cliff when it hit me. HIs excuse? It was loose and he didn’t want me to grab on to it by mistake…

Despite our tragic beginnings, AA1F and I are still together and continue to climb mountains. We have worked out our differences, namely, do not drop boulders on your wife. Here he is at the summit of Mount Tecumseh…the mountain we actually hiked this time.

Tecumseh is not an easy hike. It is quite popular because of how short it is (5 miles round trip), but the trail essentially goes straight up the mountain with no use of swtichbacks. Rather is has a rather unbelievable number of rock staircases. And in its 2.5 mile ascent, the vertical gain is almost 2300 feet.

In fact, in last year’s trek up Tecumseh, the blog post mused at who carved out these steps. This year, AA1F and I got a glimpse of a lone twenty-something year old stone mason carving out a step. I wish I got his picture.

Once at the top, we easily made our activations for both Summits-On-The-Air (SOTA) and Parks-On-The-Air (POTA). In fact, it was the POTA Annual Support Your Parks Plaque Weekend, so there were plenty of operators lighting up the airways. But there is one more story I want to tell…

As you make the approach to the summit, you encounter this sign (above). Essentially, you are given a choice to head to the right or to the left in a trail that makes a loop around the top of the mountain. Go either way.

A family of 3 kids and a mom and dad had left the parking lot a little bit earlier than us and we saw them at the top. The dad asked us for some advice as to what we thought would be the easiest way back down. Apparently, the youngest son, maybe around 5 or 6 years old, had hurt his foot and the dad was worried about the steepness of the trail back down. We told him that given where he parked, we did not think there was an alternative route to the base.

As mentioned in the picture with Nellie in it, the Ski Area Trailhead is where our truck (and that family’s car) is parked. At the peak, there is a sign that points back to the Ski Area Trailhead and also down a trail toward the Tripoli Road Trailhead. The direct path back from the summit to the Ski Area Trailhead is 2.5 miles. On the other hand, if we were to take the Tripoli Road Trailhead back to our car, it would be about a 7.2 mile hike instead…

My point? The family with the hurt kindergartener starting taking the path down toward the Tripoli Road Trailhead (yellow on the map above) instead of the trail we had all come up from the ski area parking lot (orange on the map above) . They thought it was the other side of the summit loop trail that would head back to the Parking Lot trail. Fortunately, I noticed this and stopped them and asked if they really were meaning to go that way. The were not. I was able to point them in the right direction, and save them from figuring out how to make it an extra 5 miles with a bunch of small children one of which was having trouble walking. Their car was gone by the time we got back to the parking lot. That’s me holding up 1 and 5 fingers… I am in 15th place on the W1 (New England) region SOTA board now.

There are things I remember about hikes. The stories I can tell. I remember boulders being dropped on me. On that same hike on Tripyramid so many years ago, I can remember a man that was sitting on top of the slide trail as we came up it. For exceptionally good reason, he was terrified of the idea of going down the rocky avalanche scree. But it was the quickest way for him to get back to his car, because he was exhausted and out of food and water. I still remember giving him some of the snacks we had, including a granola bar, and a bottle of water. And I will remember the look this dad gave me on Tecumseh. He said thank you for preventing his worn out family from having to hike an additional five miles. But really he didn’t need to say anything. In the silent exchange that took place when his eyes met mine, I knew everything he wanted me to know.

From the wild,

KM1NDY