Trail Chaser: GPW. That's enough for now.

So... yeah... hiking an equally long hike the day after doing Mack Ridge might not have been the smartest idea. 😅 Though in fairness I didn't really think about it being as many miles, and definitely thought it'd be less elevation. I guess three mountains combined adds up, huh? Turned out we actually totaled a hair MORE today than yesterday!

If I'd realized it was going to be that big of a hike, I might not have gone. 😬 But we got it done, and now I am gridded out for August! Hummingbird only has Rowe left, which she can easily pick off another day between work and her wedding preparations. We're making good progress!

Still, hiking to three peaks today was definitely an ambitious plan when still feeling the burn from yesterday. Although I wasn't too worse for wear this morning, pain-wise, it was more an issue with energy level. Esp. after a late night at the theatre and waking up early to get ready to hike, I wasn't running on full speed to begin with. We started out hiking fairly close to average power & speed, but by about the halfway mark we were both pretty toast.

None of the trails were particularly difficult, which is why we thought it'd be manageable. First up was Gunstock from the top of Carriage Road. It's probably the easiest route to the summit; certainly it's the shortest. And the Saddle Trail is Hummingbird's favorite. Spongecake trail! Overall the footing is pretty good, so it's a fairly nice hike. I didn't bother with the views on the summit today; I just took advantage of the bathrooms and we continued on, hiking back to the parking lot. We had things to do, mountains to climb!

Alltrails was momentarily upset when I passed the parking lot and kept hiking. 😂 But we had to venture a short way down Carriage Road to hit the trail to Piper, our next peak. Everything was par for the course (albeit more exhausting), had the usual pretty sights, and we were grateful that the rock slabs were dry and safe. The sun was intense, so traversing the open summit was more draining. Thankfully intermittent shaded areas offered us relief on our descent.

Piper thrones

view from the thrones

view from Piper slabs

From Piper, we hauled ourselves over to Whiteface. This is where the exhaustion really set in, which felt slightly ridiculous on the surface because it's one of the easiest hikes in the Belknap Range. But working into double digit mileage in barely over 24 hours justifies our suffering. 😉 I was dragging myself up that summit at that point. I tried pausing to stretch at one point, but between the bugs and my body just being done, it was not helpful. Later I stopped again for some now forgotten reason, and realized that was a bad idea, as I was running on fumes, and starting again was quite difficult.

Although for all my complaining, it really wasn't an awful hike. Conditions were good, and we were glad to get the grid accomplishments. We were also glad we hadn't done this yesterday and Mack today, because that would have killed us even more. So all in all it was worthwhile, but I don't think I'll be doing back to back hikes again any time soon. At least none this size.

Now excuse me while I go back to bed.