Started from Joe Dodge Lodge parking lot at 0445 after a short drive from Conway. As the sun came up the bugs came out & it became humid. No other people in the ravine aside from two climbers taking a climbing route.
At one point the vegetation covered blazes for the ravine trail route. I decided to decend to see if i could see blazes further up. I was using my gamrin fenix 7 with a route that i created in Alltrails with “smart routing” & exported. As i looked at the route to check where the trail was, it took me on the route the climbers were taking which was a technical climb. I dont doubt i would have realized this as i didnt see any blazes as i was headed in that direction and this was in the opposite direction from the blazes. They also decide to yell out and let me know that i should turn back in the direction i was originally going. In hindsight this was cool, though it irritated me at the time as i had been headed in that direction less than a minute.
Hit the summit of washington via nelson crag just after 0800 before anything was open. It was chilly under clear skies with no other humans. Very pleasant. I headed down to lakes & stopped at the body of water choosing not to go to the hut as it was crowded & i can be averse to tons of people at times…
At this point the new boots i was wearing were making it feel as though my achilles tendons were going to snap. I slowed my pace significantly as i headed back up washington. I made sure to step down with my heel instead of the front of my foot to decrease calves load. This helped nominally. After hitting the summit again and choking on smog from the cog emissions, i quickly headed down lions head trail/tuckerman ravine.
I stopped a bit off trail far enough to not hear the cars & smell the smog to have a lunch. I took my boots off and was at this point mildly concerned about the achilles situation. It ended up being resolved by relacing the boots in a manner where i skip the laces that go around the ankle. This did something to take the stress off and my pace and perceived ability to move went back to baseline. I will have to figure this out in the future.
Not my favorite day out, but a great summer day nonetheless..
Down to the hut…didnt take many pictures
The stats for this hike are wrong for some reason related to not following the route i loaded….the gain was 6400
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