Father Trail
New Hampshire Appalachian Trail, Spring 2020
May 2020
It was mid-May 2020 and the Appalachian Trail through New Hampshire was still buried in snow. Determined to accomplish our long time goal of hiking the 170 mile New Hampshire of the Appalachian Trail, my Dad and I pressed on. We were a week into the trek and the snow was starting to bury the trail markers, colored white no less. It was also at this time Dad and I were beginning to “posthole,” the classic hiking activity of sinking into the snow up to our hips. This went on for miles. As much as we wanted to laugh this off, our morale was decreasing each time we fell through.
Later in the day we saw footprints in the snow. These footprints showed a path that had already been treaded on without any “postholing.” This was great news… so we thought. The footprints led somewhere else. On the slopes of Mt. Wolf we could see the footprints were leading to a tent covered in snow from the night before. We attempted to take a closer look, but saw no sign of activity anywhere around the campsite. It all felt eerie. We didn’t dare look in the tent, every horror film scenario of what could be inside the tent was playing in my mind. Dad checked the GPS. We were off trail, way off. How did we get here?
Rewinding Back
2020 was going to be a big year, a start to a new decade. Here was what my 2020 plan looked like:
Fill into the new role at work.
Move to Brooklyn.
Take a road trip down South with Dad.
Spend a family vacation in Hawaii, and see the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
Compete in Ironman Maryland.
Run NYC Marathon, and qualify for Boston Marathon.
Of all of things I was planning to do in 2020, the road trip with Dad down to Florida was what I looked forward to the most. Dad and I had a long history of taking trips together with only just the two of us. These trips often felt like a journey to the next chapter in our lives whether it was a road trip to a job interview in upstate New York or hiking in the White Mountains together once a year. No matter what we were going through in our lives, we always found time to share an adventure together.
My “Old Man On The Mountain.”
However in the last couple of years, we really hadn’t taken a long trip together. As I thought about this, I remembered how Dad had an idea for us to hike the Appalachian Trail through New Hampshire together. However that was too long of a trip to take time off work for. Then another idea popped in my head. Every April since 2017, I’d fly down to Florida to spend time with my grandfather on Momma’s side and participate in the St. Anthony’s Triathlon. I thought for 2020, why not head down to Florida by car with Dad and see some sites together like the Smoky Mountains? Immediately after asking him, Dad was on board.
As the great philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” March 2020, everyone in New York City, myself included, got a big punch in the mouth: Covid. I really didn’t see this punch coming. Honestly I wasn’t worried about it at first. Prior to Covid spreading like wildfire, my twin brother Doug and I threw a birthday party for ourselves on February 29th where we had 20+ people in a small apartment. Little did we know it would be the last bit of celebrating we’d all be doing for a long time.
In mid March, everything in New York City shut down. People were restricted from seeing each other or going outside unless you were an essential worker or were doing “essential” business like grocery shopping or exercise. Anytime you went outside you had to wear a mask. To brake these restrictions was considered selfish and extremely dangerous. Well that’s what many “friendly” New Yorkers reminded you of anytime you went running outside without a mask. I will not-not say that happened to me.
Lines out the door and around the block at Wegmans supermarket.
Our parents, who lived up in New Hampshire, would check up on me and Doug daily. The media painted a scary picture of New York City, our parents questioned why we were still there. We were concerned too, we could see morgue trucks next to hospitals as lots of people were dying from the virus. Doug and I were most afraid of heading back home and potentially bringing the virus to our parents. It was better to stick it out, just as the companies we were working at were sticking it out.
The first month of the pandemic, there was an incredible amount of loyalty everyone in the city had to keep each other safe and sound. Outside of work, I started donating platelets at MSK hospital in the city, hoping I could play some part in helping my fellow New Yorkers.
The visual effects company I was working for at the time did their best to keep us all working, and for a good while we did by working remote. However a few weeks later, film production work was drying up quickly and my company started furloughing employees in waves. In April, I received a call from my managing director. It was my turn to be furloughed. A lot of sad thoughts were floating around in my brain as I tried to comprehend the furlough. Was there truly nothing I could do to help the company? Times like this though, you can’t beat yourself up for things you, your friends, coworkers, etc. have no control over. It isn’t fair on them, and more importantly it isn’t fair on you. There was one positive thought I had about the furlough though… I called Dad.
“Hey Dad, you remember that trip on the New Hampshire AT we always wanted to do?”
“Oh yeah, what you thinking?”
“Think we got the time now.”
Covid “Rush Hour” on NYC’s Canal and Broadway street intersection.
On the day after Easter, Doug and I left Brooklyn on a one way car rental back home to New Hampshire. Roads were empty throughout the city and outside the city as well. Driving down these dead roads, part of me felt like I was abandoning a place that needed me to stay put. Yet with no work to go to and no friends to see in person, the city I once knew was lifeless. Everyone in the city was out for themselves now. As for Doug and I, that meant going back to our family for the foreseeable future. When we arrived at New Hampshire, things started to feel hopeful again.
It might be because I was born and raised there that New Hampshire has always felt like the “Shire” from Lord of the Rings to me. While living up there, I always felt far away from the “happening” places, especially from a filmmaking standpoint. For better or worse nothing crazy ever really “happened” in our state. At this point in time, New Hampshire was doing alright with isolation and social distancing for Covid. One might argue New Hampshirites have done this already for centuries, a proud people that always kept their business to themselves.
Although our parents were so happy to have Doug and I back home safe, we decided it was best to stay in quarantine for two weeks before being together in the same space. During our quarantine, I was able to plan out the logistics for our backpacking trip. Using an app called Basecamp, I was able to mark up the 170 mile route, pick the places we’d make camp and grab additional supplies. I printed out the maps, imported them to a GPS, and after our quarantine I briefed Momma and Dad.
Backpacking Fuel. Powered by jerky, dried fruits, granola, salty starches, and freeze dried goodness.
I was still hopeful that I’d be back working at my old job soon and thought we needed to do this trip soon. Dad and I agreed to start in early May. Our plan was to begin from the college town of Hanover, and make our way east across the White Mountains to the Maine-NH border. Having climbing the White Mountains in May before, Dad and I understood the potential of snow and ice being on the trail. We packed accordingly with winter sleeping bags, micro spikes, gaiters, and additional clothing layers. Though it meant carrying more gear than we wanted, it was better to be safe than sorry. Before headed up north to Hanover, Momma took me aside and made a request.
“Please watch over the both of you,” Momma said.
“Of course,” I answered, probably too matter of fact.
“I mean it Larry. If it gets tough, I want you to end the hike right then and there. Got it?”
“Got it Mom.” I didn’t think this was going to be a problem, because I really didn’t think this trip was going to be difficult for me and Dad. We were experienced hikers and former Boy Scouts. We were “prepared” for anything.
And so on May 4th we headed for the Appalachian Trail. For a mile or so we walked from the Vermont-NH border and through downtown Hanover, but soon we were in the woods and away from civilization. Because Covid restrictions were keeping a lot of people from going out, we were on our own on the Appalachian Trail from then on. On this part of trail, we were going through places where logging and farming once took place. It was interesting to see rock walls that stretched hundreds of yards up and down hills and old house cellars in the middle of the forest. To think, this was all done before hydraulics and heavy machinery.
The elevation around this area wasn’t too difficult and the terrain didn’t have much ice or snow. It wasn’t until the end of Day 2 we had to deal with snow when we were on top of Smarts Mountain. The snow there was slightly deep but nothing the micro spikes couldn’t handle. We slept in the cabin that night, and although we were out of the elements at 3000 feet above sea level, it was very cold, probably around 20°F. The only real heat me and Dad felt that night was from our boiled chili. It felt both really good and bad eating our only heat source. Dad then had a smart idea we could boil the water in our Nalgene bottles and put the bottles in our sleeping bags. It made a big difference especially keeping our feet warm as we slept.
Smarts Mountain cabin was more like a fridge than a cabin, but at least better than nothing.
Day 3 we quickly headed down Smarts Mountain, getting back to warmer climate and backpacking through old lumber yards and farmland again. After our longest day of backpacking so far on the trip, we camped on Ore Hill. Just as we were about to fill up water at a nearby spring, I read in our AMC guidebook that Ore Hill used to be a mining area where water was often contaminated with chemicals. It was safe to camp there, just not safe to drink. “Wished I read that earlier,” I thought.
We were fortunate that early on Day 4 we passed by a stream that had drinkable water. This day we reached the White Mountains, the place Daniel Webster said, “where God makes men.” The first White Mountain we climbed was Mt. Moosilauke. At the base of the mountain there was no snow and the spring weather was very pleasant, but as climbed to the summit it was getting windier and there was a bit of snow on the ground, more so than on Smarts Mountain. I could see Dad was starting to slow down slightly from the exhaustion of trudging through the snow. I mean it was our first White Mountain, we were just getting warmed up. Everything was going to be easier after Mt. Moosilauke, I thought. When we got to the bare summit of Mt. Moosilauke, we could see all of the White Mountains… all of them very white in snow.
Are signs really that close to the ground? Oh right, it’s three feet of snow!
As we made our way to Beaver Brook Shelter, a half mile away from the Moosilauke summit, we saw a sign on the trail that warned about how slippery the trail ahead was. Dad stopped for a moment to speak with me. I could see on his face it looked like something important.
“I know how much you want to do this trip without any stops, but I don’t think I can continue past Franconia Notch.” Dad told me. Franconia Notch was the halfway point in this trip.
I was a little upset Dad was doubting himself just as the trip was getting more adventurous. We were now climbing the White Mountains, which we loved hiking so much every year. We were in familiar territory. I understood though where he was coming from, and agreed to end the trip in Franconia. Deep down, I was hopeful Dad might change his mind. Maybe as we got one day closer to Summer, trail conditions would improve. Just take one day at a time.
Dressed warmly for May weather.
Dad and I believed the hardest part of Day 5 would be coming down Mt. Moosilauke and it turned out to be not so bad. The sign we saw before was right about the trail being slippery, but it was manageable. When we reached the parking lot at the base of Moosilauke, we celebrated and had breakfast. We were beginning to feel optimistic that we indeed could continue backpacking beyond Franconia Notch. As long as the snow was packed in enough like on Moosilauke and Smarts, we’d be fine.
After our celebrating and having some breakfast, we crossed Long Pond Road and headed into Benton State Forest, the most wilderness section of the White Mountains. This part of the trail had only two set of footprints, a person’s and a moose’s, not well trodden on at all. The snow in this forest we realized had a bit more underground melt than the other snow than what we’d been through before. We fell through the snow a lot. Just when we thought we had a breakthrough figuring out what part of the snow was packed in more, we then “broke through” the snow. The postholing was incredibly frustrating. This is not what we imagined in our idea of backpacking across the White Mountains together.
Because we were trying to save battery life for our GPS, we had our GPS off and followed the person’s footprints thinking it would lead us along the Appalachian Trail. Well, we ended up in someone’s campsite instead. It felt like we were potentially walking into some New Hampshire version of the movie, Deliverance. Dad then turned on the GPS and found we were a half mile off course and needed to climb up the slopes of Mt. Wolf again to get back to the Appalachian Trail. The postholing was even more frequent than before, and deeper too. Along the slopes we were falling into “spruce traps,” which was where snow had been trapped between branches of trees. The snow was even deeper in these spruce traps than in the postholes. You don’t really know the true height of a tree until you fall into one of these traps.
Nevertheless, we had to plow through these postholes and spruce traps. There was no other option. Not to sound dramatic, but it meant our survival. And then Dad and I saw a white trail marker and the trail again. We sighed in relief. For the rest of the trek through Benton State Forest we looked at the GPS, not trusting any set of footprints again. By mid afternoon, we reached the Eliza Brook Shelter. As we made camp, we both agreed this would be our last night on the trail. The month of May was still winter in the White Mountains. The conditions of the trail weren’t safe enough for thru hikers like us to trek alone and it wasn’t fair to put anymore burden on our family back home.
On Day 6, Dad and I woke up to a blizzard. Hard to believe that on May 9th, we were receiving a foot of fresh new snow. We had 10 miles and two 4000 foot mountains to climb that day. “Bring it on,” the adventure junkie in me thought. The trail was completely buried and we relied entirely on the GPS. It was actually kind of beautiful to see a wilderness freshly buried in snow, it felt like we were the early explorers. Unfortunately a couple of hours later into our trek, my fingertips were feeling very cold and tingly from wearing wet gloves. I didn’t think it was frost bite at the time, so I decided to toughen it out and not grab my extra gloves. Dad was doing really well with the climb up South Kinsman, probably much better than me. Even with the blizzard conditions he was in really good spirits. Seeing him goofing around eating the snow from the branches, it made me forget about all of the pain and worries I had.
As we climbed closer to the summit of South Kinsman Mountain, there were steep sections that if you grabbed the wrong branch or had bad footing, you’d fall down very far. With teamwork though, Dad and I were able to help each other point out the good foot and hand holds. Once we were on the summit of South Kinsman, the blizzard was beginning to dissipate. The worst was officially over, it was all going to be literally downhill from here.
All downhill from South Kinsman Mountain, mean that in a good way!
A few hours later after climbing North Kinsman Mountain and sliding down the mountain on our butts for a lot of it, we made it to Franconia Notch and met up with Momma. During our trek, we had a SPOT device that sent GPS locations to our family so they could track our whereabouts. At the Flume parking lot we met up with Momma, who had our gear and food for the next portion of our journey. We were so happy to see Momma and received big hugs from her.
“Would you like your next bit of gear and food?” Momma asked.
“We are actually going to head home.” Dad answered.
“I was hoping you’d say that!” Momma was relieved. “Well hop in the car guys. Got some hot chocolate for ya.”
I later learned my fingers were indeed frost bitten. It took about a month for the “tingles” to go away. In one way, the tingles were a reminder of unfinished business. I wanted to go back, and so did Dad. After not hearing any word yet about my job, Dad and I decided to continue the journey in mid June. We had a much more enjoyable time this go around; backpacking in summer conditions instead of winter. It was amazing how different the trail was in a few weeks. And for this portion of the trek, we saw and experienced so much more. We climbed the Presidential Range, crossed so many picturesque notches, saw lots of beautiful fauna and rare plants, and fed birds out of our hands. In seven days we reached the Maine-NH border with no issues. Though we accomplished our goal, Dad and I still have many trails to hike together. Far beyond the Appalachian Trail.
Mission Accomplished in June! Spoiler sorry.
Here are videos of our trip, split into two parts. Part One was completed in May 2020 and Part Two was completed in June 2020:
