JBMCW2010

A buddy and I decided to start hiking, he had never gone and my last trip was a good 6+ years ago. I am now fairly overweight and out of shape. I chose, being the one with a small amount of experience in the White Mountains, to go to Mount Chocorua and stay on the Bearcamp River at a campground I'd been to when I was young.

We got to the area around 7pm and checked into the campground. We pitched our three tents and prepared for the night. We drove down the road a bit from the campground and got wood for fires. 7 bundles for only $10 what a deal. We burned through 3 bundles of wood from 8 to midnight.

While we were sitting around the fire a woman from the site next to ours came over and asked us if we had children, and then proceeded to give us an anatomy lesson on breast milk and why she had to pump them. When all she had to do is to tell us that she would be standing between the sites at the electrical box with her back to us pumping and we'd have left her alone but she was so weird and awkward.

Saturday morning we woke up later than we had planned but we got ourselves fed and to the trail head by 10:30am. Clear skies and dry trails. We went up the Champney falls route and hit the falls by 12. We made the treeline after 1:30 and then lunch break before we made the final push for the last few hundred yards to the stony summit.

Crossing the rock to the summit was very windy and once there we felt a drizzle of rain start so we hastened for the treeline after a short 15 minute stop on the summit. I took this video right before the rain began.

The downward trip was faster but harder. The steep hillsides were tough on my knees and the rocks were more slippery while wet. Rain stopped some time as we were under the leaf cover of the trees still close to the treeline so the rain lasted maybe 20 or 30 minutes.

Saturday night was not too eventful. We stopped for pizza and bought some stupid fireworks that would zip around. Sunday we packed up and left the site before 10am.

I am glad to have gone because my buddies are all for going on more trips and hitting more mountains. I'm stoked!

Summit from where we stopped for lunch. To the right is about a 30 or 40 foot out crop of rock that had to be climbed over to get to the straight away open rock strip between us and that top of the mountain.



The falls on the way up. These are the Champney falls.



360 view from the top!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUoPONDi9cs