Cosmic Soup: On the trail

We slipped away from suburbia under the cover of darkness, guided by a glorious full moon. She swung to our left, as we sped North. The sun rose to the right and we crossed the New Hampshire border, destination..... Mt Lafayette. Lafayette is number 6 on the high peaks of New Hampshire, a good place to cut my teeth on winter climbing, and test out my new "Microspikes". These guys are like 4 wheel drive for your feet, and in under a minute they slip over your boot soles, and are ready for the gettin. So friggin happy with them.

With a full dose of caffeine, and music, I liberally hauled ass on the empty early morning road towards winter wonderland. A few miles short of destination happiness, Roscoe P Coltrane popped out from his snow covered wintergreen bunker.

"85 in a 55".... pause.... "License please". "Here you go Sir", I replied. He marched back to his warm patrol car, and did his thing. "Have a nice day", he muttered and walked away...

Confused, I rolled up my window and drove 45 the last few miles, not wanted to put a jinx on my good juju.

In the parking lot I layed out my gear, and strapped on my boots, among a small contingent of well dressed climbers.

There are two routes to the top, and I chose the Old Bridle Path, a three mile ascent of about 3 thousand feet ending at the Greenleaf AMC Hut, one mile short of the peak. Then, a two mile jaunt along the ridge connecting Lafayette to Mt Lincoln and Haystack, and a 3 mile decent down the Falling Waters Trail.

A group of climbers were resting and eating. I snapped photos and chewed on an apple.

I greeted the group, and one of the climbers walked over. "How was the climb?". "It was great. We really enjoyed it." He looked left, and right, searching for my mystery companion. "Have fun" he said, and walked away.

I chuckled to myself, and started my ascent to the wind swept peak.