Bond Cliff Hike
This weekend Don and I undertook another overnight hike in the White Mountains. Destination: the Bond mountains - Mt. Bond, West Bond and the Bond Cliffs, all 4,000 foot peaks on Don's peak-bagging list. Along the way we would also hit Mount Zealand. Here's my report on the hike, along with some of the few pictures I managed to take. Next time I promise more photos!


As we drove up into the mountains on Saturday morning, the radio and internet were abuzz with bad weather reports. According to some weather forecast I dug up on the web, we expected to see heavy rains and 45-mph wind gusts at the summits. And certainly, the clouds in Franconia Notch looked ominous enough.


We continued on, a little nervous, but happy that we would probably be the only ones out there. Surely nobody else would be dumb enough to hike up a mountain when there would be no views, miserable rain, and howling winds. Imagine our surprise when we reached the parking lot at the head of the Zealand Trail and found it chock full of cars!

An hour's walk up to the Zealand Hut, pleasant except for an incredibly steep climb just at the end, led us to a huge crowd of people. It looked as though all the cars were just getting people up to the hut. In fact, from the hut until we reached our destination, the Guyot shelter, we saw only two other people on the trail.

The steep hike to the summit of Mt. Zealand led us to an unremarkable clearing in the woods that we could only tell was the summit because a sign there said so. We stopped and ate lunch. My pack, weighed down with a tent, felt like an anvil strapped to my back. The food helped, though, and we continued on, across a ridge to Mt. Guyot.

The terrain at the top of Mt. Guyot is called an "Alpine zone" but to me felt more like a lunar zone. The fog cut off any possible view, but lent the area a mysterious, even eerie feel. After a bit of hiking through the blasted heath, and as I was starting to have difficulty keeping my footing due to fatigue, we found the sign for the Guyot shelter. The stair-climb down to it was exhausting and scary, but we finally got there and ditched our packs. There was a tent set up on one of the platforms, but no one in the shelter except the caretaker.

Now carrying only small day-packs with some water and small sundries, we climbed back up from the shelter and assaulted Mt. Bond. We got to the top quite quickly and to our amazement, saw some actual people along the way - two women, presumably the occupants of the tent we'd seen at the shelter. The summit of Mt. Bond was nice enough but of course we couldn't see anything due to fog, so we didn't linger and instead headed for the Bond Cliffs, the second of our three destinations.

Turning a corner on the trail down to the Bond Cliffs, we suddenly broke free of the thick, short trees, and were greeted by a remarkable view. The trail ahead led down, then back up to the Bond cliffs, which were hidden by a mysterious veil of cloud. The entire valley was visible and glowing with warm red and yellow colors. For the first time on our trip, and to our complete surprise, we had a view!

The trail to the Bond cliffs was harder than it looked, and it took a while and a lot of our energy. The view went a long way towards relieving our pain and fatigue, however. With most of the weight off our shoulders, we moved quickly and made it to the summit. The cliffs are quite impressive, and the view was spectacular. Suddenly, the whole hike seemed worth it. The light was fading, though, and we were getting cold. We decided to leave West Bond for the morning and headed back towards the shelter.

We were warmly greeted by the two ladies we had seen earlier coming down from Mt. Bond. Tullia and Karin turned out to be excellent company, and they kept our long night at the shelter from turning dull. They even graciously shared some of their tea and their high-quality Canadian Liquor. Overnight the rain, which had been around all day, but light, finally stepped up a notch, but the shelter was perfectly dry.

In the morning Don and I packed up and headed off to West Bond, where we found a pretty, but fogged-in summit. Returning to the trail and our bags, we found sticks attached to them - a sign that the girls had gone on ahead. Although I was suffering a bit from under-nourishment, Don, who does not eat, raced on ahead and managed to catch them and slow them down long enough for me to grumpily catch up. We then hiked down together, enjoying each other's company. After a quick lunch at the hut, we stumbled down the rest of the way, past the many cheery and energetic tourist hikers who would never attempt to reach any of the peaks or enjoy the wonderful combination of solitude and comeraderie we had found on our Bonds hike.
- posted by Joachim @ 10:17 AM