The Pemi Loop

We have been wanting to do the full Pemi Loop for a couple of years. When we saw that the weather was looking great for Sunday we decided to go for it.. Quickly assembling our gear we headed up to the White’s on Saturday and hit the trail bright and early on Sunday morning. The Pemi Loop is a 50k, covering ten peaks and the entire Pemigewasset Wilderness Range.. It seems like our old friend Ben Nephew and Kevin Tilton hold the fastest loop record of just under seven hours and five minutes and the hiking book time is about tweny one hours. With this in mind, we estimated fourteen hours for our trek.We had decided to take on the loop in a clockwise direction, meaning going up and over Franconia Ridge first and ending with the Bond Ridge. There are diverse opinions on which approach is best (clockwise or counter-clockwise). We decided to go clockwise and get the major climbing out of the way first. Some don’t like ending the loop with the flat and relatively boring 5 mile Wilderness trail, but we thought this would allow us the easiest ending, in the event we took longer than we thought or if the loop was harder than we thought. For us, clockwise proved to be a very smart move. We started the day at 5:15 a.m and began with a slow jog from the Lincoln Woods Trail to the Osseo Trail. We were making decent time and just settled in getting used to to everything, mainly running with a pack. We were light packing but still had a lot of water and food, plus some “if the weather goes crazy” stuff. This is always a judgement call in the White’s

but we have been caught in storms up there and now sacrifice some speed for safety. Once we hit the Osseo Trail we made our way up to Mount Flume and our first peak of the day. This was a pretty easy climb and we could see why many folks like to run the loop counter-clockwise. The Osseo is a great trail to run, especially down! We summited Flume, took a few pictures and headed of to Peak 2, Mount Liberty. This was also very doable and we were making great time. The weather had turned quite windy and cloudy so we did not spend much time on Liberty before we headed off to Little Haystack. By the time we got to Haystack I was a little worried about the weather. It was very windy and really cold. We took a few minutes to eat and put on some warmer clothes. One of the great things about the Pemi Loop is you are above treeline a lot. It is awesome running along a ridge with 360 views. It also can be cold and exposed and that is what we experienced on this section. It was difficult to enjoy so we just went as fast as we were able. Our next peak was Mount Lincoln and while the weather was not great we were really having a good day and making pretty good time. On Lincoln we were totally in a cloud and it was kind of cool. The wind was howling and several times both Shelly Girl and I were blown over. On a sunny day, the climb between Lincoln and Lafayette is one of my favorites. Today it was simply let’s get this done and move on. We summited Lafayette, still in the clouds, and picked up the Garfield Trail to begin our traverse over to Mount Garfield and, eventually, our lunch stop at Galehead Hut. Up to this point we had covered five peaks , about nine miles, in four hours, This was quite a bit slower than I thought but little did we know the real slow was about to ensue. On the Garfield range that I gained a whole new appreciation for guys like Ben Nephew. I have no idea how he ran this loop in seven hours. We found it impossible to run at all. There is almost no flat and both the ups and the downs are hard. Hard for the pitch of the climb but more importantly hard becasue of the terrain. It is like Escarpment on steroids. In any event, we hiked. And then we hiked some more and then we hiked some more. We got to the top of Mount Garfield in pretty good fashion but the hike from Garfield to Galehead Hut took forever. First, the down off Garfield is brutal and then you just keep going up a ways and then down a ways. Repeat, repeat, repeat!! I also had the msifortune of seeing the Hut pretty early on and I would see the hut about four times over the next two hours. It never got closer!! By far the low section of the day was the grind from the top of Mount Garfield to Galehead Hut. We finally did arrive, in seven hour and fifteen minutes . That’s right it took us longer to get Galehead Hut, the halfway point, than it took Nehpew and Tilton to do the full loop. Yikes! Since there is a bailout trail at Galehead Hut, I think we both were thinking about pulling the plug on the day. We went into the hut pulled out the Subway foot long we carried all this way and ate. I would be glad to get rid of the weight but I am more glad we brought the sandwich along. It was good to get out of the elements, sit down and eat something other than GU or Gorp. We discussed for a minute whether to bail but never gave it much serious consideration. We both knew that the choice of doing the loop clockwise would now begin to pay off. While we were only at the halfway point distance wise we were well over half way done time wise. After about fifteen minutes at the hut we loaded our gear and took off for Peak 7, South Twin Mountain. South Twin is the last really hard climb of the day and the weather had cleared up. We bagged the peak under blus skies and moderate temps. We were going to get this thing done. The clockiwse plan really stared to pay off in the afternoon. While we still could not run too much both the ups and the downs are so much easier on the Bond side of the Loop. We summited Mount Guyot, perhaps our favorite peak of the day, and then Bond and Bond Cliff in pretty good time. I love the Bond ridge because you are above tree line a lot. Today it was also crystal clear and simply wonderful weathe. The added bonus today was looking across to the massive Franconia Ridge knowing we had been up there this very day. I felt tired and sore but great and was reminded why I do what I do. And why we all do what we do. After going over Bond Cliff we began the final descent in to the Pemigewassett Wilderness. We still had about ten miles to go but the hardest stuff was behind us and we knew we would be able to run a lot of the remaining section. By this time we were ten hours into the day and had ten peaks in our legs so we did not run much of the descent off of the Bond Ridge but we hit the floor with about a 10k to go and took off. I remember either Tilton or Nephew blogging about flying at 6 minute pace on this section and Shelly Girl and I did our version of that. I am sure we were nowhere near six minute pace but we really were booking and it felt great to run. Again, I was glad we did the loop clockwise. Worse case scenario we would have simply walked out of the wilderness but we were able to run and, compared to the two miles an hour we slugged through on Garfield, it made the last 10k fly, Shelly Girl had been pretty tired up on the Bonds but man I had a tough time keeping up with her at the end. She is amazing. I asked her why she was going so fast and she said “I run, that’s what I do” ha! Soon enough we saw the suspension Bridge where we began this journey and that was that. Done! We soaked for a long time in the river and then left. Tired, sore and proud. it took us 12 hours and 30 minutes to complete the loop. I was hoping for 12 but we just lost to much time coming off of Garfield. We did beat our 14 hour estimate and the main thing is we did our best and have some great memories. See ya at Escarpment. I will be the one hobbling around saying ouch a lot!