Tuckerman's Ravine

Logbook Entry : 00054
April 18th, 2010

At around 4 in the morning, I woke up and found that I couldn't go back to sleep. Yorrick was sound asleep, lying on the pillow beside my head. I got up and headed to the living room. Sitting in the chair next to the window, I watched as the Sunday paper was delivered to houses up the street, then to my house. I went outside to collect the paper, brought it inside, and began to read it. Sometimes reading makes me tired and maybe it will be the thing that sends me back to bed. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

As I was flipping through the paper, I came across an article about Tuckerman's Ravine up in the White Mountains here in New Hampshire. Every spring, visitors climb up to the ravine, then the walls of the ravine, to ski, snowboard, and even ice climb. Sounds kinda crazy if you ask me. But as I continued to read the article, I started to get interested in Tuckerman's. Now, I don't know how to ski or snowboard, and ice climbing was out of the question. I am not experienced enough in ice climbing. If there wasn't any snow on the ravine, I would consider climbing, but I don't think so. What I started thinking about was visiting the ravine anyhow. I wanted to see what is was that people do. So I did, but I had to wake up Yorrick first.

The drive up to Tuckerman's wasn't that interesting, but as we got closer, signs of winter popped up. Snow! At first, the snow was very spotty, and then it was everywhere. Grass was no longer found as we arrived in Pinkerton Notch. We found the lot in which we needed to park and prepared for the hike. We had to register in a book before heading up just in case something was to happen and we didn't return. Took all but 2 minutes. The hike up took 2 and a half hours! I can't say I had been on a tougher hike. I remember hiking Mt. Kearsarge which was rocky, but when you add snow to those rocks, suddenly, it gets a bit harder. Plus, we had to stop from time to time so that Yorrick and I could rest. One time, a dog, which was hiking the trail with its owner, stopped and rested with us. I was actually glad the dog stopped with us, because we heard a noise in the woods. This wasn't your normal noise. The dog looked in the direction of the noise and barked a few times. We never saw anything, but needless to say, we felt safer with the dog there. We did slip from the dogs company and finished the 2 and a half hour trek up to the ravine. About 10 minutes from the top, it started to snow, and when we reached the ravine, it was snowing harder. It was so beautiful. I have never seen anything so beautiful before in my life. Ravine walls so high, they disappear into the sky. Snow coated trees as well as the cabin that sat at the base of the ravine.

I hated to do it, but Yorrick and I needed to turn around and head back down. As we headed back down, across the way, you could see Wildcat Mountain. There is a ski area there. If you look carefully, you can see people skiing on the trails as you walk down. So the hike down took us far less time than the hike up. Both tired, we headed home. If you remember, I woke up at 4 in the morning. I wanted to sleep now, but had to drive home first. Don't worry, with some caffeine, we made it home just fine.