Komodo and the Ape

Moose 4802

llevensohn — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:11:36 +0000

Great trip up to Beaver Brook Shelter on Moosilauke – hat tip to the Dartmouth Outing Club for maintaining an outstanding shelter with a tremendous view. Komodo and I finally got #29 after several trips on familiar peaks this fall.

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10th Annual Sea Street Fun Run & Swim [SSFRS]

llevensohn — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:26:58 +0000

Great time – balmy weather! Sunny & high 40s – hat tips to the Carlsons, Komishanes and Colberts!

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>> Original Post:

Hard to believe we’ve been doing it for 10 years & harder to believe Komodo has a 10 year unbroken streak!

Fun for all ages!
Wimps welcome to come & watch
Polar Bears run down to the water & jump in to start the New Year
January 1, 2012
Fun Run (usually about a mile – no more than two): Leave 5 Sea Street around 11:30AM
Swim: At the Noon Whistle @ Singing Beach. No distance. No timing. No Wetsuits. No official lifeguards.
Rain / Snow Date: None. There will be at least two people there (Luc & Philip) – regardless of weather.
Entry Form: None.
Entry Fee: None.
Insurance: None.
T-shirts: Bring one or two. Towel & sweats also highly recommended

5 Sea Open House Immediately following – Chili / Hot Chocolate / Fried Turkey / Bloody Mary(s)

Dry River Diving

llevensohn — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:17:45 +0000

We spent last Friday night at Mizpah – ho hum / crowded – and Saturday at Nauman – much better. No peaks were bagged, not even Pierce!, but that was fine. It was awesome to spend trail time with the Swartzs and the Markhams! The boys spent spent a sunny 80 degree Saturday at Dry River Falls jumping in and out of an even better diving pool than the Brookie Pool at 13 Falls! It was awesome and a good preview for bagging Isolation – planned for T3 October Trip. The Dry River Trail is a lot like Owl’s Head – narrow and muddy. Hoping for some more pics from the team – I forgot the Go Pro for this trip.

T3 Pemi Loop

llevensohn — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:01:49 +0000

It’s been weeks since we returned from 5 nights of the Pemigewasset Wilderness. This was a big trip for the us because we’d never done the better part of a week unsupported. It was a great trip. One night at Guyot, three at 13 Falls and one at Liberty Spring gave us enough time to get into the camp life groove – nothing felt rushed. Planning a slack day to chill at 13 Falls was huge – most people do not do this an miss most of the pools. We bagged a bunch of 4,000s that we needed including Owl’s Head so we’re now at 28 and past the half way point. Starting to feel pretty at home in the Whites.

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T3 Carter Moriah

llevensohn — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:24:47 +0000

There’s nothing like a wet, cold, challenging backpack trip to remind you comfortable your house is! A dozen brave Troop 3 backpackers hit the road early Friday morning to challenge, and conquer, the Carter / Moriah Range over a planned three day / two night trip that ended as a long two day / one night trip. We started in the rain and invested a lot of energy getting to the summit of Moriah in big wind and whipping rain. From there we proceeded to the Imp Shelter / Tent Site to endure what will go down in infamy as “The Care Bear Incident.” Our friendly caretaker did not want us to take the 20 person shelter [there were two guys there already] because he was expecting a full site and we had tents. He felt that if we took most of the shelter we would put anyone showing up late with no tent at an extreme disadvantage and possibly in his tent. Since we had tents he explained that etiquette called for us to use our tents and leave the shelter open for the less prepared. Several rounds of passive / aggressive jousting later we agreed to take three platforms and set up our tents in the rain. While several of our crew got really cold before a hot dinner one guy showed up and stayed in the shelter. That was it. No one else showed up.

In the morning our friendly caretaker, Matt the Care Bear, did not show his face. We packed up and headed out, with our wet tents, and our heads held high because we had “done the right thing,” but also having decided that we’d do all our hiking on Saturday and take our wet tents back to Manchester that night.

The day was awesome and partly sunny. We bagged all the Carters, dropped our packs at Zeta Pass and seven of us nailed Carter Dome at a feverish pace before shouldering our packs once again for a fast descent down 19 mile Brook to the drop car.

Great trip. Great learning experience. Komodo and the Ape are almost half way at 22 / 48 bagged!

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Tripyramid Traverse

llevensohn — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:43:16 +0000

It was great to get back on the trails with the 11 mile Tripyramid Loop [Livermore / Tripoli Road / Waterville] on Memorial Day that also happened to be Komodo’s birthday. Huck bagged his first 4,000 footers and distinguished himself by safely getting up the North and down the South Slide. The Tripyramids do not provide a wide open ridge line, but there are views on the slides. On a nice weekend day that surely drew crowds at Franconia there was nothing crowded about this hike. We saw < 10 people on the 5 mile Tripyramid Trail. Huck needed minor help on the technical parts of the ascent and descent, but that was more to keep him with us rather than let him figure out his best path.

The wisdom of taking a dog on this loop depends on the comfort level of the humans, who should have bouldering experience, and the athletic nature of the dog. Nimble small dogs will likely fare better than big ones, but might have issues with big smooth rocks and cracks where some wingspan is required. Big dogs could get beat up on the sharp rocks so the Scaur Ridge Trail would be a safer call than the North Slide.

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Sea Street Fun Run & Swim #9

llevensohn — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 12:47:11 +0000

The weather was extremely cooperative for the 9th annual SSFRS. Cold water, good friends, fried turkey and bloody Marys – great way to kickoff the new year!

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Plunge #1 of three for the Komodo.

Jackson Rush + Some Red Hill

llevensohn — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:36:59 +0000

For our first snow ascent of the 2010/11 season we went up Mt. Jackson via the Webster-Jackson trail on the 30th. The weather was awesome and the two feet of snow was pretty and the state of the trail, fully broken by lots of snowshoes, was great, but it wasn’t all that spectacular. The best part of the hike was seeing a gray jay & feeding him & getting some pretty good video of it. Jackson is wooded the whole way up to the summit & not that steep so – ho hum. There is one little cliff spur with a view about 1/3 of the way up & that’s it. This was a first outing with lots of new gear:

MSR EVO snowshoes are excellent – great traction and nice binding system. We were not moaning about NOT dropping the extra $100 on the EVO Ascents though I understand how the little lift bar would be nice to have. I figure we’ll stay happy as long as we never borrow a pair ascents & stay dumb about how great they are.
The Go Pro HD Hero camera is really cool, but don’t expect to take pics and video as good as the demo stuff right out of the box! We need to get better at several aspects of the video stuff – see our early videos as evidence.

We took Huck up to Red Hill on Friday the 31st & got some action footage of the [not little anymore] guy a day after his 6 month birthday.

November Bonds Assault!

llevensohn — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:59:29 +0000

This weekend’s backpack trip to Zealand, Guyot and the Bonds was nothing short of stellar! The weather was absolutely perfect from Friday night when we arrived through Sunday afternoon when we left. The crew from Troop 3 was 11 strong and worked well together so all of the trail time was enjoyable and we were able to bag a record (5) 4,000 footers like it was no big deal. Highlights in chronological order: the night hike to Zealand, Brian the Zealand caretaker is easygoing and not stingy with the stove, cups of Starducks Via & Swiss Mess, Komodo putting in solid miles without a peep, sunning ourselves at the top of Guyot, scoring the palatial Guyot shelter, Bond Cliff, sunset on West Bond, Feathered Friends Peregrine – wow what a bag!, Robert Service poems, the deep satisfaction of time on the trail with great people and introducing everyone to Steve Smith - The Mountain Wanderer.

Oh, and that takes us up to 15/48 because Guyot doesn’t count

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Red Rocks Climbing

llevensohn — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:43:50 +0000

Great fall day at Red Rocks in Gloucester. The Ape’s first time climbing on real rocks was really fun and a good time was had by all including little HB [Huckleberry] our new pup and trail companion in training.

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