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It’s the highest peak in all of Texas.

10,000-some odd feet. I didn’t climb it.

Sunset from the campground.

I think Guadalupe Mountain is probably best known for being an NPS campground pretty near Carlsbad Caverns. And the campground was really just a parking lot — charmless, but flat. And about 2 AM the wind started howling. At 5, I gave up on sleeping and pulled up stakes. Not literally — I slept in the back of the truck. Then I drove to Carlsbad and got a sausage egg McMuffin. Are you supposed to capitalize “sausage egg”?

And FWIW, I don’t think the government uses consistent criteria to determine which areas should be “National Parks”. Guadalupe Mountain, Carlsbad Caverns, and probably Mammoth Cave should all be National Monuments, not Parks. At least according to their stated criteria. Oh well.

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I think it’s supposed to creak or crackle or something. And that it’s therefore “enchanted”. Well, that and it makes you invisible if you go to the top. Military crests and all that. Ah well, ah well.

It’s sort of like the Half Dome of Texas.

The hike around it is mostly dull and doesn’t get too interesting until you start hiking up the granite. At that point it turns fun. It’s nowhere near as steep or dramatic as Half Dome, but it’s a fine enough jaunt. As evidence thereof:

Yes, that’s the peak.

Sort of an altar-thing.

The upward trail.

Some rocks along the way.

A crease with adjoining run-off.

Me at the top.

View at the top. With others.

Yep, so that was Enchanted Rock. No crackling on my watch. No cackling, either.

After that, drove on down to Fredericksburg. Ate lunch at a German restaurant — had the gulasch since they didn’t have klöse on the menü to go with the Jägerschnitzel. It was okay.

Then I went to the Nimitz Pacific War Museum. Unfortunately their main gallery is closed for renovation and they didn’t set those exhibits up somewhere else in the meantime. They had this “Pacific Theater Experience” thing set up a couple blocks down the road, but man. It was irritating at best. A couple tanks, a grounded PT boat, and a TBM Avenger and having to be part of a guided tour that somehow took almost an hour. It merited no photos.

OTOH, it *did* help me realize how special that USS Alabama floating museum was in Mobile. Full-on WW2 battleship that you can climb in, on, and around versus refurbished PT boat that you’re allowed to look at, but not touch. Mobile FTW.

Headed west from there. Stopped at a rest stop east of Ft. Stockton at sunset. It looked like this:

The 10.

That’s probably enough.

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Read the scene where gravity is pulling me around.

I miss being young enough to think R.E.M. is/was cool.

Went on this hike:

Alum Cave Creek

Arch Rock, or: I’ve now seen a shot for which it would’ve been nice to have a tripod available.

The view from under the overhang of Alum Cave.

The trail!

The stairway leading out of the peak-side lodge.

The actual peak — it’s not the highest in Tennessee.

The Cliff Tops.

Ibid, but with me in the photo.

A mountain-top hillbilly village!

Tree tunnel.

Telkontar goes into the light.

Rain-fed, trail-crossing cascade.

Yes, they have fall color in Tennessee as well.

They’re called the “Smoky Mountains” because there are clouds there.

A log bridge!

Creek with trees.

Same stream, some fallen leaves, trees, and more great smoke.

Ten or 11 miles, out-and-back, 2,800 feet in elevation gain. Went to the lodge, then continued to the peak, then swung by the Cliff Tops before heading down. We saw Jimmy Carter hiking down when we were on the way up. No joke. Didn’t take any photos of him, of course — I mean, it was just Jimmy Carter, not Calvin Coolidge or anything. Most crowded hike I’ve been on the whole trip (excluding the last two miles on the way down from Half Dome). Either the Smoky Mountains visitors are a hardy bunch or there are just *that* *many* of them. (Truly, the park is choked with visitors, bad weather or no.)

With good weather, this is possibly an A-plus hike. In steady-state drizzle? It was still nice. Wish there would have been a view — any view — along the way. The trail was made for views, what with all those ledges and such. Fortunately, the trail itself had some interesting stuff along the way — log bridges, cable-aided narrow walkways, drop-offs into oblivion, steps through arched rocks, weird accommodations at the top. All it needed was views. And maybe a lighthouse. And if there’d been a family of trolls living under any of those bridges that would snatch maybe every seventh hiker or so, that also would have added interest (and thinned the crowd).

Great hiking with Telkontar, of course. He was less affected by the lack of views, no doubt in part because his alternative was being stuck in an office. Whereas my alternative was… sky’s the limit, really.

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PS, This hike was in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Shenandoah is a National Park made for old people who don’t get out of their cars. There’s nothing to do there besides pull over and look out over the side and see the valley with farms and towns in it. Valleys, sorry. One on each side. They don’t change much.

Every quarter-mile there’s an overlook. And every overlook has this exact view (in essence).

But at least the old people are genteel. At least the local ones are. And with the photography, I just went with the old standby: leaves. I’m guessing Shenandoah is pretty brilliant by the end of October. Wasn’t as colorful as New England had been a week or two earlier, though. I suppose these things take time.

Another couple weeks and Skyline Drive will be on fire (figuratively).

I also sort of went on two hikes. The first was to White Oak Canyon, which my Reader’s Digest book suggests is the park’s scenic highpoint. To me, the highpoint of it was getting 2.3 miles in, seeing the first little waterfall, and having the locals there tell me it wasn’t worth it to keep going, because the rest of the waterfall was going to be even less spectacular. I guess it hasn’t rained much in Va.

But, whatever, there must be hike photos, so:

Trailside leaves.

Just after it occurred to me that this would be a pleasant enough place for turkey hunting with Sgt. York, I stumble onto these guys. Gary Cooper, however, did not make an appearance.

This is more stunning than the waterfall was.

Eh. It’s a bridge.

The couple at the waterfall also insisted that I should hike up to Hawk’s Bill Peak, the highest point in the park, so I did. It was a short hike. Here’s evidence it happened:

The compass tells you where the forest is on fire.

And then I headed south and out of the park, never to return again.

Somehow the yellow seemed significant at the time.

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean this isn’t a photo of a bobcat.

It really *was* a bobcat.

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One thing’s sort of for-sure: I don’t get very excited about shorelines. I’m glad they exist, they don’t cause much harm, but, you know: meh. Shoreline. I took a picture of this one, though, in Maine, somewhere in Acadia National Park, which is located on Mt. Desert Island about half-way up the coast. Go:

It’s not like it’s an eye-sore, just that I’m not sure what you do with it besides look.

Anyway. Lady ranger at the visitor center also suggested, when prompted, I go on this hike to Mt. Sargent, which she described as the second-best hike in the park (I didn’t ask, I figured she knew what she was doing). In my short time in the region, I’ve developed a sort of love-hate thing with New England hikes an there was a lot of both on this one — but for a hike that had me swearing at the trail engineers for the entirety of a certain 30-minute stretch, this was a lot of fun and one I’d rank toward the top of the list. And I sort-of forgive it for being a 4.5-mile, 3.25-hour hike (that’s slow).

And the photos won’t show the fun parts so much, because it’s hard to take pictures of yourself while dangling off railings, climbing up wet granite on your hands and knees, or taking the downhill granite like a park whore parkour course (who knew?). Oh well.

For the information-hungry and per the ranger’s instructions, I took the Spring Trail to the Jordan Cliff Trail (the part with the ladders and rungs) to the East Cliff Trail (the part with the hands and knees) to the Mt. Sargent Summit to the South Ridge Trail to the Penobscot Mountain Summit to the Penobscot Trail (the parkour course) back to the Spring Trail. This was probably as dangerous a hike as I’ve done (largely because of the rain the night before — I imagine the footing’s pretty sure when the rocks are dry). It also wasn’t much of a tree prison. Excelsior.

Water trickling onto the trail.

Trees, holding on tight(ly).

The view of Jordan Pond from Jordan Cliff. The rung at bottom-right helps hikers not fall.

This is a ladder you must climb.

A stream crossing! And me without my poles.

Caterpillar: go!

Looking over the side of Mt. Sargent toward a bunch of little Maine islands in the Atlantic.

And they have cairns that look like this there.

View from the top.

Signs on Mt. Sargent.

The top of Mt. Penobscot.

Me, there.

Granite wall on the way back down.

Fun trail.

Part of what I don’t like about sea coasts is that, at least the ones I’ve been to on this trip, they’re crowded. The drive around the Acadia coast is silly with tour buses (that stop in the middle of one-lane roads) and even on a weekday at the end of September, there’s nowhere on the coast you’re going to be able to stand without having company. Big Sur and Oregon coasts felt the same way to me.

Pictured Rocks Lakeshore, though, I liked a lot. Maybe it’s just the crowds.

There’s also a lighthouse near Acadia (at the tip of the Mt. Desert Island peninsula), but it’s lame.

Dunn out.

It’s silly to hold this against Vermont, but if I’d spent one day less in Vermont, I could have spent one day more in New Hampshire. Hopefully that’s my biggest regret of the trip. It might be in first place so far.

I needed to end the day in Maine, as close to Acadia National Park as possible, so decided to just run through one of the Reader’s Digest drives, end up at Mt. Washington — because I love a good drive-up mountain peak –, and then head east into the far corner. The plan was executed to precise specifications and many leaves were photographed.

I don’t know if Acadia will have leaves. I should probably read up on it. Some of the trees in Maine have already dropped their leaves and are therefore considered “No-Fo’s” — no foliage. Anyway, here’s to closing down New Hampshire and going back one day to do some hiking because it looked like it’d be a lot better than Vermont.

Not that it’s fair to blame Vermont. It’s really well manicured there.

Eh, so campground: stayed at the Hancock Campground in the White Mountains National Forest. As I’ve come to expect from all NFS campsites, I was parked right next to a river. Mostly heard rain falling, though, at least until about the time I got out of bed truck sleeping bag cot bed. Nice leaves there, too (not pictured).

“The Presidentials” are peaks in the White Mountains named after presidents. I think these might be among them.

This is about the fourth one of these I’ve uploaded now. They all remind me of sweaters Cliff Huxtable would wear. That or succotash.

One day I’m gonna take a side mirror photo that works!

Sabbaday Falls, named after the Sabbath Day. Photo taken on Monday, which is holy in no culture.

They always build foot bridges over waterfalls out here.

Leaves. Finally.

A bend in the road.

Really I just wanted to post some New Hampshire photos with blue skies in them (sorry, Chad). Then Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New Hampshire. Naturally you can take a toll road to the top: $23! Which, of course, is a full buck cheaper than the one in Vermont. BUT — it’s 3.5 miles longer, mostly paved, and ascends to a peak that’s like 2,000 feet higher. And they give you a CD to listen to on the way up that tells you how to use low gear to avoid overheating.

It got really cloudy near the top, and cold and windy.

The base of the mountain, right by the toll booth.

Observation tower on top of the mountain. Winds 20-30 mph, mostly cloudy (just not in this photo).

On top of *yet another* state.

Heading down, above the clouds.

Yeah, so I gotta go back and visit New Hampshire some time. The hike up to Mt. Washington looked worth it — it’s high enough to be above the treeline and if you have a clear day, the views would be pretty amazing. Hopefully the hike starts around 4,000 feet, of course, and hopefully you got a sweater handy. Just that it’s cold and windy on top there is all.

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A tree prison is a prison made out of trees, not a prison *for* trees. Although we probably need those.

Nice weather, enough time to recuperate from the Big Slide hike, so time to head for the hills. Since the hike up Mt. Mansfield would’ve taken me to a place I could *drive* to, I decided to hike up the other side of the valley to a destination called Elephant Head, which struck me as a name you could call a person who had a big nose, big ears, and hopefully tusks.

When I’d talked to the park ranger the day before about hiking, he asked me what kind of hikes I like and I told him I’m good for anything so long as it’s not a long, steep ascent through trees that keep you from seeing anything the whole time. He informed me that *that* was all they had in Vermont. He wasn’t kidding. Note to self: you don’t have to go hiking if you know you’re not going to enjoy it. Ah well. Just wondering how many more times I’m gonna have to learn that lesson.

BTW, it’s raining here this morning.

Took almost no photos on the hike, except for at the top of it (at the Elephant’s Head). The photos are all of sides of hills with mostly green, but also orange and yellow trees. Ah, leaves!

The close-up ones turned out better.

See? BTW, this is Mt. Mansfield, the highest peak in all Vermont. Granted, you can fit all Vermont into a good-sized Costco, but still, the highest.

Anyway, not pictured: the trail you had to take in order to get here. This is where the aforementioned “tree prison” comes in. 2.5 miles hiking straight uphill (close enough) and over slick granite rocks (because they were wet) while tripping through complexes of exposed tree roots (at least they provided hand-holds) to get to *this view*.

Y’know, as a westerner I always figured that east coast hiking must be lame because of how short all the peaks were and the lack of altitude sickness and all that. Turns out the east coast makes up for it by hiking straight uphill all the time. Hat’s off, east coast and whoever the masochists are who go out and do the “Long Trail” (a 272-mile trail from the top to bottom of Vermont), just wow. BTW, these trails would be *fun* (for me) if not for the tree prison aspect. Climbing up roots isn’t a bad thing, unless doing so is rewarded solely by a view of more tree trunks, at which point it just feels like the trail engineers are mocking me.

Once I got down off the Elephant’s Head, I drove down to the ski resort and shelled out $24 (!) to use their 4.5-mile “toll road” to drive up to (near) the top of Mt. Mansfield. The price is ridiculous, but it was definitely the most interesting thing I did while in Vermont. You’re driving through the ski resort up the hill and then once you get to the parking lot, it’s only a mile walk/rock scramble up to the true peak. And for some reason Mt. Mansfield has multiple peaks, all of which are named after face parts. The real peak is called The Chin. The Nose and The Adam’s Apple (for reals) are not as high.

See? Ski resort.

The high part there is The Chin. The house-like part there is the top of the Stowe gondola. I should’ve seen whether that was cheaper than the drive.

The trail. Off to the left you can see all the way across Lake Champlain to the Adirondacks in New York and to the right you can see all the way across, er, a state line and see the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

I just liked the colors here.

The trail is not unpopular — although it was fun to listen to the people who hiked all the way up here gripe about everyone who just drove up.

I am the highest point in all Vermont. And scowling because of the wind.

The hike over to The Chin was really cool, even if it *was* crowded (it was the first Saturday of fall and everyone knew that Sunday’s weather was going to be awful). $24 is a lot to pay to drive up a silly road, but I still figure it was better than a 2.5-hour walk/climb through a tree prison. Probably. It would’ve killed me to have gone through that and gotten to the top only to be stuck in a mob of tourists. Probably worth it.

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Awful, awful headline.

They charge you $10 to drive up this road that goes to the summit of Whiteface Mountain. If you don’t want to pay $10, you can take a six-mile hike to get there. I paid the money and drove. It’s a well-maintained road. The person who takes your money is pleasant. When I got to the parking lot near the top, the elevator was broken. Happy day! I got to walk up the rest of the way. Steep stone steps. Lots of people going up them. Trail was 0.2-miles long, but I wonder whether they measured the base or the hypotenuse. Talked to a German couple from Berlin a little on the way back down. A little cold and windy. The day, not the couple. The couple were average-temperature at least in demeanor. Book said this was the highlight of many visits to the Adirondacks. Maybe.

In real-time, I’m kind of done with fall foliage. And only New Hampshire and Maine left to go!

Gettin’ close to the top.

Trail to the top.

The road up.

The top of the mountain.

Lake Placid — yes, it’s shaped like a horseshoe. Who knew?

The watchtower, watching.

Inasmuch as paying to go on any 8-mile stretch of road is worth it, this was worth it I guess. Better than hiking it — can’t standing hiking somewhere that other people have driven to (see: Vermont) (once it’s posted).

And then I left the state.

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“Big Slide Loop” is not a thing. “Big Slide” is a peak. “Loop” refers to the hike being a “Loop Hike”. “The Brothers” may be a peak or several peaks or some other undisclosed feature. And the whole thing is in a part of the Adirondacks called the “High Peaks”, even though the highest is only 5,000 and change. They’re not far from Lake Placid. I camped at a campground called Wilmington Notch. There were showers, but the lines between campsites were indistinct. And though the weather looked sketchy, the guy at the mountaineering store said that I should *definitely* go hike Big Slide that day, because the rain was going to hold off and I’d definitely get the good view from the top.

My route: The Brothers trail to Big Slide, then down by way of the John’s Brook South Trail.

There: the stage is set. Here are the ride-along photos.

Path, uphill, with roots.

First valley view. Clear-ish.

View from the First Brother. Maybe First Brother.

This isn’t scenery, this is the trail. It’s at least as steep as it looks.

That peak up there is Big Slide. Still looking clear!

I’m going to say that this is me on top of Fourth Brother. If there *is* a fourth brother. If there are any brothers for that matter.

Steps through the trees.

A moss-covered brook.

Final assault to the peak and me without my harness. (Fine, it’s only about 70 degrees from horizontal in real life. That’s kind of steep for a hike.)

Me at the peak. Not so clear. But I like the idea that the world ends just past that row of trees there.

The way down isn’t as steep, but it’s two miles longer (four up, six down).

A brook-covered moss.

A happy cascade. I imagine. It’s probably repressing anger at the cairn in the foreground, come to think of it.

A big rock that looks like it could function as a big slide.

Leaves, red.

It’s hard to completely disrespect a trail that places chaise longues at various locations.

John’s Brook.

More leaves. And then it started raining.

Proof Evidence that I made it back to the trailhead. Plus I wanted to show off my rain jacket that I never get to wear (because it doesn’t rain on this trip, apparently).

Sorry for the narcissism on the photos — I just felt that it was *me* that was making this place come alive.

• Without the view at the peak, the hike is a little light on payoff.
• It’s a very different terrain than I as a western hiker am used to. Out west they would’ve found some way to build switchbacks across all those faces. Not here.
• As such, it’s a ten-mile hike that took me six hours.
• Also as such, the trail itself was more engaging than I’m used to — although there were also plenty of long stretches but nothing to do but go up steep, dirt trails and peer through the tree-prison.
• And some of those rocks were pretty slick: yes, I fell once.
• But: pretty, worth it.

So it was.

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The peak was cool. Tallest peak between the Rockies and the Pyrenees, they say (7,244 feet!). The loop hike itself was not as cool. Hint: if you’re going to hike to Harney Peak, take the shortest route possible. Don’t think you’re going to get extra credit for taking the long route. You just get more horse manure to walk through (or around — you can walk around it).

Not really any photos of the hike on the way up, since there wasn’t anything to take photos of. I mean, trees, horse scats, but — yeah. Not big trees, just trees. Five to seven miles of trees each way.

Peak:

There’s a fire tower at the peak.

No fires!

No fires this direction, either.

This is what it looks like when you try and photograph yourself crossing a stream.

• The hike is probably worth it if you go the shorter route.
• The shorter route would have you starting at Sylvan Lake. You can make a loop out of it by going back by way of Little Devil’s Tower.
• Any book that says that the loop starting from Iron Creek Horse Camp and returning via the Grizzly Bear Trail results in a hike of 10.5 miles is off by 2-4 miles. No joke.
• As much as I love horses (now), it doesn’t seem right that 3% of trail users get to befoul the trail for the other 97%.
• The trail on the way back down was marginally more interesting because of all the calcite flakes that were in the dirt — it was like someone had spread glitter on the entire return leg of the trail.
• Calcite flakes don’t photograph well.

I dunno. I don’t like hiking for the sake of hiking. Frex: no worthwhile hike should deliver you to a parking lot two miles into the hike. Plus, aside from the peak, seems like you get better views of better rocks by driving the Black Hills than by hiking them. You know, from what I saw.

Hmm.

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