Mt. Eisenhower - 8/24/24
4757 feet - 6.6 mi
I'd promised my dog that I would take her on a big hike for her birthday, and I am a man of my word, even if she can't understand my word. Looking at options that would be reasonable for her, I settled on Eisenhower and recruited my dad to come with us again. There aren't that many more 4kers left for me to do that could reasonably described as 'easy', but this was one of them. Relatively short mileage, and seemingly a pretty easy hike based n descriptions I'd read. As usual, we got an early start, but even so the parking lot was already full and we had to park on the road.
The Edmands Path takes you up to the shoulder of Mt. Eisenhower where it meets the Appalachian Trail which goes over the summit of Eisenhower. The majority of the trail is pretty unremarkable, a moderate slope with the roots and rocks that are typical of the White Mountains.
There were 2 portions of the trail that I was slightly concerned about traversing with the dog: one was desribed as a 'steep scramble after a water crossing' and the other was described as 'an open talus field'. The first came about 2//3rds of the way up and was actaully worse than I expected. It was more like climbing a waterfall. The rocky approach to the so-called water crossing was more or less a stream, then there was a steep, wet scramble, and then more rocky trail with water actively flowing down it. We managed alright on the ascent, but I anticipated trouble on the climb down.
Eventually the slope levelled out a bit after the wet part, as we circled around towards the northeast side of the peak. Just before we broke out from the treeline on the the talus field, we saw the threatening sign about bad weather that I always get a kick out of.
Just beyond here was the talus field I'd read about, and this was just as described and not as much of a concern as I'd feared. I was worried that Lana's spindly dog legs might be able to slip into cracks in the rocks and get hurt, but she only had one such incident. I lifted her back end up a bit and she pulled her leg out without injury.
Once past the talus and above tree line, there is just a final, fairly steep and rocky push to the summit. This part looks tougher from below than it actually is. Despite being steep, the footing is good and step-like and we cruised to the top.
As is tradition, we had snacks and drinks and a quick break at the summit. Lana made friends with a group of college kids who I think were doing a Presidential traverse.
After our break we headed down. No issues as we crossed the talus field. The descent of the waterfall was without injury, although it was sketchy as predicted. From there, it was smooth-ish sailing (still rocky) back down to the trailhead. I did see this cool flush of mushrooms though.
Finally back to the car, Lana flopped down in the middle of the road. Fortunately not a busy road, and so poorly maintained that cars couldn't go fast even if they wanted to, because she did not want to move.
Sources including the trail sign report this hike as 6.6 or 6.7 miles, but my smartwatch reported more like 8 miles.Of course, it records every trip into the woods to pee, any walking around I did at the summit, etc.