February 7, 2009
So when we got to Waterville Kim and John were already there. They told us that some people walked into the condo saying they were renting it. Kim informed them we were the owners and we were here that night. So the people left and we thought that was the last of it. Until 12:30am when I am sleeping on the pullout couch and some people come in the front door. Scare me to death. I get up and there are like there are people in here. They leave but every noise now makes me think someone is coming in. This means I do not get a lot of sleep. Never a good thing.
I am less then pleased when it is time to get up. I get myself in gear and we head out to park at the lot on Mt. Clinton road. From here we head to Crawford path. It was a struggle for me at first. I am not a morning person and really do need my sleep. At least along the way we encountered a giant snow face on a tree.
There are defiantly more people on the trail then the last two hikes. This could be because it is suppose to be near 30 for a high. Wow, it’s like tropical weather compared to those hikes. I don’t remember too much of the trail other then it wasn’t that bad. Had I gotten proper sleep that is, for me on that day it was not so fun. I pushed on. We started to get glimpses of other mountains peering through the trees. 
This always helps my spirit. When we reached the cut off for Mt. Pierce there was an AMC group that had just come down and were on their way to Eisenhower. Dad and I went up to Pierce, got a few pictures and quickly left. 
This was just a stop off. The real mountain of the day was Eisenhower so that’s where we wanted to be.We had been bare booting thus far with no problems. The col between Pierce and Eisenhower had some deeper snow and some icy spots. About half way along after we had a snack break I decided to put my crampons on and dad decided to put his snowshoes on. This was my first time on ice with my crampons and it was fun. We got to the steep section at the summit cone and there were people coming down so I sat down and decided to watch them. Dad was lagging behind a bit anyway. The people were concerned I was hiking along because they couldn’t see dad around the corner taking his snowshoes off. For some reason he thought it would be easier to do this without snowshoes on. That might have been true but crampons really helped. I even used my ice ax to help get up. So I got up quickly and then had to wait again for dad who wasn’t enjoying this little section as much.
He got up the steep part and then it wasn’t too bad to the top. Here there was a group of three men enjoy the views of the presidentials. 
It wasn’t beautiful blue skis but the clouds were so high you could still see all around. We took our pictures and video and then headed out.
We like to go in loops so we decided to head down toward Edmands path. I still had on my crampons, smart move. Dad still didn’t put them on, bad move. I got down the steep, icy back side without a problem. In fact I would have been pretty terrified had I not had some traction on.
Dad eventually had to sit down and slide on the ice because it was getting a bit hairy. Finally we got off the cone and things leveled out. Dad decided it was time to put the crampons on. We head out around Eisenhower on Edmands only for it to go from ice to post holing down 2 feet into powder. Off the crampons went and on to snowshoes. This trail was not as broken out as Crawford path and there was some deep snow, even with crampons. No boot sliding today. This trail wasn’t bad at all. It eventually led out to the closed part of Mt. Clinton Road which is used by snowmobiles. We didn’t see any but it seemed to take forever to get back to the car.
Thoughts: Even though I enjoy snow hiking it is harder. You carry more weight and going through snow and ice can be difficult. Oh well, better then hiking in 90 degrees with 90% humidity.
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