Yoga on the Mountain -

Tighe and I went up to Franconia notch a few weekends ago. I saw the forecast for the weekend from my computer at work and over AOL-IM Tighe and I planned this last minute trip up to the mountains. We stayed friday night at the Kangamangus Motel in Lincoln, a quality establishment in the great north woods (read slight twinge of sarcasm here). It was like a ghost town in Lincoln. Being a weird time for tourists - the stretch between the end of ski season and the beginning of the summer hiking/climbing/river swimming one we were only 1 of 3 rooms filled at the 50+ room motel. We headed out to Franconia the next day and hiked up to the hut, took a quick break then started the climb to cannon�s summit. The going was treacherous once we got to the Kinsman Ridge Trail. Solid sheets of blue ice covered the steep sections of the trail which lasted for about half a mile. We were negotiating things ok in our hiking boots and then we passed two women who had recently backtracked and were heading back down. They said, "now is the time to put on your crampons". So we did and it was good advice I have to admit. I was a little freaked out as going up was ok - being able to kick your crampons into the ice but I was not looking forward to going down this same trail and having to look down the slope and step repeatedly on the ice. About ten minutes up the trail from here we came across another group of 4 - a motley crew of sorts. Since they all only had hiking boots I was like, " dude, how the hell did you get up here? (and in one piece) over all that ice?" They just replied, "very slowly" and said also that they had to walk off the trail many times in order to negotiate the ice. So anyway, these folks were a group of computer gweepie coworkers from redhat/linux in Westford MA. They were quite nice and we hung out with them on the summit for awhile and passed by them again on the way back down. Back at the hut we chilled out for awhile, made some pasta, and socialized with the other folks staying there. Jessie the caretaker was definitely chill, and a great lover of national public radio which we listed to for awhile. All in all, it was a great trip and refreshing to get out of the city on such a nice weather weekend. The trip memories are especially appreciated now that we have had almost a solid week of this rainy crappy, cold nasty, chill your bones (have I expressed that that it sucks a--?) weather. I�ve taken to looking at the 10 day forecast lately on �weather.com� and all you can see is more of the same. Oh well, must think positively. Like all things that annoy me I think to myself......"self: its not that bad & this too shall pass." This summer when I�m sitting on the beach one sunny day these weeks will seem like a blip along the way.

Cheers all. Until next time ...