Backpacking Trip through the Pemi

Laura tagged me in her story feed on Instagram. She was in need of a friend who wanted to make an overnight trip into the woods with her last minute.


My response as followed: "Is that even a question?"
Laura: "Yayyy hahaha this is why I love you"

Then it was all about the plan. Where to go? So many options. How many miles? So many miles.

Honestly, the two of us are two friggin peas in a pod when it comes to the mountains. We don't care as long as we are there.

It only took us less than an hour to come up with a plan. I suggested a beautiful loop I had hiked in a day before. This would help prevent us to have to car spot with 3 dogs. The plan was to meet at the North Twin trail parking lot at 9:30am on Saturday. From there we would hit the trail for about 1 mile before connecting onto the Fire Wardens Trail. This would then take us roughly 3.6 miles up to the summit of Mount Hale. After summiting Hale we would continue to Lend-a-Hand Trail, Zealand Hut, Twinway, South Twin, and ending on North Twin and out North Twin Trail taking us back to our cars on Sunday morning.

As most of you who follow me already know, I completed my 4000 footers many years ago. Ricky is gradually working on them as time allows. Laura only has a few left, and her 2 dogs are also knocking them off.

This plan would help both Laura and I accomplish many feats all in one 20+ mile loop and in only 2 days. With lots of obstacles.

We checked the forecast day in and day out. The forecast was calling for severe thunderstorms with gusty winds and heavy rain. At one point we both were talking about calling it off for the weekend due to the weather forecast. Let's face it, no one wants to purposefully walk in a lightning storm.

Our final decision was made as follows:

Ricky Bobby on Mt. Hale

L- I've tried looking at other mountains but it's all about the same now
S- I think it will be
L- Another thought is- we could try to do just day hike if it's safer instead of backpacking. But it almost looks like the weather improves later in the evening? Lol
S- Yeah the weather will improve over night and into Sunday am it looks like. Your call. I'm up for whatever
L- I'm in.
L- Thru hikers have to camp in whatever storms come through right? AT training
S- It's going to be hot AF, sticky, and moist haha
L- ohhh so basically like hot yoga with a giant bag strapped to me.

As usual, we met at roughly 9:30am to see a somewhat busy parking lot. We gathered our stuff and the three dogs and hit the trail.

All excited about this new Ruffwear pack Laura bought for Blaze (Husky) she straps it onto him and within minutes was swearing at it. It was hanging to one side too much. The straps wouldn't go any tighter. She shifted some of the weight to see if it would help. Dumped some water out. We hit the trail. Not even a half mile in, while laughing at how funny poor Blaze looked, our shibas (litter siblings) decided to attack one another. Unfortunately Laura ended up in the middle.

Lend-a-Hand Trail

Once that episode ended, we started to hike on. Realizing Blaze needed to take the pack off. It would have been a very long and annoying hike for him and us if he kept it on. We stashed the pack behind some rocks and continued our trek.

We hit the Fire Wardens trail and headed up the long slog to the summit of Hale. We took one break on the way up and took our time as we were in no rush.

Fire Wardens Trail

We popped out of the trees at Hale to find at least a half a dozen others hanging out enjoying beautiful blue skies and decent weather. Many asking where we came from. We explained the trail we came out of is not an active trail in the whites. It was used many years ago and is typically used in the winter months to summit Hale as the road walk on Zealand Road adds many miles.

We took a leisurely break here, also enjoying the sunshine. Blaze and Luna knocked of Hale. We took some photos and then decided to pack up and hit the trail for some more miles.

We casually walked down Lend-a-Hand trail. This is by far one of the most enjoyable and beautiful trails in the White Mountains. I would say this was the most enjoyable trail on the entire loop.

Eventually hitting Zealand Hut. We stopped here to fuel up for an uphill slog with at least 2.5 gallons of water between the both of us. Yes, that is a lot of water. But don't forget, she had two dogs, I had mine, we needed water for dinner, coffee, and to get us through 8 more miles on day 2.

Zealand Hut

The weight in our pack was real. Especially heading up Twinway over to Zealand Mountain. We trekked on. Making sure the dogs stopped in all water outlets on the way up.

We were just past Zeacliff when I had cell service and checked the radar. Concord was getting pounded with severe thunderstorms, and a few small cells building up around us. For the most part the clouds looks safe around us. We kept trekking. We hit a steep section where I noticed the clouds getting a little questionable. I stopped and took out my phone, and what do you know a storm was brewing near us.

We made the call to put rain gear on just incase and keep moving until we need to stop. We kept going and sure enough, nothing happened. No storm, no thunder, no lightning, just a tiny bit of rain, which actually felt refreshing more than anything.

There it was! Zealand Spur! We dropped our way too much crap filled heavy as F*ck packs and went to the summit of Zealnd for Ricky Bobby. I also needed a headstand on this summit for my Headstands on the 48.

Shortly after the nice jaunt without packs, we picked them back up and put them on. We continued our trek until we came across a pretty sweet camp spot. Off trail about 1 mile before treeline.

We set up camp, ate our fancy Italian Feast of freeze dried Lasagna and Speghetti-o's. Chatted for a bit and drank some camp beverages to lighten our packs.

The most entertaining thing about the entire evening was us trying to hang a bear bag on a tree that had no branches. We laughed a lot, but proved that we are both such bad ass independent hiker chicks who could certainly survive in the wilderness.

Ricky and I got into our tent, Laura and her pups in hers. We chatted for a little bit before finally passing out.

5:30am on Twinway

Alarms went off at 4:00am- we packed up camp and were on the trail as planned for 5:00am. In hopes that we would be able to catch a sunrise on South Twin. We broke tree line around 5:30am. It was in the clouds. For a split second it broke just enough to show us a glimpse of Mount Guyot. The dogs so happy to be on trail again.

Ricky, Blaze, Luna on S.Twin

We tromped through my favorite part of Twinway to South Twin. Running into many just waking campers. All were incredibly friendly, especially when the dogs went to say hello!

We finally made it to South Twin, which Laura and her pups previously got in her last backpacking trip. You can read about that story here. Here is where Ricky knocked off his second 4k he needed and ate his breakfast. We sat and relaxed for a few minutes before we got quite chilly and decided to get moving onto North Twin for our final summit of the trip. This one Laura did need.

The trek to North Twin is another enjoyable one.

Ricky Bobby & Luna

The summit itself, not thoroughly enjoyable. We took a few photos and started our final and what felt like very long descent back to the cars.

Finally making it out by 10:00am, it was a quick and happy goodbye as Laura was off to a party.

There are not many people in this world that you just click with. When you find people that you do keep them around. They will bring laughter, excitement, and thrill to your life. Not to mention they will challenge you and you will challenge each other. It will continue to build character in both of you.

Laura and I never knew each other until I followed her on Instagram because she happened to be a hiker who lived in NH and had a Shiba Inu. Turned out she had my Shibas sister, love all the same adventures I do, and is game for any crazy idea we both can come up with.

Fire Wardens Trail from North Twin Trail Head: 4.6 miles, 2'424ft.

Lend-a-Hand Trail to Zealand Hut: 2.8 miles, 50ft.

Zealand Hut to Zeacliff: 1.5 miles, 1'300ft.

Zeacliff to Zealand Mountain: 1.6 miles, 500ft.

Zealand Mountain to Bondcliff Trail: 1.3 miles, 258ft.

Twinway to South Twin Summit: 2.0 miles, 394ft.

South Twin to North Twin: 1.3 miles 300ft.

North Twin to Trailhead: 4.3 miles

Total: 19.4 miles, 5'036ft. 

 Keep on Trekking