Summits #3 & #4: Mts Pierce & Eisenhower

Yesterday I climbed two 4000-footers, so now I've climbed four mountains this year. I climbed Mount Pierce, which is 4,310 feet, and Mount Eisenhower, which is 4,780 feet. They are both in the Presidential Range. Early in the morning we went to the AMC Highland Center with my brother and my mom and we had a good breakfast. We took a "Green Tour" of the center the day before our hike, and learned how Highland Center does good things for the environment, like a lot of recycling, composting, good insulation, compact florescent lightbulbs, and there are more windows on the south side than on the north side for heat and light.

After breakfast, my dad and I started up the trail. To get up to Mount Pierce we hiked up the Crawford Path, which is the oldest footpath in the United States. The trail was very wet because it's spring and everything is melting, but there is still a lot of snow. For a lot of the trail we had to walk along the "monorail," which is like a big snowy balance beam. The monorail is the packed down snow in the middle of the trail that doesn't melt as fast as everything else, and if you step off of it, you fall into deep snow. Me and my dad did that a couple of times.

On the trail we saw a really good view of the Mount Washington Resort, and when we got above the treeline we could see Mount Washington. It took us three hours to get to the summit of Mount Pierce (which is sometimes called Mount Clinton).

From Mount Pierce we decided to go to Mount Eisenhower which is about a mile and a half away, because the weather was so nice. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the top of Mount Eisenhower, and the trail along the ridge was really beautiful and reminded me of when we hiked the Franconia Ridge trail last October. The trail between these peaks is part of the Appalachian Trail. It was very windy going up and at the top of Mount Eisenhower, so we didn't stay at the summit very long.

Then we started to head back to Mount Pierce, which we had to cross again to get back down to the Highland Center (so, sort of, we actually climbed three mountains in one day! in the snow! but we'll just count it as two.) On the way down the monorail felt like it went on forever. My dad called it a "three-mile-long balance beam." The snow bridges that we used on the way up to cross small streams were melting and breaking on our way down.

We got back to the Highland Center about 8 1/2 hours after we started. The whole trip to both mountains and back was 9.2 miles. I felt great when I got back down. To see more photos from our hike yesterday, click here and enjoy the slideshow.

Instead of a "Green Tip" today, I'm doing a hiking tip. Hiking Tip: The key to climbing with a buddy is communication. If you are tired, hungry, thirsty, have to go to the bathroom, or want to play a game, communicate with your hiking partner and tell them. It will make your trip safer and more fun. Your buddy can't read minds.