King Ravine

King Ravine

July 5, 2008

Written by RLC

For the past few months getawaygirl and I have talked about going to Mt. Adams, but I kept putting her off for one reason or another. She wanted to get some views this time, and I wanted to visit Adams for the first time. On a recent hike of one of the Metacomet-Monadnock sections, I also mentioned that I wanted to visit King Ravine sometime, and found out that Poison Ivy was planning to take a trip there this summer. So plans were hatched for getawaygirl and myself to join Poison Ivy on her trip, and I figured we could also bag Adams while we were up there.

Apparently a few other folks also wanted to test themselves in King Ravine, as we ended up with fairly good-sized group: Poison Ivy, getawaygirl, HikerBob, Trail Trotter, Windy, Bob & Geri, and myself. Poison Ivy's plan in addition to King Ravine was to do some redlining in the area. On the ascent portion of the hike, this involved hiking via Sylvan Way, the Amphibrach trail, and the King Ravine trail. So we all arrived at the Appalachia trailhead a little before 8:00 AM and set off up the Airline trail on a beautiful crystal-clear morning. We quickly reached Sylvan Way and not long after we were on the Amphibrach trail, with a brief picture stop at scenic Cold Brook Fall. As mentioned above, the main reason we took the Amphibrach was for Amy's redlining, but this turned out to be a great choice of trail in any case, because the grade was very easy and the footing was excellent. In fact, the White Mountain Guide calls this "one of the kindest trails to the feet in this region".

Eventually this gentle trail took us to the King Ravine trail, where after a brief picture stop at Mossy Fall, things started to get really interesting. As we approached the floor of the ravine, the trail got a bit steep and there was some scrambling involved. The headwall of the ravine peeked over the trees, and we looked for a place to stop and eat. All around us were incredibly large boulders, some with large gaps between them, making for a little extra excitement as we stepped over a particularly large gap and then found a good place to stop. As we gobbled down our lunch, we marveled at the ravine and contemplated the climb ahead. If you’ve never been there, it’s difficult to describe the feeling of awe that it brings on, and I’m sure the pictures won’t do it justice. The semi-circular headwall is very steep, rising at an angle of 50 degrees or more in places. As we looked at our ascent route out of the ravine, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one that viewed it with some trepidation. The word “steep” is so often used in trip reports, but there’s steep, and then there’s King Ravine-steep. Yikes!

There are a couple of ways to leave the floor of the ravine and approach the headwall, to continue on the King Ravine trail. One is to take the Elevated trail, which is the easier way. We chose the Subway for maximum fun and adventure. The Subway is a short little diversion of 220 yards that eventually leads to the same spot as the Elevated. Well, 220 yards may not sound like much, but personally, I found it to be the most strenuous part of the hike so far. You have to climb up, over, around and under several large boulders that form small caves, all the while being careful not to slip into any of the large gaps between the boulders. I had to take my backpack off a couple of times and push it through some of the gaps, because it’s just too tight in some places to go through with a pack on your back. This section was a lot of fun, and there was quite a bit of laughing and joking as we emerged back out onto the main trail. We then decided to take another little detour through the Ice Caves loop. This wasn’t as long or as strenuous as the Subway, but it was also a lot of fun. As the name suggests, there are several patches of ice and snow that never melt all year. Windy even got a little mischievous and threw some snowballs at Bob Hayes as Geri egged her on.

Soon after we were back on the King Ravine trail and climbing the actual headwall. This was to be the most strenuous part of the day, and I believe our overall hiking pace may have slowed down to about 1/10 of a mile per hour. The trail ascends about 1100 feet in a half-mile, and is a continuous scramble over mostly large boulders, with some looser ones as you approach the top. The sky had been very clear in the morning but we were lucky to get a little overcast as we climbed up the steep trail, because it got just slightly cooler. As we climbed ever so slowly upward, I turned around many times to admire the view. As stunning as the ravine is when you’re at the bottom of the bowl, it looks even more incredible when you’re halfway up and looking down. We even saw a glider flying over the ravine, to add to the fun. So, after a lot of grunting and sweating and getting cut and scraped by rocks (and taking many short breaks), we reached the top of the headwall. Here we were treated to a magnificent view of Mt. Madison, with Madison hut below. As we all took a well-deserved rest, a group of 4 or 5 people that appeared to be in their early 20s came up out of the ravine and asked where we had come from. When we said we came the same way as them, they mentioned that they had camped for the night somewhere below, and seemed a bit awed that we had climbed from the trailhead to the top of the ravine in one day. Hey, us over-40 people are tough! Then when they heard that we were planning to climb even higher, I think they thought we were a little crazy.

At this point we discussed our exit strategy, as we had said from the beginning of the hike that we would re-assess how everyone felt when we came out of the ravine before deciding exactly what to do. Poison Ivy’s plan had been to possibly hike out via the Gray Knob trail, to Cliffway to the Link and then out to Appalachia trailhead, depending on our energy levels. But since this would add even more miles to an already long day, we decided to shorten it just a bit and head over to Thunderstorm Junction via the Gulfside trail, where we would decide who would summit Adams, and descend from that point. After a relatively short hike to the junction, most of the group waited while getawaygirl, Trail Trotter, and myself headed up to the summit of Adams. As I mentioned before, Amy wanted some views this time, I had never been to Adams before, and Trail Trotter is just always looking for an excuse to make the hike longer. So we took the relatively short hike up the Lowes Path, over the painfully sharp rocks, stayed at the summit for all of about 3 minutes due to some really annoying bugs, took some pictures, and headed back down. There the three of us that had went to the summit took a short food break, and we all headed down.

The descent route involved a short section of the Lowes Path, the Spur trail, Hincks trail, Randolph Path, Amphibrach, and the Link out to the trailhead. Other than a stop at a deserted Crag Camp cabin to fill up on water, the trip down was uneventful. I was very glad that we re-visited the Amphibrach trail on the way down, since my feet were really complaining at this point and I was on the verge of going into “grumpy mode”.

After the hike Bob & Geri invited us back to their campsite in Twin Mountain, and everyone accepted except Windy, who had to travel in the other direction to get back home to Maine. We missed you Windy! Anyway, we all enjoyed a little after party hosted by two very gracious people who let us stuff our faces with burgers, rice, salad, and more. It was great to kick back and relax with some good company after a long and tiring day. Thanks Bob & Geri!

This turned out to be a fantastic hike, and an all-around great day with some fun people. I highly recommend this as a way to get to Mt. Adams…forget about all those other “easy” ways to the summit.

Mt. Adams was #34/48 for me. Everyone else I hiked with has already completed the 48, so I also wanted to thank the rest of the group for adding more than a mile to their hike so that I could make my summit.

If you're wondering about the title of this report...all the men on this hike were named "Bob".

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