An achievable goal?

Well, I've had quite a problem with blogging this summer.  Some stories were too big to go in the blog, some were too insignificant.  Some I just couldn't describe appropriately.  There are several embryonic drafts in my folder.

Kim and I just got back late last night from our final training hike of 2011 - in preparation for the "biggie": Mt. Katahdin later this month.  Our goal yesterday was Mt. Monroe, a distinct peak on the shoulder of Mt. Washington and, as the name implies, part of the Presidential range.  At 5372', Monroe is the 4th highest mountain in the Northeastern US.  We had planned to summit Monroe then Eisenhower (4760') on our way back down which would have involved an extra 0.8 miles (in addition to the 9+ that we did) and another 300' of climb.  I was too exhausted, though, even for that.  I'm not sure why but the three-week layoff didn't help much.  More detail in my report on EveryTrail.

These hikes have to be planned quite carefully.  We need the right amount of distance and climb to fit into the training schedule.  This final training hike entailed (in practice) about 3650' of elevation gain and about 9 miles round-trip.  Katahdin (5267') will require about 3750' of elevation and more like 11 miles round-trip.  It will also require some scrambling over boulder fields and some challenging sections (but don't worry, we will not be attempting the knife edge).  So Monroe was excellent training for that.  We will also have to start very early in order to have as much light for the descent as possible, now that the days are getting shorter.  We'll probably be on the mountain for 12 hours or more.

So that's twice in as many hikes that I've missed the secondary peak (Kim got the earlier one) but it doesn't help my chances at the "48" club**.  But then I never aspired to belonging to that club anyway.  Kim isn't sure yet - she has 19 now (would have been 20 with Eisenhower) and might want to complete the other 29.

But I think I've adopted a new goal, one slightly less onerous: the eight 5000 footers of New England.  After Katahdin (fingers crossed), I will only have two to "bag": Mt Washington (which at 6288' is hard but probably no harder than Katahdin) and Mt. Adams which was planned for our Presidential range hike seven years ago but which I couldn't manage due to lack of fitness (again it was only 300' to the top but wobbly legs aren't good for climbing mountains).

But these lists of peaks have a big flaw.  They are based on a completely arbitrary value for minimum prominence: 200 ft.  Prominence is defined thus:

The prominence of a peak is the height of the peak’s summit above the lowest contour line encircling it and no higher summit.
It is in some ways a better indication than the actual elevation of the summit to the amount of climb necessary to get to the top.  This is because the starting point for an ascent is often one of the cols (or saddles) around the base of the mountain. When mountains are listed by prominence, many peaks are relegated beyond the practical limits of the list -- all of the Presidential range, for instance.  Of course, listing peaks with no prominence requirements at all would be an impossibility -- the number of peaks approaches infinity as the prominence threshold gets smaller and smaller.

There is an entire web site devoted to lists of prominence throughout the world.  In New Hampshire, for instance, there are 14 peaks with prominence greater than 2000'.  And we've climbed slightly more than half of these: Carter Dome, Lafayette, Kinsman, Moosilauke*, Carrigain*, Osceola*, Kearsage, Monadnock (*I'm taking credit here for some that Kim only has climbed).  There are 12 in Vermont, of which we have climbed only one (Ascutney).  There are 16 in Maine of which we haven't climbed any - yet, although we've been close (Bigelow's Avery Peak - West Peak).   Katahdin will be the biggie: over 4000' of prominence.  And this list makes it more important to climb Massachusetts' own Mt. Greylock: the only mountain in Southern New England with 2000' of prominence. 

I'm even looking at the lists for the British Isles.  I note that Paul and I have climbed #67 Croaghaun with 688m (2257') of prominence (this page has a great photograph) and #112 Cadair Idris (608m, 1994'). which comes just after Ben Loyal (which I would like to climb one day as we didn't have time on our last visit to Sutherland).

So, perhaps a realistic goal is to climb all of the peaks in New Hampshire and Massachusetts with at least 2000' of prominence.  Only seven to go.  Many of the Maine peaks are simply too far out of the way to be practical.

** people who have climbed all 48 of New Hampshire's 4000'-plus mountains.