Bagging Delaware (#24) on a soggy day and notes about other recent adventures

My all-weather map of Delaware. Note state's name spelled wrong.

Okay, it's been awhile so figured time for an update.

Amazing but true: I've kept up the one-per-month pace in my quest to run a minimum of 10K in all 50 states.

Just yesterday (Thursday, June 16), it was Delaware. In May, it was Nevada. In April, Massachusetts. The last day of March found me in unseasonably mild rural Rhode Island, while February brought me to Central City, Nebraska, which I discovered is anything but central.

So I'm now up to a total of 24, and running out of close-by states, which means it'll be more challenging to keep the once-a-month pace going.

The only states I have within driving distance are Maine and, sort of, New Jersey.

The remainder will involve at least some kind of trip away from home base to accomplish. Some can be done in one day if I find a cheap air fare.

But right now, I don't have any firm plans until when I go out to California November. That's when I might try to get either Oregon or Washington. Or both. :)

A planned visit to Sioux City, Iowa next February will give me a chance to bag that state and maybe a couple of others in the upper Midwest: South Dakota and Minnesota.

Among states in the "day-trip" category are a stretch in the deep south: South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. With JetBlue and Southwest out of Boston, they're all doable.

Same thing with a few in the Midwest: Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Well, if I can somehow keep up a pace of one state per month, that means I'll be finished by...July 2018!

That's not allowing for recovery from knee surgery I'm sure I'll need at some point.

And as for Delaware: Dover is hands-down the flattest place I've ever run in. For the entire route, the biggest gains (or losse) in altitude were when I hopped on and off a curb!

I'll give the place high marks for sidewalks, though. Of the entire 6.6-mile course, which included some stretches of road far out in the suburbs, only one short section was without some kind of pedestrian way.

Lots of bike paths as well. Wish my own area of Manchester, N.H. and its surrounding suburbs could enjoy amenities like this.

In other news:

• Summited Mount Moosilauke with a small party on Saturday, June 11. Didn't add to my total of 4,000-footers, which still stands at 31. Still, it was enough to get me back on the trail.

A busy calendar, alas, means there aren't too many opportunities in the near future to conquer any more of the 48 peaks on the list.

A new wrinkle is our youngest dog, Inca. She likes to get out and did well on Mount Moosilauke, save for not appreciating rain on the way down.

For her, Mount Moosilauke was #6, so it's time to get moving if she's going to have a chance to complete the whole roster.

Alas, our older dog, Zahnna, is now too infirm to haul herself up (and down) a White Mountain summit. As a 13-year-old German Shepherd, she now has trouble with household stairs, so her total of peaks will have to stand at 31—the same as me.

• Haven't yet run in any official road races this year. Again, mostly a function of time and organization. I have these fantasies of getting up early on the weekends and hauling myself out to New Hampshire communities I've yet to run in. Ha!

But will make it a priority to make some progress in this area. Same with longer bike rides.

Zahnna summits Mount Hale (#33), plus other outdoor highlights of the past month or so

Zahnna shows serious tongue at the summit cairn of Mount Hale on Sunday, Sept. 28.

Okay, two months to go until I find myself trekking to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Here's a brief round-up of recent outdoor activities.

• With cold weather pushing in, the bike is increasingly mothballed in favor of plain old running.

So in recent weeks, I've been out with the dogs as often as possible, but not often enough due to a typically packed schedule.

The one note of progress here is that our standard home route has evolved into five-mile circuit, considerably longer than what we were doing in the summer.

This is possible because the cooler weather allows the dogs to go further without being overheated. (Me, too!)

On the down side, every run is followed by considerable stiffness and pain around my right ankle. There's not much swelling, so I'm not really sure what's going on down there.

It usually goes away by the next day, and off I go again. I'll monitor it; right now, the plan is to check with my doctor when we get back from Kilimanjaro and see what's up.

Inca enjoys a little window stretch after climbing Mount Hale.

• Now that it's November, I think the season of serious local hiking is over for this year.

Since the last update, two things to report. On Sunday, Sept. 28, Zahnna the German shepherd made it to the top of Mount Hale, #33 in her quest to summit all 48 peaks over 4,000 feet in New Hampshire. (She was joined by her sister Inca, and me as chaperone.)

At the enormous summit cairn atop Mount Hale. Scrambling to the top of this is about the only way to get a good view over the tree that ring the summit clearing.

We tackled Hale because I had to be back to home base by mid-afternoon for a silent film screening, and it's generally regarded as one of the easiest of all the 48 highest.

And it was. We roared up the trail in about two hours, spent a half-hour on the summit with some fun and interesting people, and then actually ran most of the way back down. Kind of a Reinhold Messner approach, but that's what was needed.

Among the highlights: encountering an 84-year-old hiker who'd been on Hale as long ago as the 1950s, when he bushwhacked up the southern slopes to the summit, which at the time had a much better view.

We also spent time with a guy named Jon Chase who turned out to have a background in newspapers and now works as a staff photographer at Harvard University. Small world! Now that I'm doing accompaniment work at Harvard, I might someday get in front of his lens. :)

Jon Chase at the summit of Mount Hale with his dog, whose name I can't recall. Sorry!

The only other significant hike took place in the area of New Paltz, N.Y., when I took part in a spur-of-the-moment excursion into and over "the Gunks," short for Shawangunk Ridge, a popular area for rock-climbing.

College pal Dave Merle and his lovely wife Shirley have a place right at the foot of some very impressive cliffs. And on the Sunday of Columbus Day weekend, Inca and I made the four-hour drive to join in on a looping trek into and through and out of the woods.

Inca looking cute in her co-pilot seat.

The weather was warm and sunny, and foliage was just about at peak, making for a spectacular day to be outdoors. We weren't the only ones thinking this, apparently, as the country roads west of New Paltz were absolutely jammed. Local pumpkin patches and cider mills were mobbed.

Thankfully, the trails weren't. After playing with Dave Merle's new drone (controlled by iPhone), we embarked by just cutting through the woods and then scrambling up an enormous talus field until reaching a trail at the base of the cliff.

Highlights of our partially bushwhacked walk-about were ascending along the edge of the main ridge and stopping at a vertiginous point overlooking a vast expanse of the Hudson River Valley to the east.

It was here that James Russo, son of another college pal, Mike Russo, idly tossed a handful of leaves over the precipice. Down they fluttered—until they were caught by an updraft that we couldn't see or feel, which caused them to float back up past us and dance about in the void beyond us.

This led to a good-half hour of experimentation, in which everything that could be thrown off a cliff pretty much was. And I'll be darned if a lot of it didn't rise up and dance before us!

Inca and me somewhere on the trail near New Paltz, N.Y. on Sunday, Oct. 12. Photo by Michael Z. Russo.

James is one impressive young man, by the way. It's not every 13-year-old who can quote large parts of the dialogue from the Marx Bros. classic "Duck Soup" (1933), but James certainly can. Hey, at this point, I'll take hope for the future anywhere I can find it.

• Back to the gym: With the bike not in use, I'm making an effort to get back to the gym, which has been ignored all summer. I'll concentrate on low-impact stuff like the elliptical trainer and strengthening exercises to keep the momentum going even as winter looms.

• In terms of running, the ankle issue has prevented me from being too ambitious, but perhaps that's a good thing, given my tendency to overdo it. Right now, the Manchester (N.H.) Marathon is being run, and I'm not in it, despite my desire to do the half-marathon version again.

Instead, I'll keep things a little more modest, in part to prevent any kind of serious injury or condition developing prior to Kilimanjaro.

We're going to San Francisco this week for a few days. If I feel up to it, I may scoot across to Nevada and try to do a 10K there, thus adding that state to my 'Running in All 50 States' roster, which has been pretty quiet of late. We'll see.

And I've been extremely lax (if not downright lazy) in pursuing the project of running a minimum of 5K in all of New Hampshire's cities, towns, and unincorporated places.

In the past 10 years, I've pretty much exhausted the list of communities that hold official 5K races. So now I have to resort to "do-it-yourself" runs where I measure off 5K and then do it on my own.

Sounds easy enough, but I haven't done a single one all this season! And the long-anticipated completion date of May 14, 2016 (when I'll officially be older than my father when he died at age 52) looms ever closer.

• In a sign I'm finally taking serious things more seriously, I've collected all my health-related paperwork into one large three-ring binder. Now the trick, of course, is to actually use it and refer to it often, or at least not lose it.

I have it with me here right now. So far, so good!

• In the binder is a timely story from the New York Times about the dangers of eating things late at night, defined as three hours before you go to sleep. This is my one big unconquered bad habit, so I hope clinical evidence like this will help break it.

As it is, I've tried. And it's easy enough to say, "after X o'clock, I won't eat anything." But it's such a reflex, borne not out of hunger but emotional issues, I believe, that it's been more difficult to correct that I could have ever expected.

It's like you're under hypnosis, with your body (and mind) acting in ways that someone else is controlling. Strange!

• In another sign that things are changing, I'm no longer short-changing sleep.

Until recently, I would regularly force myself to go without adequate sleep. This, of course, has all kinds of long-term consequences. But it seemed to be necessary to just keep up with everything going on.

But no longer. I find I simply am not willing to go through the day feeling lousy anymore. And, in what will probably not be a surprise to any sane person who encounters this, I find I can generally be more productive by getting adequate sleep. And I feel better, and so on.

There's still not enough time to do everything I'd like to. I have to keep working on time management and focus and all that.

But doing without enough sleep is no longer an option. Progress, I think!

In which Zahnna climbs North Twin (#32) but South Twin summit (#33) proves elusive

Zahnna near the summit of North Twin, gazing at the unattainable summit of South Twin in the distance.

Today (Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014), Zahnna and Inca trekked to the summit of North Twin Mountain, 4,761 feet above sea level. This put Zahnna at #32 on the list of the 48 N.H. peaks above 4,000 feet, so she's two-thirds of the way there.

Zahnna and Inca did not, however, make the summit of nearby South Twin Mountain. Ledges between the two peaks proved too much for a 12-year-old German Shepherd to traverse safely, either up or down.

So we turned back. We'll get South Twin some other day, some other way.

Eventful hike: three dramatic river crossings in the first few miles, and then a mountain fly that divebombed straight into my right ear and stayed there. Finally came out, but for awhile I swear it was still in there, trying to burrow further. Yeesh!

Weather: warm, dry, and sunny—but that would change as we climbed.

On the river crossings: I'm told these are potentially the most difficult of any White Mountains trail, and I wouldn't be surprised. Even in late August, at low water, the Little River comes rushing out of the mountains with impressive power. (Who picked that name, anyway?)

Inca hadn't ever encountered that much water moving so fast. After nearly getting swept away by the current, she realized the value of rock-hopping, at which she proved pretty good.

"That's one sure-footed dog," exclaimed an older gentleman on the opposite bank who watched us hop our way across. (Zahnna, true to form, just waded through.)

A great view is no competition for a good smell.

Typical for the Whites, trail just below summit goes over a tough escarpment that proved impossible for Zahnna. So I tied Inca to a tree above and scrambled down to give a boost that turned into an exercise in muddy full-body canine lifting.

Zahnna doesn't like being picked up, especially on a narrow ridge at 4,600 feet. So the poor dog freaked. She got over it quickly, but this used up everyone's patience for any more such escapades.

Summit area of North Twin packed with gnarled krummholz. The place looks like a Christmas tree farm just gone to hell. Trail follows level flat area on ridge, which (when you could see) seems like the crest of an immense wave of stunted pine trees that fall away on all sides.

At the North Twin summit: #32 for Zahnna, #4 for Inca.

No view at summit cairn, but great outlooks nearby via side paths. From these, you could see South Twin summit, just over a mile away.

Well, sort of. Blue skies still ruled above, but low-level overcast was blowing from the south out of the Pemigewasset wilderness, up and over South Twin, putting the open summit in and out wind-driven clouds.

And where we were, a stiff wind was gusting probably to 30 mph, pushing scraps of clouds and chilly fog up from the valley below and directly past us, like a fog machine in a theater. Sudden realization after sweating our way up to the ridge: it was cold! So hypothermia was another factor in our eventual decision to turn back.

Also, time. Later-than-planned start got us to the trailhead at 8:30 a.m. We made it to the North Twin summit sometime shortly after 11 a.m. Getting to South Twin and back would add at least two hours, and we were due back at home base by late afternoon.

Still, I figured we'd push on. What sealed the "turn back" call was what happened next: heading south off the summit on the "North Twin Spur," the trail ran over two rocky ledges that were difficult for Zahnna to handle, causing her to grunt loudly each time she landed. Not a good sign.

And then we found ourselves staring down a "chimney," meaning a steep pitch of bare rock that requires a hiker to use all available limbs to ascend or descend.

It looked like 30 feet to the bottom, where the path twisted away at a weird angle to God-only-knows what next. There was no way Zahnna could make it down safely, never mind up. So that was that.

But no biggie. I have to keep reminding myself it's amazing we get as far as we do on these adventures. With an aging German Shepherd, any trail at any time is liable to be a dead end.

So returned to the North Twin Summit, but not before having to boost poor Zahnna back up the two ledges she'd just scrambled down. Ooof! But with time pressure no longer an issue, and with the wind letting up for the moment, we settled onto a vertiginous ledge for snacks and water.

Inca explores the North Twin summit ledges.

And there it was again, behind us, and now in the clear: the bare peak of South Twin, 4,902 feet (eighth tallest summit in the Whites) rising from the krummholz, some distance away but close enough for human silhouettes to be visible moving about the summit. Maybe next time. As they say, the mountain will still be there.

Lower part of the North Twin trail is mostly on a former railroad bed, making it a real racetrack. So, on the way back, after finishing the last river crossing, we ran the final mile or so, getting us to the trailhead at 2:30 p.m.

Mooch in silhouette: You got any food on ya?

Peak #30, Mount Garfield: Can an aging canine defy the odds and bag another 4,000-footer?

We got this far, or else the picture wouldn't have been taken. But did we make it to the top?

Hey, there's life in the old blog yet! Resuming posts as I work to get ready to trek Mount Kilimanjaro this coming January.

On Saturday, Aug. 9, drove two hours north to attempt Mount Garfield. Two support dogs along: Zahnna and Inca. Not sure if they understood the mountain was named not for a cat, but an assassinated president. Either way, they didn't seem to mind.

Note from later: as a marketing idea, maybe all N.H. peaks can be renamed after popular cartoon characters. We've already got Garfield. How about Mount Spongebob Squarepants? Okay, back to reality.

I say "attempt" because Zahnna, our German Shepherd, is now 11 years old and subject to hip and joint problems.

A few years ago, I had her on trails pretty regularly, with the idea that she might summit all 48 of the peaks that rise above 4,000 feet in New Hampshire.

I would tell people it was Zahnna's desire to accomplish this goal on her own, and I was just along as chaperone, and to drive her to the trailheads.

We got up to 29 peaks by 2011. But then the climbing stopped while our family began the very different adventure of taking care of my mother in her declining health.

So when Zahnna hit 10 years old in March 2013 and was having trouble getting up the stairs at home, we figured her mountain-climbing days were over.

But this summer I've been taking her on short hikes with Inca, our much-younger "back-up" dog, and Zahnna hasn't had much trouble at all.

So early Saturday morning, I threw caution to the wind, and threw Zahnna and Inca into the car. Off we went to attempt what would be Zahnna's 30th summit out of the 48. She might not be done after all!

Mount Garfield from a distance, with its pointy, barren summit. Image from SummitPost.org.

I thought Garfield was a reasonable target because the trail is a fairly steady climb with only one really steep pitch right at the top. Total distance up and back: 10 miles.

For Inca, age 4, it would be only her second high peak. But I wasn't worried as this is a dog that can leap from a standing position right onto a kitchen countertop.

We found the parking area for the Garfield Trail already crowded before 8 a.m.—vehicles would later overflow up and down the road for about a quarter-mile.

The going was fine: a half-mile on a path carved to link the parking area with the old trail, which follows the remains of an access road for most of the way up the mountain's fairly gentle northern slope.

The ground was wetter than I expected, but then this trail is close to water for almost its entire length, which helped keep the dogs happy.

Along the way, we met a guy named Ralph from Londonderry. I later found out we have several mutual acquaintances, and have probably been on hikes together in years past. We saw him on top, and on the way down. Hi Ralph! Sorry I didn't recognize you on the trail.

(And geez, later I found out that I scaled nearby Mount Lafayette with Ralph as part of a wedding celebration in 2010. What a clod I am to have spaced that. It wasn't that big a wedding, so you'd think I'd remember.)

As we ascended, I was watching Zahnna for shaking in her hindquarters, a tell-tale sign of fatigue that would have been the signal to turn back.

But it never came. Up we went, gradually, and entirely in the cool morning shade and with virtually no bugs harassing us.

I keep both dogs leashed, but Zahnna is obedient enough to be allowed to wander slightly ahead of us if no one's around, which simplifies things for everyone. As soon as I hear people ahead, though, I signal for her to get back, and she does.

But once in awhile Zahnna gets a little farther ahead than she should. And because she's an all-black German Shepherd, it's not uncommon for people who spot her on the trail to think they've come across a bear.

"Oh my God!" I heard more than once, knowing exactly what was going on ahead of me.

"It's not a bear, it's just my dog," I'd call ahead, just to put everyone at ease.

And sooner than I expected, we found ourselves in the back-and-forth switchbacks that bring the path up the Garfield Ridge Trail.

Would Zahnna make it? Looking good...

Soon the trees were getting smaller, a sure sign we were getting up there. After 4.8 miles, we gained the Garfield Ridge Trail, meaning we were nearly there: less than a quarter mile to the rocky bare summit.

But, right ahead of us, the last pitch was virtually all vertical scrambling. After applying sunscreen (me, not the dogs), we moved out—and up.

And you know, even though we scrambled up a veritable wall of rock, there was always a way for Zahnna to hop up, over, or around to keep gaining altitude.

One by one, obstacles were conquered. And before long, we broke onto the bare rocky area of the summit to find blue sky, virtually no wind, and views to the horizon in all directions.

Chalk up Peak #30 for Zahnna!

But before she could truly claim to have summitted Mount Garfield, the poor dog faced one final barrier. Weirdly, the very top of the mountain is a large flat slab that rises about four feet above the surrounding rock. And there really wasn't any way for a dog like Zahnna to get up unaided. So, for the only time that day, I had to give her a boost.

The official Summit Photo: Mount Garfield; Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014; peak #30 for Zahnna, at right.

We arrived at 11:15 a.m., so it took only about 3½ hours. We camped out on top with a bunch of friendly people. Inca, who has resisted attempts at socialization, surprised me by openly and attentively begging for food from total strangers. For her efforts, she scored part of a peanut butter sandwich and some salami.

On the summit: Inca (above) gets distracted by food, while Zahnna relaxes and wonders how the heck she's going to get down.

The trip down? It took just as long, as I need to be careful about foot placement when I'm solo hiking and responsible for two dogs.

Also, we were slowed down some by a near-constant stream of climbers heading up who got a later start than us. Honestly, we encountered at least 100 people on the return. Clearly, we weren't the only ones who decided the day was perfect to get into the woods and above treeline.

As expected, Zahnna slowed somewhat on the way down, but never got to the "vibrating leg" state I was concerned about. Nice!

Reached the car at 2:45 p.m. Once underway, my pooped canine companions settled in for the ride back home.

What's next? These adventures seem to come in cycles, so with this momentum, we'll probably try tackling a few more before the weather changes. The only truly tough peaks on Zahnna's list are the three northern Presidentials (Madison, Jefferson, and Adams) and maybe a few oddballs such as Cannon, where trails were laid out by sadists.

Will she get all 48 after all? We shall see, but we're not pushing it.

P.S. Update from Monday, Aug. 11: Zahnna was a little sore the next day, but seems fine otherwise.