Oct 27 - 29, 1998
Mt. Tripyramid via Pine Bend Brook and Sabbaday Brook
Highs/Lows: mid 40s to low 30s
Rain, rain, rain, rain and some rain.

Fri 4:00: Laurie meets Brenda, his wife, and I at the Pine
Bend trail head. He had gone up to Lincoln for a conference
the day before and had gone into the wood in the am to set
up camp a couple of miles up the trail. We get there just 
before dusk. A broad, fairly level shelf just below the
steep climb up to Scaur Ridge. The ground is broken and 
uneven. After 20 minutes of searching, I finally find 
place large enough to fit my bivy. I rejected several sites
that were relative low spots. The forcast called for rain
I prefer not to sleep in lakes. I got my pyramid up over
the site just as the rain started. It rains steady and 
hard with no let up. I'm asleep before 9:00.

Sat 4:30am: I am wakened by a drop of water on my face. The
 rain is coming down in sheets; with each sheet, I feel a fine
mist settling on me. I fumble for my light and find the inside
of my tarp is dripping with water, absolutely soaked. It is not
the seams. ALL of the fabric is wet. Has the humid conditions formed
by putting a warm body on damp ground caused this much condensation?
Or is the light fabric simply soaking thru? I am not pleased but
consider what alternatives I have. I dig up my balaclava (head gasket)
and burrow my head deeper into the hood of my bag. The rain in the
tent is lighter than the rain outside of tent. I will have to trust
the bivy sack to keep me dry.

Sat 7:00am: I wake up and find my boots in a 1/4 inch of water. They
are in a low spot near the center of the tent. I inspect my sleeping
pad; just starting to get damp. I quickly pack up my bag in its
heavy garbage bag. Everything of value -bag, clothing and food- gets
put into garbage bags. Amazingly, the rain has not let up. It is
clear that the ground has reached saturation point and I am faced
with an increasing amount of run off creeping in under my floorless
tarp/tent. By time I am eating breakfast, I only have enough room on 
the one high spot in the tent for me and my pack. The rest of the
tent is either a lake (behind me), a swamp (on the far side) or a
growing brook (in the center). The stream claims a misplaced water
bottle, sweeping it downstream an out of the tent. I relish in 
the novelty of having a tent with running water and spit my tooth-
paste in the middle of tent only to watch it swept away in under
a second. Laurie and Brenda are faring only marginally better.
Their stove was underwater in their vestibule and they learned
why tent floors are called "bathtub floors". Laurie's bag was
free floating in its stuff sack in the back of tent. By time
we break camp, the brook running thru the tent is a full 2 feet
wide. I have to fight the current to drag the tarp out.

Sat 9:00am: We find our way back to the trail. The options are
to bail out and go back to the car. Too bad the car is 5 miles
uup the road... We had planned on going over Tripyramid to
the Sleepers and then over to Passaconaway on Sat night. We
planned on hiking out Oliverian Brook on Sun morning. Not wanting
to be put off completely, we decide to go up to Scaur Ridge
and make our decision there. If we have thunder on the ridge,
we can retreat along PineBend Brook. If not, we can bag North
Peak. We are wet enough already to ditch staying out tonight.
If we make North Peak, we can get back to the road via Sabbaday
Brook and be closer to the car than Pine Brook will leave us.
We head up to the ridge. This first brook crossing was tough.
No one asked the now obvious question of whether or not this
should tell us anything.

Sat 11:30am: We are on the thin Scaur Ridge. On both sides,
the mountain peels steeply away. A stumble here and you would
fall for at least.... 6 inches and no more. The thick boreal
forest of balsam an fir turns the trail into something like
a green subway tunnel. Finally, the trail heads up, straight
up towards the summit. Wet granite. Roots. Ferns and water.
Lots of sections require using our hands. We make the enclosed
summit by 12:30. It is still raining, only not as hard. It
is windy and cold. We get one or two broken views thru the
clouds. Is that Greely Ponds? We pitch the pyramid over the
trail and break for lunch. By time lunch is over, we decide
to forgoe Pasaconaway and choose to hike out along Sabbaday.
We dream of pizza in Lincoln.


Sat 3:00pm: We have dropped down off of Tripyramid quickly
and have passed thru beautiful country under the Fool Killer.
Now in the valley of the west branch of Sabbaday Brook we are
faced with our first crossing. We are on the west side of the
swollen river. The west bank is steep and slick with wet
leaves and fallen trees. The map suggests 1/2 a dozen more 
crossings in the next few miles with the trail eventually
ending on the west side (our side) of the river. I suggest
that we bushwack along the west bank and look to reconnect
with the trail down stream. But the going is very rough and
steep. A log spaning the river is too much to pass by and we 
gladly cross to flater walking on the trail. I 2 minutes, it
crosses the river again! Laurie goes back upstream to the
log while Brenda and I ford the stream. The current is way
fast.  I loose my grip on my walking stick and in a flash,
it is gone. We gain the bank and begin wringing out our
socks. While I lace my boots, Laure, who had rejoined us
and Brenda go looking for my staff. Brenda stumbles, falls in
and is nearly swept away in the current. We decide that
anymore crossings are out of the question. We will bushwack.

We cannot travel along the steam. The undergrowth is just too
thick and the bank too steep. We are forced to climb up
to the top of the ridge paralleling the river and find
beautiful open hard woods to walk in. We are 4 or 5 miles
from the road. We could be at the road with time to
spare if we had the trail But we don't. And the Sabbaday
is picking up tributary after tributary. Our ridges dies
outs as a brook comes down from the west. We cross the
small feeder stream and gain the next ridge. We continue
north in this fashion till 4:30. Dusk is only 1/2 an hour
away. Brenda finally says what we are all thinking. We
must find a level spot to camp before dark. Another night
of cous-cous. No pizza.

Sun morning: We wake up to grey skies. On and off drizzle
but no real rain. We resume our dream like walking in
the woods. We are not lost. But it feels like we are on
another planet. So different from being on a trail. 
At noon, we are eased into civilization. We pick up
blue paint and ribbon blazes. An x-c trail perhaps?
Soon after, voices of children from the nearby trail.
The sound is like a violation after a full day of
silent, muffled walking along the river. We clammer
out of the woods onto the trail just down stream
from its final crossing. Sneaker clad folks from the
road are there at Sabbaday Falls. The smell of cologne
assults our noses and it all seems so busy. Shortly we
are in the parking lot and then a short walk along the
Kank and we are in the car.

The return to culture is  not all bad. In Lincoln,
we get hot mugs of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Life is very
good. The area had recieved huge rains this week-end.
Roads had been washed out and all the streams were up.
We were very grateful that we made the conservative
decision to not press on to Passaconaway. The Oliverian
Brook would have likely been as impassible as the
Sabbaday and there was the good chance of getting
stuck there on Sunday night with no extra food.
Sliding down I-93 with warm coffee in hand is better.

Copyright 2003 by David Mann