Zealand, Guyot and West Bond

Learned some very interesting lessons while on this hike. I met up with my buddy, Ryan (Guthook) to hike Zealand Falls to Guyot.  He would continue over the Twins and I was planning on 2 nights out. The rain started on Zealand and continued off and on. We made a pretty good pace, after we climb Zeacliff's. The trail was easy and in great condition. Lots of water. The hut was over run as was the trail. We saw one group of 30 hikers, which is actually not looked upon highly, but hey, one of the lessons I learned was that there seems to be a complete lack of regard for any sort of backcountry etiquette during the peak of the season. The summits and vista's turn into public toilets and people just dont follow the simple guideline of pack it in, pack it out.
So we pushed up to West Bond with a bunch of water and found a legal spot in the woods just close to the side trail to West. We ended up setting the tent up in the pouring rain, so I did what I could to get us level, but did not do so well. The rain really did not let up til well after dark. It was a long night of sliding back up to the top of the tent. Grayson slept soundly next to me and was wrapped up in my Montbell jacket. It stayed warm and got a little breezy towards daybreak. We broke camp by 5:45am and hit the trail, in the rain, at 6 am. The walk over Guyot was fun and different with the clouds building over the ridges and falling down. There was a storm coming over Franconia so we booked it over to Zealand. There was a lot of water everywhere and the falls were beautiful. Not sure Ill be going close to any of the AMC tentsites for a while. I do not envy the caretakers with dealing with some of these folks out in the backcountry! If any of you see Morgan at Guyot Tentsite, thank her and her fella for the hospitality! There are not as many photos because of the constant rain and the fact that I have hiked this loop 4 times now.

Grayson and Daddy at Zealand Mtn

Guthook on Guyot

6:00am wake up call

Garfield in the clouds

The battle

Grayson on the new bridge

Mt Adams via Airline and Lowe's Path

On the road at 4:45am and at the Appalachia Trailhead at 7 and walking. This area has an entire web of different trails, including Kings Ravine and the Valley Way. We were more focused on checking out the RMC facilities and summiting Adams. We head up to Crag Camp and really enjoyed the climb. After checking out these outstanding backcountry sites, we made our way to Lowe's Path and pushed to the top of Adams. We came out of treeline earlier than was expected. The climb was really nice because some high clouds moved in and it was quite breezy once we made our way up Adams. I had to put on a polartec fleece at Thunderstorm junction. The ridge and the summit were very both crowded. It made us slightly nervous because we did not know who was Hut bound and who was campsite bound. Luckily we made it to Israel Ridge and got to The Perch in great time. We set up our tent. We were testing our Double Rainbow Tarptent by Henry Shires. I have been using it as a solo tent so I figured Id try to get Wakapak back onboard with a single wall tent again. This would make my pack weight change significantly. She enjoyed the tent and I had it stretched out so that the floors were up perfectly and it was staked out great. So this will be our tent of choice in Colorado.
There was a really great crowd at The Perch. There was a family with their daughter on her first camping trip and the dad had everything covered. They were great and you could definitely tell the young lady enjoyed herself. There was a group of younger 20 somethings from Mass. They were a cool group. We hung out for the sunset at the shelter because of the really nice view. Afterwards we returned to the tent and went to sleep pretty quickly.
We woke early to a beautiful morning and headed out a few minutes before 7:00. We continued down the Israel Ridge Path and cut across The Link to  the WhiteCliff's and Cliffway Trail. We eventually join back up to Airline and made our way to the Trailhead. A great hike. Lots of water and waterfalls, bogs, challenging streams crossings, wet muddy trail and rock. It was fantastic hiking no matter what the conditions.

Looking up Kings Ravine from Crag Camp

The view from inside Crag Camp

More views from Crag Camp

Gray Knob

Takin a break

Looking back down Lowe's Path

Israel Ridge Path

Mt Adams 5774'

Waving to Washington and hikers at the summit

The Perch

Sunset at The Perch

Sunset

The Link

Lots of waterfalls