Route 4 in Mendon

I wanted to start out saying to all those who have asked. I am safe and sound in NH, I left for my wilderness re-certification on Saturday night prior to the storm hitting. Luckily NH only got a bad rain storm. From all reports I have gotten Killington Mountain School is fine and we have no major damage. We have some roads closed here in Conway but nothing like my hometown of Killington, which is currently an island. All roads in and out are gone. My follow firefighters and EMT’s on the Killington Fire Rescue have been working hard for the last two days. A few houses are gone. One farm house in particular was swept away.

Before

I did get a report that power did return to parts of Killington this afternoon. Part of the Killington Base Lodge did collapse, that rumor is true. Currently anyone in town is stranded and many can not get back to their homes.  Pittsfield which is the home of the Death Race was hit very hard as well. Please keep VT in your thoughts as it’s going to be a big job to replace roads and cleanup after the devastation of Irene.

After

Here in NH, it was almost as if nothing happened yesterday. We enjoyed almost perfect weather today. It almost made me feel bad to go out hiking after my class was delayed this morning knowing what was going on at home. I took the new group of classmates for what turned into a plan A to B hike. My intention was to hike a loop I know well from the last time I was at SOLO. Although when we got to the road we encountered the fact it had been closed and the entire National Forest of NH had been closed as well.

Saco River Extremely Flooded

Quick thinking after going to look at the Saco River water levels. I realized they can’t stop us from hiking up a ski resort. As we pulled into the Cranmore ski resort lot we quickly headed up the trails to evade any naysayers on this attempt at a hike. We had an array of athletic abilities so our pace was slow. All enjoyed the hike and worked at achieving their own goals. I feel bad posting pictures of how beautiful the hike was today but the mountains of NH are too much not to share. On the way down we broke up into groups and myself and a few of the guys ran down the trail. Yeah so the pace overall was slow but we did it as a group and they got to experience part of NH.

On the way up Cranmore, NH

Hike
Cranmore, NH
Distance: 3.31 Miles
Time: 1:03:34
Pace: 19:11

Finally, my thoughts go out to my friends who have lost their homes or incurred extreme damage over the past two days. Special thoughts go out to the Hardy family whose home was swept away by the water. They are currently finding pieces of their life scattered for miles.