Mount Hale

Date: 7/10/2020

Elevation: 4,054’

Miles: around 4 miles

Time: 3 hours (20 minutes at top)

Trails: Hale Brook Trail

Calories: 1,596

Average HR: 141

Peak HR: 188

Something I never thought I would do when I started this journey was hike alone (because of safety concerns). But, after other things come up last minute for your potential hiking buddies, sometimes you gotta just head to the mountains by yourself.

No, of course I still had safety as my top priority when planning this hike, which is why I picked what is maybe one of the shortest hikes of the 48. I had been worried to hike alone as a woman and I was weighing what would happen if I got hurt. But, after seven previous summits, several of which were much longer than Hale, and seeing a lot of other women my age hiking alone, I felt better about hiking Hale solo.

So initially I was going to do Hale bright and early as I’ve been doing most of my hikes, but when I woke up at 6am on Friday, there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms around 11am. Not one to mess with the unpredictable weather of the Whites (s/o Carole Bibeau) especially when alone, I just went back to bed. I woke up again at 10am to find that the forecast of storms had been pushed back until early evening. I didn’t want to miss a week of hiking, so I made a very late decision to head to Hale. After all, I had already made my pb&j the night before, so I couldn’t let that go to waste.

I didn’t leave Hanover until around 11:20am, so I got to the Hale Brook Trailhead just before 1pm. Right at 1 I was on the trail and the adrenaline really got me going; I think I was a little too jazzed up from the thrill (perhaps fear) of hiking alone, so I began at a pretty fast pace. Considering it was 85 degrees and my body can’t handle heat, I should have checked myself. But I did not and I ended up taking more breaks that probably made me go even slower than if I had just gone at my normal speed. Upswing though was that I had to drink a lot of water and this made my pack lighter, so I guess that’s good.

I got to the highly unremarkable summit of Hale around 2:30pm. Hale’s peak is literally a pile of rocks with no view to speak of (was I even above 4,000’??), which is also why I chose to do this one alone and not bring a friend to suffer disappointment. I knew what I was getting myself into though, so I plopped down on the fringes of the rock pile to eat my pb&j and my fluffernutter (very delicious, but I’ll go with the pb&Nutella in the future).

As you can see, there really wasn't much up at the summit, so this is the only blog-worthy picture I took. I spent 20 minutes at the rock pile before heading back down the way I came. There is the option to turn this hike into a loop by Zealand Falls and the Zealand Falls hut via the Lend-a-Hand and Zealand trails. But since I started so late and was alone, I just went back down Hale Brook.

Shortly into my descent, a fellow solo hiker caught up to me and joined me for the way down. Andrew, if you somehow found my blog, thank you for the company! So I guess that made it a partial solo hike, but I do love how friendly practically everyone is up in the mountains.

I think I’ll fill my hikes for the rest of the summer with friends, but I’m really glad to have done at least one by myself. Feels like a rite of passage maybe? And empowering on some level too. But it’s always more fun with friends :)