Black Mountain (Middle Peak), North Doublehead
Submitted by Pat
Stats
Mountains: Black Mountain (2,757) and North Doublehead (3,053)
Date: August 2, 2017
Miles: 7
Weather: Sunny, low 80s
Trails: North Doublehead Ski Trail — Black Mountain Trail
After a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes at the Sweet Maple Café, we head up to Jackson, NH. I miss a turn so we have to stop and regroup before we finally find Dundee Rd and the parking area for the North Doublehead ski trail. The first section of the trail is a private driveway and we almost walk by where the trail heads into the woods so focused we are on what we are discussing. The trail is an old ski trail – it’s like many a woods road I have tramped in my day. It’s wide enough for us to walk side by side.
The warm-up is moderate in terms of steepness, but I am gasping for breath ten minutes into the hike. I simply don’t understand why I am struggling so much with my breathing and lack of leg fitness. Today the strain I feel breathing is much worse than my leg weakness.
I slow way down, trying to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, but that slows me down even further. I can barely talk, I’m so anaerobic. I’m gasping for breath, despite using my rescue inhaler. As the trail steepens, I lag behind even more, stopping often to try and recover a little, but it’s an endless cycle of hiking, struggling to breathe, stopping to recover, starting again and on and on. Gasping, yawning, struggling, perplexed, frustrated and afraid.
Nancy says the problem may be caused by the extra 25 pounds I’m carrying. I’ve never been this heavy so have no experience to use as a guide. I believe her. I know it would help to lose the weight, but I’m not convinced the extra weight is the root, the only root, of the problem. Fitness, or lack thereof, is clearly an issue. I don’t work out consistently, for long enough or hard enough to move to a higher level of fitness. I need to do more exercise, longer runs, and add free weights and strengthening and some kind of interval training to the mix.
Diet and exercise have to change. Both are huge life changes that are not easy to make. Denial of bad/tasty foods and pushing to go longer and faster. Hard stuff.
Halfway up the trail I develop a stitch in my right side that makes breathing deeply end with a sharp pain. That doesn’t help my mood or my confidence, and the damn thing stays with me for the rest of the day. I try to concentrate on my breathing and moving upward at faster than a K-2 pace, but nothing helps. My enjoyment of the hike plummets. It’s not fun to feel so out of breath and out of shape. I don’t remember the hikes we did in the Belknaps and the Ossipees kicking my ass like the last few 52 with a View hikes. Yes, the 52 with a View hikes are steeper but I struggle to wrap my brain around how different my experience of hiking has been lately. And it’s not that I didn’t feel sore and tired after a Belknap or Ossipee hike, but the last few hikes have made me feel sick, dizzy from lack of oxygen and my stomach upset from the strain I am under.
We reach the cabin and find the view spot off a spur trail, but we don’t really stop and rest, which is fine with me. We take a few pictures and begin to descend. I lead most of the way down. I feel much better, breathing hard but not anaerobically and my legs are able to keep up a decent pace.
Reaching the car feels awesome. Sitting is a huge physical relief. The day is warm, low 80s, and I forget to bring Gatorade. I eat a tangerine to boost my energy and we set off for the Black Mountain trailhead.
A trio of hikers are near their car when we reach the trailhead parking area. They are talking so loudly that it’s a real drag. We begin the hike down a private driveway then off onto the trail before we pull over to let the other hikers pass. Nancy is really unhappy with the noise. We wait a while and they gain some distance and we don’t see or hear from them again.
The Black Mountain trail is much less steep than the ski trail to North Doublehead, but I am still unable to maintain Nancy’s pace, to keep my breathing under control, or get over the stitch in my side which gets worse until I wince with every breath. I breathe shallowly as a rule, but when I breathe shallowly, fast and hard, it doesn’t help the spasm in my side. No one seems to know why we get stitches, but ways to deal with them include increasing core strength and changing breathing patterns. I have tried to change my breathing, but breathing deeply into the bottom of my diaphragm isn’t helping today.
Halfway up the trail I ask Nancy if she’s having any fun. She says she loves hiking, but certainly my struggle is affecting her. I tell her that I’m not having any fun. My quads ache, my hip flexors scream, the stitch is a constant spasm of pain, and my neck is stiff from always having to look down. I try and compartmentalize the pain, put it all in a box and shut the lid, but am not able to do that today.
The summit of Black Mountain is disappointing in terms of views, or lack of them. We sit and eat our lunches. I’m unable to finish my PB&J or my chips.
I hope that since the Black Mountain Trail is much less steep that my legs will have the same spunk they had on the North Doublehead descent, but no; my legs are fatigued, my toe tips sore, my stitch still sharp, and my breathing too fast to bound down the trail. I try to keep up with Nancy, but can’t. No fun on this day. No fun and only questions about what is going on with my body that a couple of 3.5-mile hikes nearly kill me.