Miles: 7.3 Kearsarge Pass trail

Total Trail Miles: 789.7 

Ascent/Descent: 2586/1203 ft 

Start Time: 03:00 

End Time: 10:00 

Temperature: 9°C (48°F)

After 2 nights in town I found it hard to fall asleep at 6, it was also very warm. When I eventually did get to sleep I woke again at 10:30 to put on some more layers for the night. So when my alarm went off at 2am I felt pretty tired still. We packed up and began the ascent up Kearsarge Pass in reverse. The snow was soft at the bottom which ment we were postholing even at night but as we ascended further the snow got more firm. At first the almost full moon shone brightly in the sky and the the sun started to rise turning the sky pink, orange and yellow and the snow pink. There was a fair breeze as we got higher and we ended up putting some layers back on. When we got to the top we could see some other hikers coming to the other side. First a woman named Brewer arrived who has decided to split from her group and hike out Kearsarge as her group were hiking 17-20 mile days and wanting to do 2 passes a day even in the slush. Then another guy joined who knew Bree and seemed to have split from their group before Whitney, he said he got fed up and wanted to get out and said he was a failure for doing so - a bit of an over reaction. Then a group of 4 arrived, all smiles thankfully, we left shortly after that soo didn't get to chat to them much. We tried to traverse along Kearsarge trail instead of dropping down to bullfrog trail, it ended up getting pretty hairy with some steep traverses , clambering over rocks and descending a short steep ice wall having to go backwards with the ice axe. We eventually dropped back down to bullfrog and set up camp near where it joins back on with the trail.