Aug. 19, 2007 - By any measure, it was a strong party.

All three had trekked widely over many years: the Himalayas, Kilimanjaro, the Whites, the Rockies, the Sierras, the Scottish Highlands, the Alps, the Hindu Kush. They camped; they climbed; they biked, and in earlier years had run as well.

While no longer in the flower of their youth, all were strong and fit and smart and had lots of miles under their boots.

So why were they setting out at 11 a.m. in mid-August under threat of a cold drizzle to do a 10-mile climb in the Pemigewasset Wilderness of New Hampshire without rain gear, warm clothes or lights?

It just goes to show that the lessons of experience aren’t always remembered, or heeded.

The trio began the day with plans to scale the Kinsmans in Franconia Notch.

They showed commendable flexibility by changing plans when the 10 percent showers forecast for the morning turned into a steady downpour.

“I guess they meant 10 percent of New Hampshire would get 100 percent rain,” one observed as they headed south out of the Notch into more favorable weather.

At first Tripyramid seemed a worthy substitute, but on further reflection, they settled on the Hancocks off the Kancamagus Highway just east of Lincoln, N.H.

The roundtrip is 9.8 miles long, about the same distance as the Kinsman route; Tripyramid is several miles longer.

One member of the party pushed for more, as he had since the car began its northward roll from Central New England; one wanted to stick with the agreed-upon under-10-miles option; one rolled her eyes. The dog didn’t really care.

The first 1.8 miles of the route (Hancock Notch Trail) is an old railroad grade; the next .8 miles (Cedar Brook Trail) is an old logging road; the next 4.8 miles (Hancock Loop Trail) crosses Mt. Hancock (4,420 feet) and South Hancock (4,319 feet), with steep trails up or down each, and a long delightful ridge joining the two.

At the trailhead, the party assessed its gear – each had a windbreaker, but no raingear; each had some form of top layer – but not very warm; all had gloves – although one climber’s were leather Stihl work gloves left in the car from brush clearing; one had a warm hat, one had a baseball cap, one had no hat; and no one had headlamp or flashlight. On the plus side, two had first-aid kits; all had trekking poles; and all carried water and food.

Fortune favored them. They made the climb without mishap, stayed warm by moving steadily and donning windbreakers in the stiff gales sweeping over the summits and connecting ridge, and were lucky with the rain, which held off.

There was, however, little margin in their wardrobe for worse weather, or in their timetable for mishap.

After the brutal climb up Mt. Hancock, one member of the party declined to pause on the summit, even though the view was sublime with rain showers and grey cloudbanks shrouding mountains in the distance. She pushed on for South Hancock while the others lingered for munchies and view. As it turns out, her drive probably paid off in the party's return in good time before dark, as the two lingerers hustled over the next 2.5 miles of trail to catch up.

"I can't believe she's still ahead of us," one kept saying.

They made it back to the car with just over two hours of daylight left, thanks to moving steadily throughout the day.

All vowed to practice in future what they knew: Carry fleece and raingear (which all together weigh ounces, not pounds), hat and gloves, and a headlamp, and be on the trail earlier, with more daylight at the end of the day.

As an aside, as they neared the loop, the trio began polling returning hikers as to which direction was best. The result – from a total of perhaps 18 people in six groups - was an even split, with each group adamant their way was preferable and the other way dumb at best, certain death at worst.

One older gentleman hiking by himself was certain that one direction - South to North - was much shorter than the other. A younger man said he slid down over ledges that would be impossible to climb up, although the trio found no ledges at all on either peak. Several hikers said going up either way was really hard, but coming down was worse.

"Really takes it out of you, doesn't it," observed a middle-aged woman as one of the trio gasped for breath.

A mother and daughter in shorts, on their way down, said they looked fresh because they were freezing.

The trio chose to go up North Peak and down South, and decided they had made by far the best choice, and to have gone in the other direction would have been dumb and far more difficult, if not dangerous.

Another aside: One member of the party had become concerned over the scratch marks that carbide-tipped hiking poles leave on rock, and was experimenting with rubber tips.

LEKI, Komperdell, REI and EMS all make these tips, designed for urban walking.

Why wouldn’t they work in the wilds, the concerned hiker wondered.

They were fine on the flats, but halfway up North Hancock, on the stretch described by the AMC White Mountain Guide as “straight up, very steep and rough,” the Komperdell tips were removed so the poles would stick more securely.

Maybe LEKI tips will work better, the hiker thought. Stay tuned.

July 14, 2007 - None of my last three trips to the wilds involved a pre-trip check of my MSR Whisperlite stove to see whether it actually still worked.

Check out the stove in the comfort of my living room with all the tools I might need right close to hand? Why would I do that?

So what that each of those three times, the stove failed to work until I had poked and prodded and cleaned it in the field, in rain or bitter cold, improvising with tools and makeshift parts out of sewing kits, sticks and rocks? The problem was the same each time: carbon buildup in the burner nozzle, easily remedied by a simple cleaning, after which the stove roared to life and burned without faltering.

Actually, the last time the stove failed to fire up - at Roaring Brook Campground in Baxter State Park in Maine - I borrowed a Leatherman tool from Frank Taylor, a ranger who wandered into camp just as my best efforts sputtered.

A few moments with the right tool and, voila, the gift of fire and warm cocoa.

Using the ranger's Leatherman was OK. I usually bring my own, am fully trained in its use, and borrowing one is not the same as, say, asking directions. (Which guys don't like to do. Much better to get lost and drive around aimlessly.)

But the sewing-kit repair - which involved using a sewing needle to clean a clogged fuel jet while surrounded by 2 million acres of tundra north of the Brooks Range in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - was particularly galling. Why? Because Mother had insisted on giving me the kit before my first trip to this North Slope wilderness in 1988.

“You'll be in the middle of nowhere,” she said, “and you might need to sew something.”

“I won't need it,” I replied. “I have duct tape.”

“Take it anyway,” she said. “It's light.”

And so it went into the First Aid kit, forgotten for many years until that fateful evening - once again on the Arctic tundra - when I realized it was a choice between Cold Supper and Mother Was Right.

Wayne Ridley of New England Backpacker in Worcester, Mass., likes the MSR Whisperlite.

“It's very simple, and it's field-maintainable, where a lot of other stoves are not. Something goes wrong with them, and you have to get a whole new part, you can't just clean it and get it running again,” Ridley said.

(I’ve already mentioned tinkering with the Whisperlite in the field, and getting it running again. Years before MSR had come to be, I was high in the Tetons with an Optimus 8R. That’s the little white-gas stove that came inside its own blue metal carrying box: You just opened the top, primed the burner, set it alight, waited until it warmed enough to vaporize the gas, and the stove was ready to go. Anyway, the rubber pressure-relief seal in the gas tank cap let go, and the stove would not keep pressure required for steady fuel flow. It took awhile to figure out what had happened, and then another while to figure out a solution. I “fixed” it by holding a finger over the gas cap. And replaced the cap upon returning to civilization.)

My Whisperlite stove cost about $45, 19 years ago; the price has increased to $69.

“It costs a little more, but the stove has been improved,” Ridley said. “It comes with ‘shaker jet cleaning,’ which is a little self-cleaning gizmo inside; you just shake it and a needle runs up and down the jet.”

His thoughts on my approach to stove testing and maintenance?

“Always run it before you go,” Ridley said.