August 10th 2013: Waterfall Rappelling in the White Mountains

I woke up really early today to go waterfall rappelling with Northeast Mountaineering on the Ripley Falls in Hart's Location NH. After arriving at the Bunkhouse in Bartlett NH and signing a few forms, we waited for everyone to arrive before the initial lesson started on how to attach the rope to the harness, and how to rappel properly by always leaning backwards.

After the briefing, we followed the instructor to the trailhead close to the Ripley Falls in Hart's Location NH,

then hiked in full gear

along the Ripley Falls Trail

to get to the beautiful waterfall that we were going to climb down. The path we took to get to the waterfall is shown below in pink.

The waterfall itself is beautiful.

After we climbed to the top of the falls, we waited while the instructors set stuff up, so  I took the opportunity to take more pictures of the beautiful scenery from up here.

When my turn came, I became a little apprehensive, having a fear of heights. Climbing down the waterfall was pretty slow and arduous, as leaning back made my back tire and hurt after a while, forcing me to take frequent breaks, with the instructor constantly yelling at me to lean back, which was the one thing I did not want to do.

Getting drenched by the cold water from the falls, which was more intense today because of the rains yesterday, was pretty refreshing though. Looking down to my final destination from the top was not as fun though. I was just glad when I finally reached the end of my journey. Because of my injured wrist, I decided to not take any more risks and waited while my friends tried rappelling a few more times before we finally headed back to our cars for the day. After our rappelling adventure, my friend and I decided to grab some chow at Bart's Deli and General Store nearby, with me getting the Black Russian Panini (Turkey, Pastrami, Swiss, Russian Dressing),

while my friend got the Loaded Steak and Cheese Sandwich,

which were both pretty good, if not for the peppers and onions on my friend's sandwich.

After lunch, we decided to go visit the Arethusa Falls, parking below near the trailhead below the Frankenstein Cliffs.

From here, the path we walked to get to the falls and the Frankenstein Cliff Overlook along the Arethusa Falls Trail is shown below in pink.

The Arethusa Falls themselves were pretty impressive, much better than the Ripley Falls. I'm glad we did not rappel down this one though.

The views from the overlook were pretty awesome as well, even though we had to walk a long arduous journey to get there,

and we were able to spot our car parked in the lot far below from there as well.

The only way from here was down, and it was really tiring for me, especially on my knees. Thankfully, the constant going up and down allowed me to rest different parts of my legs while going uphill or downhill, so it made it a little easier, although I did have to stop a few times along the way to rest them so I did not injure myself. Some pictures I took along the way here follow.

We were just extremely exhausted and happy when we finally got back to the car after a long day of fun hiking and rappelling. I'm just disappointed that even after all our efforts, we missed out on the Bemis Brook Falls, the Coliseum Falls, and the Falcon Cliff Overlook. Oh well, guess I'll come back again sometime in future.