#26 Mt. Jefferson

September 20, 2009
Round trip, this hike is only 5 miles but Mt. Jefferson is the 3rd highest mountain in the Whites. While researching this hike, the notes online said not to underestimate this one as most of the hike would be above treeline. I guess some people are uncomfortable with that but with the fantastic weather we had, we didn't have to worry about lightening or rain/snow. We planned to meet at the trailhead for Caps Ridge Trail at 8:30. I woke up at 3:30 and was fighting a cold. It was hard to get out of my warm bed, especially since it was close to freezing outside. The road to the trailhead was so cool. It's the highest highway in the White Mountains, or so the sign on the road said, and it was just a dirt road in the woods. I missed a turn earlier and had to stop a couple times and ended up being an hour late. I got my boots on and was ready to go really fast though. We left around 9:45 and the beginning of the trail was cold in the shadows of the pines. We came out of the woods pretty quickly. Not long after we did, there was some steep rocks to climb. A couple with 2 dogs passed us. We could see way up to what looked like the summit of Jefferson. Of course, once we got up there, there was a lot further to go.

We came to a lookout and I took some pictures. We could see people ahead of us walking around on the rocks and could hear them to. I could hear someone talking over everyone else and it turned out to be the guy who passed us with the dogs. One of his dogs took off into the short scrub pines, I guess because it got spooked by the steep rocks. Gwen and I both tried to talk to them but they didn't want any help. I figured they would give up but they passed us again. I was hoping they would give up. The dog was obviously really tired. He said that the dog had done Eisenhower the day before with them. I tried to tell him that they get tired like people do but he wasn't hearing it. He had his mind set on them all summiting Jefferson.

The first part was really steep but closer to the top was just really rocky. It looked like a big pile of mossy rocks. I thought the top looked like what I've seen of Everest without the snow, although there was some ice.

We could see the summit of Washington clearly. In fact, the weather was absolutely perfect, not a cloud in sight. I got a little bit of sun burn on my nose. For some reason the cog railroad wasn't running. Maybe because it was after Labor Day?

Gwen wasn't feeling great either. She thought at the time she might have asthma (that has since been verified!). She had an inhaler in the car and wasn't sure how to use it. She had to stop once to let her lungs calm down. I could hear her wheezing from where I was sitting. I can't imagine how scary that must be gasping for breath at 5,000 feet and knowing you have to get yourself down still.

The distance to the summit was deceiving. Being able to see the top made it seem closer than it was. We finally summited at 2:00pm.

There were a lot of people on the summit including a large group of middle aged women. Gwen and I actually lost each other at the summit. I was scouting out locations for our summit picture and she was with a family on the true summit. Mt. Washington seemed so close. On the way down, Gwen said she was feeling tired but that she felt better going down. It was tough going down all those rocks and it took a lot longer to maneuver over them then I thought it would. I love my hiking boots but I really need some new ones. The sides were starting to come unglued. By the end of the hike I was tired and cranky :( Probably because I underestimated this hike (I was warned not to do that!) We finally got back to the cars at 6:00 and there was a group of people drinking in the parking lot. One of the guys who was carrying a pit bull tried making small talk with me. My intuition was telling me this was a bad guy. I asked Gwen what she thought that was all about and she said "they're casing the joint". I think she was right. We didn't do our usual going out to dinner this time because we had to work in the morning. We were both wiped out from this one for a few days.

#24 & #25 Wilcat 'D' & 'A'

Met Moss (Gwen) at Pinkam Notch visitors center at 8:40. We would be taking the Wildcat Ridge Trail to the Nineteen Mile Brook Trail, a loop, so we had to drop a car off at the end of the trail.

There's a river crossing at the very beginning of the trail. The 4K book said if the water's too high to get across the river, you have to go a mile up the river to cross over, so we attempted crossing. I was able to make it about half way hopping on rocks, before the rocks ran out. We looked to see if there was an easier spot to cross. Not finding one, we then decided to take our boots off and try to walk across. I hopped to the half way spot again then walked through the water on smooth river rocks. The water was so freakin' cold, I thought my legs would turn to ice. They were almost ceasing up. I promptly got back on a rock and screamed until the feeling came back. It was colder than the ocean in Maine. Moss was attempting to cross the whole thing right through the water. I watched from my rock perch as her legs went further and further under water. We decided to go back to that point a mile upstream and start from there. It was a nice trail, winding through a bolder field and following the other side of the river. It was a little frustrating though because it added another mile and an hour to the hike. I was getting whiffs of delicious smells every now and then. Sweet and purfumy. Musky and fruity.

The trail was also covered in mica and quartz. Not long after getting under way, I fell on a big rock and smacked down hard on my side. My 2 water bottles that were in the side pockets of my pack went flying, into mud. I kept saying to Moss "that's gonna bruise" and it did, big time. A nice technicolor circle about 8" around.
The first part of the Wildcat Ridge Trail is really steep. The book said all the work would be at the beginning, then the trail would level off at the top. There were a lot of sheer rock faces and at parts, they had wood blocks secured to the rocks acting as steps. I don't know how they were secured but they were pretty handy. I was glad we were doing a loop though, I wouldn't have wanted to go back down that route. The rocks were wet and covered with slugs. She is kind to inchworms but she may have killed a couple slugs, but not on purpose. There were a couple of ledges where you could see Mt. Washington across from us and Route 16 below. It gave the impression that we were closer to the top than we really were, there was plenty of more climbing to do.

There are 5 Wildcat peaks; A, B, C, D & E. None of them were marked, except D with a viewing platform, so I couldn't really tell where we were at any point. When we got close to D, we could hear the gondola that goes up to the top of the ski hills. There were maybe 10 people who had taken the gondola to the top and were walking around taking pictures. When we got to the summit of D (the viewing platform was closed), we met up with a couple who had passed us earlier. They were really nice. They live in Germany and take a vacation every year to visit her family and to work on the 4K footers. They've been at it as long as we have and have bagged a couple more peaks than us. They were taking the ski trails back down because they had already done peak A.

We continued on and it was getting late in the day. This part of the hike seemed to take forever. It was just up and down, up and down. It took about 3 hours and 20 minutes to our next trail intersection, Nineteen Mile Brook Trail, and at that point we still had another 4 miles to go to get back to my car. We had passed the summit of peak A, but we don't know where exactly. When we finally came to the intersection for Nineteen Mile Brook Trail, I yelled out "alleluia!" and some weird guy came out from behind some trees. He was camping in the woods and was like, "hey..what's going on?".
It was 6:20 at this point and getting dark. It was down hill but still rocky so we didn't go as fast as I thought we would at this point. Luckily, it was the day before the summer solstice so we had a lot of daylight to burn. We ran out of water at 7:30. Moss had a water filter and we stopped at a river so she could filter some. I took a couple pictures while Moss pumped away on the filter. After what felt like a long time, she held up the water bottle and there was about 3/4 of an inch of water in there. "Does that seem right to you?" she asked. It didn't. I said "lets just take a couple swigs and go without until we get back to the car, I have water and Gatorade in my car". Time was a-wasting. To make matters worse, the trail follows a river so you can't hear the highway. Usually, you can use that as a gauge as to how close you are to the road. I was thinking "how much further can I go?" "how much more can I take?" and some how just kept walking...and walking....and walking. I started yelling that I was going out of my f#$%ing mind at one point. Moss said "go ahead". We finally had to put on head lamps. Luckily, it was only for like a half hour. The mica in the soil sparkled. We finally got to the car at 8:58. Almost 12 hours of hiking!

I stopped at McDonald's on the way home and ended up leaving before I got any food because they didn't have any fries ready and I was too tired to wait around. Driving home was a little scary, I kept nodding off a little and had to shake my head to wake up. It was so nice to be home in my own bed though, it was worth it.
Peak D marked our half way point of peak bagging. 23 more to go!

#23 North Kinsman

5/23/09 - I should have known by the way this day started the way it would end.

I was meeting Gwen at the trailhead at 8:30. For some reason, I came really close to running out of gas. I don’t usually do this but I just kept driving, even when the gas light came on. I knew I had at least 20 miles after the light came on so I just kept going. I came close to running out, but I did eventually make it to a gas station, bought some food and met Gwen. The trailhead for Kinsman had been recently relocated so we found the new trailhead (Mt. Kinsman Trail to Kinsman Ridge Trail). As we were packing up, there was a group leaving ahead of us. A father and his 2 sons (I guessed). Two couples came out of the woods and said they couldn’t find the trail and had lost an hour looking for it. They were headed up the road to the old trailhead. We decided to do our best to find it. They said someone told them the marked trail was not the way to go, use the trail to the right of it (this turned out to be the reason they got lost). It looked like the two trails paralled each other. (Left around 9:20) We went the way they sent us and the trail seemed to turn right, over a river and in front a house. I felt it was the wrong way; it was obvious someone was living there and turned around to see if the trail went another way. Gwen stopped and talked to this man who had just pulled up to the house. She told me later he was Bode Miller’s father and that that was the house Bode grew up in. That was cool and all, but I was impatient to get the hike started.
We followed some trees that had ties around them. They quickly disappeared and so did our trail. We figured we must be at least headed in the right direction and decided to see if we could bushwhack our way to the correct trail.

We followed the river that had ran by Bode's house and eventually found a trail.


It ended up not being the right trail but at least it was some kind of trail. We came out on the right trail, Mt. Kinsman Trail and the Dad and 2 sons passed us again. They wondered how we got in front of them. Even though we got lost, we ended up saving some time.

Gwen was leading the way and asked how her pace was. I told her she was going too fast for me. I wasn't feeling well but I was hoping it would go away. I kept thinking "maybe if I eat something, maybe if I drink more, maybe I'm drinking too much". I had to keep stopping. My stomach was upset and I felt like I could throw up and I wanted to. The closer we got to the summit, the worse I felt. I started getting dizzy and shaky and cold. I sat down for a long time and felt a little better. I almost gave up about 3 times. I was trying to phyche myself out to keep going but I also had to think about getting back down and whether I was making the situation worse by continuing on. We decided we would summit the north peak and leave the south for another day. I was so bummed out; the only logical way to do the south peak is to go over north. Gwen was super understanding though.












We summited around 2:00. It was cold and windy.












I felt a lot better on the way down and had plenty of energy to get down. Gwen gave herself a trail name: Moss. I like it and like she said, at least the day wasn't a total loss; she got a trail name.











We got back to the cars at around 5:30. Someone had blocked off the wrong path we followed.


On the drive to the highway, I noticed I had driven by the Cannon Tram and hadn't even noticed it on the way in. I guess I was too freaked out to notice because I was low on gas. I was really disappointed things turned out the way they did and I wouldn't even write this down, but we did technically do a 4,000er.

Went to the Woodstock Inn for dinner, the best part of the day! I met a couple girls in the bathroom who were washing up in the sink. They said they had been backpacking for 4 days.





We will have to come back and do this whole hike again..Ugh.

New Hikes Coming Soon!!

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"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

-Sir Winston Churchill