Northern Prezi Traverse (AT1Day)

I've taken a short hiatus from posting on here for a few reasons.  One, at the end of my road trip, my dear Wombat bit the dust in Sheridan, Wyoming, and that kinda took it all out of me for awhile.  After catching public transport home over the next week, I was focusing on the fact that I was back home after 2 months on the road, and finding a place for all the stuff I had brought back with me.  I didn't want to relive the less-than-great ending to my trip again, so I avoided writing about it.  However, I am back to write about a delightful hike I did since returning to Maine.

While I was stuck carless in Sheridan, Wyoming, I came across an event that was taking place along the Appalachian Trail on June 20th, the world's first attempt to have all of the AT hiked by someone over the course of 24 hours.  Each person signed up to hike a segment (or several depending on length), but there were no rules saying more than one person couldn't do the same segment.  I chose to take the segment in New Hampshire from Pinkham Notch to the Mt. Washington summit. The AT goes the long way to the summit, first hitting the rest of the northern Presidentials (Mt. Madison, Mt. Adams, Mt. Jefferson, and Mt. Clay), which comes out to about 12.5 miles.  (Technically speaking, the AT doesn't summit each of those, but I took the loops up to the summits that weren't along the AT for extra bragging rights.)

Because I had such a long day planned (12.5 miles plus the mileage of whichever route I took down), I thought it would be good to drive down the night before and camp, allowing for a super early start the next morning.  On the evening of June 19th, I got my hiking gear, food, and water together for a late night drive out to New Hampshire.  It was great to finally be doing it for real, since I had felt the tug of the hills ever since returning to Maine.  The breeze through my bedroom windows at night was a nostalgic sensation of being out in the mountains last summer.

After a slightly tiresome but still enjoyable 3.25 hour drive to Pinkham Notch, I arrived in an already mostly full parking lot.  Last summer I had heard of a neat place to stealth camp in Pinkham Notch called Square Ledge, a short trail up on the opposite side of the valley as Mt. Washington with a flat rocky top.  With a perfectly clear night in the forecast, I was planning on sleeping under the stars that night.  The climb up to the huge ledge was pretty short, and filled with spiderwebs in my face.  Upon reaching the top, I saw a few tents expertly nested between the trees, but that was no worry since I was going front and center to the middle of the ledge with my sleeping bag.

It was just shy of 1am by the time I got set up, but I was still torn between looking up and the millions of stars or trying to get some rest. After seeing a shooting star, I fell into a sleep of sorts, planning to get up at 5am.  Instead, I was awoken by a large black thing coming at me. I thought it was a hungry bear.  But then I saw it had a red headlamp on, which most bears do not.  There was a sequence of screaming between me and the not-bear, as I realized this was a human that had gotten up at 3am to take in his camera that was set up to catch the Milky Way that night.

I tried and failed to go back to sleep at this point, and figured why not just hike down to the car, get some breakfast, and start hiking. Breakfast consisted of stuffing as much food in me as possible as well as stuffing as much as I could fit into my backpack for later.  I was excited to be bringing along some BBQ kettle chips, which are my new hiking staple.

The trailhead at 4:08 am!

Aside from more spiderwebs catching my face since I was presumably the first person on this trail for the day, it was pretty easy to follow with some headlamp assistance.  I stopped by Lowe's Bald Spot, about 2 miles in, but a peek at the brightening horizon.

Lowe Bald Spot was just inside the Great Gulf Wilderness, which allows nothing mechanical, no motorized vehicles, no bikes, and even no chainsaws for trail maintenance.  All blowdowns were taken care off with AXES, which I thought was impressive.

A few more miles and the sun came over the horizon to greet me.  I consider this my summer solstice sunrise since the actual solstice was cloudy and rainy.

The earliest visible sunrise of 2015

Crossing a branch of the Peabody River is this nifty cable bridge.  It's along part of the Great Gulf Trail, which the AT shares for a bit.  This bridge wiggles when you walk on it, so other hikers, you have been warned.

The Osgood Trail I believe is what took me up to the tree line from the bridge, and despite having hiked many steep trails in the west, I think my legs forgot what steep means in the east.  Breaks were frequent, but the views behind me as I rose quickly were very rewarding.  Soon, I broke tree line, and let me tell you, to see bluebird skies over the Presidentials was quite a gift.  I'd be inclined to say it's the best weather Mt. Washington got and will get all year.

Mt. Washington (left) and Mt. Clay (right)

Going slowly to make sure I didn't lose my footing on the gnarly rocks up here, I made it to the summit of Mt. Madison, at 5367.

Summit of Mt. Madison.  Washington, Clay, and Adams in the background.
Mt. Washington is still over 6 miles away.

After many Wheat Thins, I continued to the next mountain on the list, Mt. Adams.  There is a silly hut at the col which allows people to stay there and cheat at summiting.  (Hey I admit they are probably really nice inside, but it takes the wind out of your sails when I was hiking since 4 in the morning and you arrive halfway through a summit party.)

Here is Madison Hut.

One thousand feet up is Mt. Adams, at 5774.  The second highest mountain in the northeast, and the highest one without a road.  I could see Mt. Madison behind me, and it looks like a mere pimple compared to Adams.

More Wheat Thins and slightly dipping into other snacks, I continued down into the second col, making my way to Mt. Jefferson.  Along this stretch is when I walked along the only snow on my route for the day. There were a few patches elsewhere on the range, but not on trails that I could see.

Snow on the way to Mt. Jefferson

The summit of Mt. Jefferson (5712) was crowded like all the others.  I just sat off to the side and replenished all the darn calories I was burning off.  It was around now I was starting to feel the effects of all these rocks on my feet.  Rocks are very solid compared to a soft forest bed, and after a number of miles, it gets achy on my feet.

After Jefferson was Mt. Clay, which I don't believe is counted on the NH48 since it isn't prominent enough, but it's still worth going over it instead of around it unless you are boring.  It is pleasantly rounded which is a nice change from pointy like the others.

Mt. Clay (5531), with Mt. Washington (6288) getting closer.

The trail crosses the Cog Railway that ascends Mt. Washington.  As I was going past it, a train was coming up, so I waited a minute for it to pass, which was awesome.  The steepest part of this track is 37° from the horizontal.  Which is very steep.

The purple train.  (There was orange, and yellow too)

Nearing the top of the mountain, I could look back and see all the mountains I had come from earlier today.  From left to right, we have Clay, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison.  These are the northern Presidentials, and in the best of weather today.

The northern Prezis.

Some people call the summit of Mt. Washington a zoo, and they are right.  It is a zoo for hikers.  People come here in their cars to see hikers in their semi-natural habitat.  Because of this, the line to take photos at the summit is unbearably long unless you are lucky with timing.  I arrived at the end of the Mt. Washington Road Race, and there was effectively a party on top.  This was as close as I dared to get to the summit sign. (Personally I think hikers should have their own separate sign to help reduce the congestion, or drivers just don't get to have a summit photo by law.)

I spent a good hour on top, with some delicious tortellini with pesto.  I spoke with this older gentleman who sat next to me on a bench, and he had driven up, but he said he had been all up the Maine coast recently, so of course that was a hot topic on conversation.  I decided during my extensive break that I would take Lion's Head Trail down to Pinkham Notch since Tuckerman's Ravine was still partly closed due to snow.

The Boot Spur was clear on the east side of the mountain, with the cairns as small as pebbles from this high up.

Boott Spur, the way I descended last summer.

Because I am such a rebel, I avoided the traffic jam on the trail and made my own which cut off a little bit of mileage to the Lion's Head Trail. This is a neat trail because it goes along the northern edge of the Tuck's Ravine.  From this vantage point, I could see some late season snow left over, but impressively, with ski trails down it still.  Someone was determined to ski very late in the season.

Tuck's Ravine with snow

I had restored my feet some while resting on the summit of Mt. Washington, but after several thousand feet of descent, and not on a gentle slope for that matter, the pain was back again, and I had to try very hard to distract myself from it.  I followed and eventually passed some people who were hilarious to listen to as they struggled down a nicely made staircase of rocks (thank you trail crew!)  I caught up with some guys who were going about my speed, and we talked about ideal places to hike in western Maine, since they were looking for some suggestions.  This broke up the rhythm for awhile, and we took a break at Hermit Lake Shelters for H2O.  I continued ahead of them from here along the very rocky Tuck's Ravine Trail, several miles back to the parking lot.  I was super excited whenever I saw some gravely patches on the trail, because that meant not hobbling over rounded rocks.

The timer read 11:07 when I got back to the Tuck's Ravine trailhead.  A very long day, despite starting at 4am.  I did some math on the map afterward, and the total mileage was 18.6, which isn't breaking any records, but it certainly felt like an accomplishment, having done 5 summits over 5000 feet in a day.  From the parking lot, I could see Square Ledge, where I spent several hours attempting to sleep the night before.  There is a human in the lower right corner if you zoom in enough.  He may be rock climbing, since this is a popular place for such activities.

Square Ledge, my favorite place to sleep in the world

Google Earth always makes an appearance on these trip reports, so here is the track and elevation profile of my hike from the northeast perspective.   The record I did break on this hike was the amount of vertical gain in one day, which comes out to 7500'.  I will forever feel lucky to have hiked this range in such good weather.  I should mention I had the thought of going all the way along the Presidentials to do a full traverse, but my feet were saying "no, no, no, no.  (no.)" by Mt. Washington, so I left it for another time.  Perhaps if weather is good, it would be easier in the winter because you don't have to deal with all the uneven rocks with snow cover.

Google Earth track and elevation profile

Hike Data

Miles hiked: 18.6

Time elapsed: 11.1 hours

Total ascent: 7500'