Daniel Eagan
Active member
My wife and I had done most of the Presidentials over the past few years, and reading reports here and on other boards convinced me that we should try a full-fledged traverse. But we live in New York City, and can't train the way those of you farther up North can. Nor can we wait for better weather: we have to book far ahead, and hope for the best.
Using frequent flier miles, we flew to Manchester on Thursday and drove up to Crawford Notch. A friend who was going to spot cars with us backed out at ten o'clock the night before, leaving us scrambling to find a way to the Appalachia trailhead. We called the Shuttle Connection, and got a pricey ride from the AMC hostel to the Appalachia parking lot.
We left up Valley Way at around 2:30. Yes, I know it's cheating, but I have to be realistic about my abilities. That day my goal was to get back to the car. We reached the hut a little before six, battling bugs, humidity, and a trail that gets steeper each year. Milling about: the usual assortment of through hikers, section hikers, wealthy businessmen sporting new gear, unruly kids, and cheaters like me. We met a through hiker from Australia, an upbeat, shaven-headed guy who was the smelliest human I ever met; section-hiker retirees from North Carolina who were impeccably groomed and dressed; a vegetarian who passed up a decent salad for a bowl of unbelievably tasteless pasta shells; and two or three wide-eyed, frightened kids who weren't really sure where they were.
The original plan was to get up at 5:00 a.m., climb Madison, have breakfast, and embark. But the weather after dinner was so incredible that we couldn't resist climbing then. We came down right at sunset, the hut and col bathed in a golden light, Washington's summit swathed in clouds.
We were awake at five anyway. I could hear drizzle through the wind, and could barely see the side of the hut through the clouds. Within minutes it started pouring. Flashes of lightning lit up the murk. Thunder rolled across the summits. I thought about our car, many miles away, and worked out how we could get from Appalachia to Crawford Notch below treeline.
Everyone got up slowly, but by six-thirty the rain had diminished to drizzle again. Having missed the early AMC shuttle, I told my wife that if the weather got any better we should just head on. It was drizzling with a steady wind on the way up to Adams. Visibility limited on the summit, maybe fifty to a hundred feet. On the way over to Jefferson we caught glimpses into the Great Gulf, but the cloud cover was pretty consistently around 5000 feet.
The last time we had been to Jefferson the intersection below the summit was covered with trash. This time it was clean, austere, beautiful, although we couldn't see far. We continued down the loop to Gulfside, then over Clay. We could hear the train, but we never caught a good look. This was new trail to us, and we were surprised at how easy it was to ascend Washington this way. Crossing the train tracks in the middle of this hike is pure surrealism.
We reached the summit of Washington around 1:40, slightly ahead of book time. Unfortunately, the summit buildings suck up time. We didn't head down to the Lakes of the Clouds hut until 2:30. I would regret that delay later. We passed many groups of incredibly cheery, upbeat women hiking north. The hut looked inviting, but we didn't have time. Up Monroe and back into the clouds.
I had crashed and burned on a Dix trail crew early in June, and my wife and I concluded it was because I wasn't eating enough. For this trip we had a big breakfast, and then something small before every uphill. With nuts and raisins, apples, cherries, a Toblerone bar, bagels with peanut butter, sausage and cheese, tomatoes, Clif bars, and a bottle of Gatorade from the Mt. Washington cafeteria, I'm happy to report that I suffered no leg cramps and no sudden spells of depression. Until we got down from Monroe. This was another stretch we had never done, and we had no way to gauge how long it took to reconnect with the Crawford Path. That was the most sobering point of the day.
The most depressing was spotting Eisenhower far, far away from the Franklin plateau. At least the clouds had cleared, and the views were amazing. The trail was a lot easier south of Monroe, and we got to the top of Eisenhower a little before six. Now it was a race over to the Webster-Cliff trail. No more stopping to look at flowers (which included diapensia, rhodora, alpine azalea, bilberry, sandwort, and bog laurel) or views. We did pass two hikers with packs going north. They were both wearing headphones, which baffled me no end. What could they be listening to that was better than the sounds of an open wildernes? We reached the junction at 7:00. With the late start and the long delay on Washington, I opted to head straight down to our car. (After tagging Pierce first, of course.) We got to the road in a couple of hours.
My hat's off to all of you other hikers who do the whole traverse. Now that we know how much we can do, my wife and I have a new goal for next year. With luck we might get the whole thing done.
Using frequent flier miles, we flew to Manchester on Thursday and drove up to Crawford Notch. A friend who was going to spot cars with us backed out at ten o'clock the night before, leaving us scrambling to find a way to the Appalachia trailhead. We called the Shuttle Connection, and got a pricey ride from the AMC hostel to the Appalachia parking lot.
We left up Valley Way at around 2:30. Yes, I know it's cheating, but I have to be realistic about my abilities. That day my goal was to get back to the car. We reached the hut a little before six, battling bugs, humidity, and a trail that gets steeper each year. Milling about: the usual assortment of through hikers, section hikers, wealthy businessmen sporting new gear, unruly kids, and cheaters like me. We met a through hiker from Australia, an upbeat, shaven-headed guy who was the smelliest human I ever met; section-hiker retirees from North Carolina who were impeccably groomed and dressed; a vegetarian who passed up a decent salad for a bowl of unbelievably tasteless pasta shells; and two or three wide-eyed, frightened kids who weren't really sure where they were.
The original plan was to get up at 5:00 a.m., climb Madison, have breakfast, and embark. But the weather after dinner was so incredible that we couldn't resist climbing then. We came down right at sunset, the hut and col bathed in a golden light, Washington's summit swathed in clouds.
We were awake at five anyway. I could hear drizzle through the wind, and could barely see the side of the hut through the clouds. Within minutes it started pouring. Flashes of lightning lit up the murk. Thunder rolled across the summits. I thought about our car, many miles away, and worked out how we could get from Appalachia to Crawford Notch below treeline.
Everyone got up slowly, but by six-thirty the rain had diminished to drizzle again. Having missed the early AMC shuttle, I told my wife that if the weather got any better we should just head on. It was drizzling with a steady wind on the way up to Adams. Visibility limited on the summit, maybe fifty to a hundred feet. On the way over to Jefferson we caught glimpses into the Great Gulf, but the cloud cover was pretty consistently around 5000 feet.
The last time we had been to Jefferson the intersection below the summit was covered with trash. This time it was clean, austere, beautiful, although we couldn't see far. We continued down the loop to Gulfside, then over Clay. We could hear the train, but we never caught a good look. This was new trail to us, and we were surprised at how easy it was to ascend Washington this way. Crossing the train tracks in the middle of this hike is pure surrealism.
We reached the summit of Washington around 1:40, slightly ahead of book time. Unfortunately, the summit buildings suck up time. We didn't head down to the Lakes of the Clouds hut until 2:30. I would regret that delay later. We passed many groups of incredibly cheery, upbeat women hiking north. The hut looked inviting, but we didn't have time. Up Monroe and back into the clouds.
I had crashed and burned on a Dix trail crew early in June, and my wife and I concluded it was because I wasn't eating enough. For this trip we had a big breakfast, and then something small before every uphill. With nuts and raisins, apples, cherries, a Toblerone bar, bagels with peanut butter, sausage and cheese, tomatoes, Clif bars, and a bottle of Gatorade from the Mt. Washington cafeteria, I'm happy to report that I suffered no leg cramps and no sudden spells of depression. Until we got down from Monroe. This was another stretch we had never done, and we had no way to gauge how long it took to reconnect with the Crawford Path. That was the most sobering point of the day.
The most depressing was spotting Eisenhower far, far away from the Franklin plateau. At least the clouds had cleared, and the views were amazing. The trail was a lot easier south of Monroe, and we got to the top of Eisenhower a little before six. Now it was a race over to the Webster-Cliff trail. No more stopping to look at flowers (which included diapensia, rhodora, alpine azalea, bilberry, sandwort, and bog laurel) or views. We did pass two hikers with packs going north. They were both wearing headphones, which baffled me no end. What could they be listening to that was better than the sounds of an open wildernes? We reached the junction at 7:00. With the late start and the long delay on Washington, I opted to head straight down to our car. (After tagging Pierce first, of course.) We got to the road in a couple of hours.
My hat's off to all of you other hikers who do the whole traverse. Now that we know how much we can do, my wife and I have a new goal for next year. With luck we might get the whole thing done.
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