TroutBumNH
Member
OK.. Bear with me.. About a month ago, I went in an bagged Isolation as my 48th. We went in (Sarah and I) via the Rocky Branch/Isolation/Davis route... it was an out and back, and it had replaced the Glen Boulder route as we lost some time getting on the trail in the AM.
The hike was uneventful, if wet (insert requisite 'Dry River Wilderness?!' joke), but we got some views at the summit, and I enjoyed a Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre. We made it back down to the car, stayed at a local B&B after an outstanding dinner.
I wanted to write up a report here, but something started nagging at me, and I went back in a trip journal to check something out... and there it was... the summer I'd peaked Jefferson (only one time, for some reason) contained many trips up Washington, and I wasn't focused on peakbagging at the time..
My one trip up Jefferson consisted of a walk in via the Great Gulf trail, an overnight, and then up Six Husbands' to Jefferson, and over to Big George. The night in the Gulf was outstanding, as was hitting the snow patch on Jefferson's Knee. But on George, something happened... I had a corporate function that night that I'd agreed to miss, but we'd made good enough time that I might be able to make it... if... we hitched a ride down big George.
Yupper... we short circuited our trip, because my partner was able to make an engagement as well. So we bailed down the mountain via thumb (with an eastern european couple who bickered in their native tongue the whole way).
I realized this about a week after I 'completed' the 48. Two weeks ago, Jason called and asked me to do Huntington>Washington>down via Boott Spurr with him... We did so on a beautiful day with bluebird skies. On this trip, I told him about my 'miss' on a peak, and that I had to hit Jefferson again before sending in my paperwork...
He called me on Tuesday, and told me he was taking Friday off to hike.. i checked the weather and asked if he could do Thursday instead (9/28). He said yes, and we were off... After having killed our knees doing our Huntington, over the top, down around the rim of Tuckerman, and down Boott Spur trip, we decided to spot a car @ Caps Ridge trailhead.. we continued onto Appalachia.
I had decided to try a trail I'd hike about 5 years ago again, and always rave about... The Great Gully Trail. Jason hadn't done either Adams or Jefferson yet, and I thought we might as well bag two peaks, in case he starts checkin' his list. We set out along the Airline/Shortline/Randolphs/Shortline trail, and have to note that the Edmands-laid Shortline is an absolutely outstanding walk. You don't get the feeling you're doing too much vertical, but it's extremely pleasant! Most of the colors were already turning, and the trail was largely a leaf-covered stroll.
Upon joining the King Ravine Trail at Mossy Falls (very pretty), the trail gets steep up to the floor of the Ravine. You do some rock hopping, but if you choose to take the Elevated instead of the Subway, traversing the floor of King Ravine is much easier than Huntington... there's no 'interminable crawl'; up Fan-type of terrain. After .7 miles, there's the intersection with the Great Gully Trail, and it was everything I remembered... 'The Book' says it's 1.0 miles and 1700' vertical. Well, the first .1-.2 miles of the trail is a pleasant walk on relatively level ground, so most of that vert. is in .7 or .8 miles (there's more 'leveling' at the top).
The Great Gully differs from most headwall trails in that although it's steep (per Jason, 'This kicks Huntington's butt all over the place'), it's rarely that as much all-rock scrambling that is so common on the other headwall routes.. instead, it's a mossy, grassy, at times boggy jaunt right up the sides of a waterfall. It is perhaps the most 'friendly' steep trail I've scaled in the Whites, but I also believe it's rarely visited, and is left off many lists of the 'toughest'. That said, the 'crux' as described in the book is no big deal: you're just best off taking off your pack and taking about 1 yard on your belly.
As with all headwall trails, there's the moderation of slope at the top that fools you for a bit... at the top of King Ravine on the Great Gully trail, it's a night, lawn-y area. You can see the cairn at Thunderstorm Junction for quite a ways... It had been beautiful if somewhat cloudy.. we had an undercloud in King Ravine much of the way up the Gully. The wind increased as we reached Thunderstorm Junction, and we just got to enjoy a few minutes of clear weather before clouds rolled up from the Great Gulf side, and we were socked in the rest of the trip.
We dropped our packs and summited Adams, where we saw our first trail-mates of the day. We were rock hopping up to the summit, and I drew a stern lecture from one of the gentlemen: "You're underdressed and it's extremely cold up there". Well, I had everything I needed, and we were about 25 vertical feet from the summit. I was bummed for Jason that the views were not to be had. We bounded back down, picked up our packs, and set off across the Gulfside. After having made our way up the GG trail, and then up the final 300 vertical of Adams, the 1.3 on the Gulfside over to Edmands Col passed in what seemed like moments. The wind was howling, but we just put our heads down and slogged on. Up to the Loop Trail intersection, and up over Jefferson. It was similarly socked in, and we continued onto the Caps Ridge Trail, tagged the summit, and kept on going. The wind for the first time had some raindrops in it, and we were afraid we might get soaked on the way down.
Caps Ridge made for a fun descent. We felt we were cheating somewhat by bailing to a 'high' trailhead, but after so much vertical (more on that in a graph), decided we didn't want to bang up our knees w/ undue downhill.. So after exposed Caps portion of the trail, the bottom 1.25 miles or so were mostly outstanding footing that was a good warm-down after all the rocks and wind.
We made it back to the spotted car, and I measured up book footage to find that we had done 5271 vertical, a mere 9 feet short of a vertical mile! Jason reminded me that I'd dropped my hat one point and had gone back at least 30 vertical feet to claim it, so we decided I'd done the mile vertical. Not bad.
So there it is... my two trips that made up my 'completion' of the 48. I honestly thought I was done on Isolation, but I'm glad I checked the trail log. At first, I was going to do an up-and-down on the Caps Ridge Trail, but I didn't think it did big Jeff justice, so we altered our path...
Anyway, sorry for the length, but I wanted to be honest to the VFTT community about having missed by the rules, and having gone back and attained the goal. It feels good, and here goes my paperwork to the 4000-footer committee!
The hike was uneventful, if wet (insert requisite 'Dry River Wilderness?!' joke), but we got some views at the summit, and I enjoyed a Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre. We made it back down to the car, stayed at a local B&B after an outstanding dinner.
I wanted to write up a report here, but something started nagging at me, and I went back in a trip journal to check something out... and there it was... the summer I'd peaked Jefferson (only one time, for some reason) contained many trips up Washington, and I wasn't focused on peakbagging at the time..
My one trip up Jefferson consisted of a walk in via the Great Gulf trail, an overnight, and then up Six Husbands' to Jefferson, and over to Big George. The night in the Gulf was outstanding, as was hitting the snow patch on Jefferson's Knee. But on George, something happened... I had a corporate function that night that I'd agreed to miss, but we'd made good enough time that I might be able to make it... if... we hitched a ride down big George.
Yupper... we short circuited our trip, because my partner was able to make an engagement as well. So we bailed down the mountain via thumb (with an eastern european couple who bickered in their native tongue the whole way).
I realized this about a week after I 'completed' the 48. Two weeks ago, Jason called and asked me to do Huntington>Washington>down via Boott Spurr with him... We did so on a beautiful day with bluebird skies. On this trip, I told him about my 'miss' on a peak, and that I had to hit Jefferson again before sending in my paperwork...
He called me on Tuesday, and told me he was taking Friday off to hike.. i checked the weather and asked if he could do Thursday instead (9/28). He said yes, and we were off... After having killed our knees doing our Huntington, over the top, down around the rim of Tuckerman, and down Boott Spur trip, we decided to spot a car @ Caps Ridge trailhead.. we continued onto Appalachia.
I had decided to try a trail I'd hike about 5 years ago again, and always rave about... The Great Gully Trail. Jason hadn't done either Adams or Jefferson yet, and I thought we might as well bag two peaks, in case he starts checkin' his list. We set out along the Airline/Shortline/Randolphs/Shortline trail, and have to note that the Edmands-laid Shortline is an absolutely outstanding walk. You don't get the feeling you're doing too much vertical, but it's extremely pleasant! Most of the colors were already turning, and the trail was largely a leaf-covered stroll.
Upon joining the King Ravine Trail at Mossy Falls (very pretty), the trail gets steep up to the floor of the Ravine. You do some rock hopping, but if you choose to take the Elevated instead of the Subway, traversing the floor of King Ravine is much easier than Huntington... there's no 'interminable crawl'; up Fan-type of terrain. After .7 miles, there's the intersection with the Great Gully Trail, and it was everything I remembered... 'The Book' says it's 1.0 miles and 1700' vertical. Well, the first .1-.2 miles of the trail is a pleasant walk on relatively level ground, so most of that vert. is in .7 or .8 miles (there's more 'leveling' at the top).
The Great Gully differs from most headwall trails in that although it's steep (per Jason, 'This kicks Huntington's butt all over the place'), it's rarely that as much all-rock scrambling that is so common on the other headwall routes.. instead, it's a mossy, grassy, at times boggy jaunt right up the sides of a waterfall. It is perhaps the most 'friendly' steep trail I've scaled in the Whites, but I also believe it's rarely visited, and is left off many lists of the 'toughest'. That said, the 'crux' as described in the book is no big deal: you're just best off taking off your pack and taking about 1 yard on your belly.
As with all headwall trails, there's the moderation of slope at the top that fools you for a bit... at the top of King Ravine on the Great Gully trail, it's a night, lawn-y area. You can see the cairn at Thunderstorm Junction for quite a ways... It had been beautiful if somewhat cloudy.. we had an undercloud in King Ravine much of the way up the Gully. The wind increased as we reached Thunderstorm Junction, and we just got to enjoy a few minutes of clear weather before clouds rolled up from the Great Gulf side, and we were socked in the rest of the trip.
We dropped our packs and summited Adams, where we saw our first trail-mates of the day. We were rock hopping up to the summit, and I drew a stern lecture from one of the gentlemen: "You're underdressed and it's extremely cold up there". Well, I had everything I needed, and we were about 25 vertical feet from the summit. I was bummed for Jason that the views were not to be had. We bounded back down, picked up our packs, and set off across the Gulfside. After having made our way up the GG trail, and then up the final 300 vertical of Adams, the 1.3 on the Gulfside over to Edmands Col passed in what seemed like moments. The wind was howling, but we just put our heads down and slogged on. Up to the Loop Trail intersection, and up over Jefferson. It was similarly socked in, and we continued onto the Caps Ridge Trail, tagged the summit, and kept on going. The wind for the first time had some raindrops in it, and we were afraid we might get soaked on the way down.
Caps Ridge made for a fun descent. We felt we were cheating somewhat by bailing to a 'high' trailhead, but after so much vertical (more on that in a graph), decided we didn't want to bang up our knees w/ undue downhill.. So after exposed Caps portion of the trail, the bottom 1.25 miles or so were mostly outstanding footing that was a good warm-down after all the rocks and wind.
We made it back to the spotted car, and I measured up book footage to find that we had done 5271 vertical, a mere 9 feet short of a vertical mile! Jason reminded me that I'd dropped my hat one point and had gone back at least 30 vertical feet to claim it, so we decided I'd done the mile vertical. Not bad.
So there it is... my two trips that made up my 'completion' of the 48. I honestly thought I was done on Isolation, but I'm glad I checked the trail log. At first, I was going to do an up-and-down on the Caps Ridge Trail, but I didn't think it did big Jeff justice, so we altered our path...
Anyway, sorry for the length, but I wanted to be honest to the VFTT community about having missed by the rules, and having gone back and attained the goal. It feels good, and here goes my paperwork to the 4000-footer committee!
one that has allot of great trails and wonderful views! Nice trip report. 
