timmus
Well-known member
My three days peakbagging weekend started Saturday morning at 3 :00 am when I left home. During that trip I did 8 peaks : East Sleeper, Whiteface, Passaconaway, Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Wildcat D & Wildcat A.
After I set up camp near Twin Mountain, I headed toward the Kanc with the idea of climbing Whiteface and Passaconaway. I started the hike at the Oliverian parking lot, took the x-country trails and reached Downes Brook trail.
I lost my sunglasses while bushwhacking along the brook, and I felt stupid because the water level wasn’t even high, I was just too lazy to cross
I should remember that nothing is suppose to be loose when going off-trail. At the junction with the Kate Sleeper trail, I had the souvenir of Dr Wu telling me, on our Tripyramids hike last year, something like : “Hey Julie, you should go get East Sleeper if one day you consider doing the NH100, it’s only a 5 minutes detour”. Of course I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I didn’t go. It took me 35 minutes to get there and come back, so it wasn’t too bad. Plus that little trail is a pure beauty.
On the Whiteface ridge I got very confused with all the bumps, so I don’t know when I got on top. I went for the view point on Passaconaway, 0,3 miles from the summit, and my effort was rewarded. The view is amazing from there, the best I had all day.
Back to the car at 6:00pm, and back to camp an hour later. My friend Gail was supposed to meet me later that evening, because we had plan a Presidential Traverse Sunday. When I woke up in the morning, her car wasn’t there. Too bad, because the weather was perfect. So I decided to go for a Northern Presidential hike. I went up the Valley way, and got filled with magnificent views as soon as I reached Madison hut. After that everything was like in a dream. Every minute of that day was filled with oh’s and ah’s, and plenty of “oh-my-god-this-place-is-amazing”. I have been on Washington previously, but I think the vista from the North is greater.
It was a pleasure to meet Tim Seaver on the way, who was running the entire ridge. I am always very impress to see hikers like him, with minimum clothes, water and food to go across a 20+ miles hike on hazardous land like the Presis. Anyway, we chat a little and at that point I was considering doing the traverse anyway, trying to figure a way to go from Crawford Notch to Appalachia at the end of the day. I knew that would have been risky, because it would be too late to hitch a ride, and walking was not an option So I forgot about it. Tim told me about the Castle Ravine Trail down Jefferson, but I went for Randolph Path instead. What a good decision ! The portion above tree line is a pure pleasure. There I met a man who looked familiar, but didn’t ask… Hillwalker, was that you ?? I enjoyed dinner and fire by myself that evening, falling asleep on my camping chair around 8:30pm.
On the third day the weather was uncertain, so the Wildcat’s sounded perfect. I found the Wilcat Ridge trail (after a detour on the Glen Ellis Falls path), and I had a lot of fun climbing up the numerous escarpments. Then it was another walk along the Wilcat’s p.u.d’s, actually I got confused again and I got very surprised when I saw Carter Notch hut from a view point !!! I think my map is just not precise enough… I decided to go down the Nineteen Miles Brook trail instead of backtracking because of the chances of rain. I thought it would be easier to hitch a ride on rte 16 than going down the wet ledges down E peak. I was right, but still, I walked 20 minutes before someone stopped. People slowed down, looked at me, even honked me , it was very frustrating ! It was starting to rain when a very nice lady stopped. She said she meets a lot of hikers from Quebec because she owns the Top Notch Hotel in Gorham. I know where to go if one day I get sick of camping
It was a great weekend, can’t wait to go back and get the remaining Presidentials, as well as the 6 others peaks.
Here are my PICS
After I set up camp near Twin Mountain, I headed toward the Kanc with the idea of climbing Whiteface and Passaconaway. I started the hike at the Oliverian parking lot, took the x-country trails and reached Downes Brook trail.
I lost my sunglasses while bushwhacking along the brook, and I felt stupid because the water level wasn’t even high, I was just too lazy to cross
I should remember that nothing is suppose to be loose when going off-trail. At the junction with the Kate Sleeper trail, I had the souvenir of Dr Wu telling me, on our Tripyramids hike last year, something like : “Hey Julie, you should go get East Sleeper if one day you consider doing the NH100, it’s only a 5 minutes detour”. Of course I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I didn’t go. It took me 35 minutes to get there and come back, so it wasn’t too bad. Plus that little trail is a pure beauty.On the Whiteface ridge I got very confused with all the bumps, so I don’t know when I got on top. I went for the view point on Passaconaway, 0,3 miles from the summit, and my effort was rewarded. The view is amazing from there, the best I had all day.
Back to the car at 6:00pm, and back to camp an hour later. My friend Gail was supposed to meet me later that evening, because we had plan a Presidential Traverse Sunday. When I woke up in the morning, her car wasn’t there. Too bad, because the weather was perfect. So I decided to go for a Northern Presidential hike. I went up the Valley way, and got filled with magnificent views as soon as I reached Madison hut. After that everything was like in a dream. Every minute of that day was filled with oh’s and ah’s, and plenty of “oh-my-god-this-place-is-amazing”. I have been on Washington previously, but I think the vista from the North is greater.
It was a pleasure to meet Tim Seaver on the way, who was running the entire ridge. I am always very impress to see hikers like him, with minimum clothes, water and food to go across a 20+ miles hike on hazardous land like the Presis. Anyway, we chat a little and at that point I was considering doing the traverse anyway, trying to figure a way to go from Crawford Notch to Appalachia at the end of the day. I knew that would have been risky, because it would be too late to hitch a ride, and walking was not an option
So I forgot about it. Tim told me about the Castle Ravine Trail down Jefferson, but I went for Randolph Path instead. What a good decision ! The portion above tree line is a pure pleasure. There I met a man who looked familiar, but didn’t ask… Hillwalker, was that you ?? I enjoyed dinner and fire by myself that evening, falling asleep on my camping chair around 8:30pm.On the third day the weather was uncertain, so the Wildcat’s sounded perfect. I found the Wilcat Ridge trail (after a detour on the Glen Ellis Falls path), and I had a lot of fun climbing up the numerous escarpments. Then it was another walk along the Wilcat’s p.u.d’s, actually I got confused again and I got very surprised when I saw Carter Notch hut from a view point !!! I think my map is just not precise enough… I decided to go down the Nineteen Miles Brook trail instead of backtracking because of the chances of rain. I thought it would be easier to hitch a ride on rte 16 than going down the wet ledges down E peak. I was right, but still, I walked 20 minutes before someone stopped. People slowed down, looked at me, even honked me
, it was very frustrating ! It was starting to rain when a very nice lady stopped. She said she meets a lot of hikers from Quebec because she owns the Top Notch Hotel in Gorham. I know where to go if one day I get sick of camping It was a great weekend, can’t wait to go back and get the remaining Presidentials, as well as the 6 others peaks.
Here are my PICS
