NorthShore
Member
More pictures here: http://www.liwoods.com/tripreports/jeffersonadams2009.html
My son Sean and I hiked Mts Jefferson and Adams on Tuesday 8/25. The weather was clear in the morning, trending toward partly cloudy in the afternoon and there was a slight haze by evening. The temperatures were relatively warm, probably in the 50's above timberline and the breeze, although present, was not enough to keep us cool while hiking. We had intended to do Mount Madison as well, but it was a rather leisurely paced hike (until the end) and got a bit late in the day so we opted out of Madison rather than finishing with headlamps and keeping my wife waiting for us at Appalachia.
We drove by the parking lot at Appalachia (which seemed quite full) in the morning so that my wife would know where to pick us up in the evening and then drove west on RT2 to Jefferson Notch Road. On the way we stopped at a gas station that looks like it hasn't changed much since before WWII to use the bathroom. A very friendly lady working there showed us some of her photography. She and a woman customer, both considerably older than ourselves told us we were "cheating" by using Caps Ridge for Jefferson, but they cut us some slack when told we were also doing the other peaks. We bought a couple of rice crispy treats to add to our larder, as well as the $7.95 trail map (Wilderness Map Company) that seems to be on every counter this year. The map author has done a good job of getting it placed. I was told mine was the 4th or 5th sold at that gas station. Its a nice little map, but I left it in the car and hiked with the larger Map Adventures version.
After getting deposited at the trailhead at Jefferson Notch we started up the Caps Ridge Trail. We stopped at the first major viewpoint where there are some glacial potholes in the rock so I could take out the camera and get some pics. While there we met 3 VFTT'ers (rickB, ?"AVK"?, and ???). I have a terrible memory for new names.
We've never done any hiking in the northern Presidentials before, so all of the trails were new to us. From that first Overlook on the Caps Ridge Trail overlook, it was pretty obvious what the "Caps" are:
Looking to the north, it was easy to see the "Castles" on the Castellated Ridge:
The morning was nice and clear, with just some cumulus showing to the west and the views were outstanding. There are a lot of nice views of the southern Presidentials on the way up. The Lakes of the Clouds hut and Mt Monroe are closest and most prominent until you climb high enough to see Mt Washington over Mt Clay.
A couple of spots on the caps made for an interesting and steep scramble where consideration of hand and foot holds was important:
The trip up the summit cone of Mt Jefferson from Caps Ridge is a little deceiving as there are a few false summits before reaching the top. Once there, there are two prominent mini-cones in close proximity and we guessed the more westerly of the two (including a plaque in memory of a man named Ted Kozloski) to be the true summit. Either way, it was close enough. Both bumps had a number of hikers resting on them (and between them in the small grassy areas). We stopped for lunch at the summit where a Sobo thru-hiker named Jonathan S from Connecticut was kind enough to snap a few photos of my son and I together:
We then took the Gulfside trail over towards Adams. The views of the ridges and ravines was spectacular:
The trail markings up to Adams are a bit confusing with Israel Ridge Path trail signs appearing in places I did not expect to see it, but in clear weather the direction to Adams is rather obvious and we followed Gulfside to Lowe's Path for the summit.
We posed for some photos on Adams and enjoyed the views toward Madison and Star Lake, which we had earlier decided to drop from the Agenda. A few hikers came through the summit while we snacked and just about all of them were headed for the Madison Springs Hut.
We then headed down on Airline bypassing the cutoff for the hut. Airline above timberline is an awesome trail and the views of King Ravine from the Durand Ridge lived up to the recommendation we had received to start down that way. It was getting quite late in the day and the light and shadows for photography were quite good, although there had been a modest increase in haze during the afternoon that was most noticeable looking toward the west.
We left Airline at upper Bruin to move over to the Valley Way for the rest of the descent. Upper Bruin was a stark transition from Airline, which was dry and open above timberline to that point, into a wet, steep, narrow trail through the trees. After a somewhat longer descent on Upper Bruin than we expected, we emerged onto Valley Way where we thought we could hear people at the nearby campsite. We toyed with moving over to Brookside based on some good recommendations, but stuck with Valley Way for the rest of the trip. This turned out to be a good move because my deliberate (i.e., often slow) hiker son finally found his stride and we ran (literally) most of the way down, which was a lot of fun. I had told my wife not to expect us before 7 and we met her at Appalachia around 7:30. It wasn't our reason for running, but we probably would have been at least a half hour later if we hadn't run.
My son Sean and I hiked Mts Jefferson and Adams on Tuesday 8/25. The weather was clear in the morning, trending toward partly cloudy in the afternoon and there was a slight haze by evening. The temperatures were relatively warm, probably in the 50's above timberline and the breeze, although present, was not enough to keep us cool while hiking. We had intended to do Mount Madison as well, but it was a rather leisurely paced hike (until the end) and got a bit late in the day so we opted out of Madison rather than finishing with headlamps and keeping my wife waiting for us at Appalachia.
We drove by the parking lot at Appalachia (which seemed quite full) in the morning so that my wife would know where to pick us up in the evening and then drove west on RT2 to Jefferson Notch Road. On the way we stopped at a gas station that looks like it hasn't changed much since before WWII to use the bathroom. A very friendly lady working there showed us some of her photography. She and a woman customer, both considerably older than ourselves told us we were "cheating" by using Caps Ridge for Jefferson, but they cut us some slack when told we were also doing the other peaks. We bought a couple of rice crispy treats to add to our larder, as well as the $7.95 trail map (Wilderness Map Company) that seems to be on every counter this year. The map author has done a good job of getting it placed. I was told mine was the 4th or 5th sold at that gas station. Its a nice little map, but I left it in the car and hiked with the larger Map Adventures version.
After getting deposited at the trailhead at Jefferson Notch we started up the Caps Ridge Trail. We stopped at the first major viewpoint where there are some glacial potholes in the rock so I could take out the camera and get some pics. While there we met 3 VFTT'ers (rickB, ?"AVK"?, and ???). I have a terrible memory for new names.
We've never done any hiking in the northern Presidentials before, so all of the trails were new to us. From that first Overlook on the Caps Ridge Trail overlook, it was pretty obvious what the "Caps" are:
Looking to the north, it was easy to see the "Castles" on the Castellated Ridge:
The morning was nice and clear, with just some cumulus showing to the west and the views were outstanding. There are a lot of nice views of the southern Presidentials on the way up. The Lakes of the Clouds hut and Mt Monroe are closest and most prominent until you climb high enough to see Mt Washington over Mt Clay.
A couple of spots on the caps made for an interesting and steep scramble where consideration of hand and foot holds was important:
The trip up the summit cone of Mt Jefferson from Caps Ridge is a little deceiving as there are a few false summits before reaching the top. Once there, there are two prominent mini-cones in close proximity and we guessed the more westerly of the two (including a plaque in memory of a man named Ted Kozloski) to be the true summit. Either way, it was close enough. Both bumps had a number of hikers resting on them (and between them in the small grassy areas). We stopped for lunch at the summit where a Sobo thru-hiker named Jonathan S from Connecticut was kind enough to snap a few photos of my son and I together:
We then took the Gulfside trail over towards Adams. The views of the ridges and ravines was spectacular:
The trail markings up to Adams are a bit confusing with Israel Ridge Path trail signs appearing in places I did not expect to see it, but in clear weather the direction to Adams is rather obvious and we followed Gulfside to Lowe's Path for the summit.
We posed for some photos on Adams and enjoyed the views toward Madison and Star Lake, which we had earlier decided to drop from the Agenda. A few hikers came through the summit while we snacked and just about all of them were headed for the Madison Springs Hut.
We then headed down on Airline bypassing the cutoff for the hut. Airline above timberline is an awesome trail and the views of King Ravine from the Durand Ridge lived up to the recommendation we had received to start down that way. It was getting quite late in the day and the light and shadows for photography were quite good, although there had been a modest increase in haze during the afternoon that was most noticeable looking toward the west.
We left Airline at upper Bruin to move over to the Valley Way for the rest of the descent. Upper Bruin was a stark transition from Airline, which was dry and open above timberline to that point, into a wet, steep, narrow trail through the trees. After a somewhat longer descent on Upper Bruin than we expected, we emerged onto Valley Way where we thought we could hear people at the nearby campsite. We toyed with moving over to Brookside based on some good recommendations, but stuck with Valley Way for the rest of the trip. This turned out to be a good move because my deliberate (i.e., often slow) hiker son finally found his stride and we ran (literally) most of the way down, which was a lot of fun. I had told my wife not to expect us before 7 and we met her at Appalachia around 7:30. It wasn't our reason for running, but we probably would have been at least a half hour later if we hadn't run.
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