Gillian
New member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Messages
- 328
- Reaction score
- 122
Presidential Traverse, Saturday, June 7th
In the wee hours of Saturday last, 5am, our crew, Mookie, 7 Summits, Skimom, Woody, Giggy, Chomp, Doug, Jen, Darl58, Brian, MEB, Little Sister, and I gathered at the Daniel Webster Scout trail. MichaelJ, Una_dogger and Terra started out with us too, on their planned Madison & Adams hike. The day started out with partly cloudy skies and oh, was it muggy, but it was lovely to be in the woods bright and early with the sunlight shining through the trees and the thought of the fun, challenging, hike ahead. We kept a steady pace up the DWS passing another group of hikers who were also traversing the presi's that day - a yearly event for them. We were in for a real treat when we hiked above treeline and looked down at a sea of clouds below us stretching for miles around with blue clear skies above us. Continuing on we came upon Dave Metsky and Mountaingirl who had started up the trail before us. After a short break at the junction we continued towards the summit being extra careful on the wet slick rocks. We didn't stay long on the windy Madison summit where it was hard to stay upright and headed down to the hut. Unfortunately, Dave took a tumble close to the summit, straining his arm, wrist and fingers, and ending up with a bloody shin. As you can imagine this made for difficult hiking so Dave went down the Valley way accompanied by Jen....I hope your arm is feeling better Dave.
Following a break at the hut we continued on the Star Lake trail. Appreciating the view of the lake to our left, it was fun to hike this path (which I hadn't taken before), and to take the steep climb with some minor scrambling to the summit of Adams. No views to speak of from here and we didn't sit around too long in the wind. Once negotiating the slippy craggy rocks down we enjoyed the slightly better footing on the Gulfside trail towards Jefferson. We had some occasional impressive views of the great gulf to our left, enjoyed the hike across the snowfield on Jefferson before reaching the socked in summit. Sheltered from the wind beside the giant cairn just below Jefferson we took a break. A cute puppy dog was all of a sudden my best pal when I took out my banana and peanut better sandwich....obviously a very good eye for gourmet trail food.
We continued our hike in the thick clouds, some of us taking the path over Clay and others skirting around. Skimom was so caught up in the amazing views (well maybe not) from the summit of Clay that she neglected to pick up her navy baseball cap (this is not a "lost & found" listing
The climb to the highest peak was very windy but fortunately the wind was at our backs and helped us along to the top of Agiocochook, aka, Mt. Washington. We took a good break at the Summit House before continuing on, refreshed, down to the Lakes of the Clouds. On reaching the hut some of us enjoyed eye candy while others went in search of chocolate candy - namely brownies, however, none was to be found....
By the time we reached the summit of Monroe and then Eisenhower the skies had cleared and we had excellent views of the whole range….very special. Brian and Chomp had a burst of enery and took off running down the Crawford path for 302 …the rest of us followed at a sensible pace in the warm late afternoon sun. After summiting Pierce we headed down the final stretch and it felt so looonnnggg but the trail finally came to an end despite our doubts that.... it.... would....actually....end....
What a treat! The two lads picked up some "refreshments" for us which we all enjoyed in the evening sun before heading off to Barnes for a follow-up.
I didn't have a camera myself but here's some pics that Brian took - he would post them himself but he's not a member.....
http://community.webshots.com/album/563738587WGjEuw
In the wee hours of Saturday last, 5am, our crew, Mookie, 7 Summits, Skimom, Woody, Giggy, Chomp, Doug, Jen, Darl58, Brian, MEB, Little Sister, and I gathered at the Daniel Webster Scout trail. MichaelJ, Una_dogger and Terra started out with us too, on their planned Madison & Adams hike. The day started out with partly cloudy skies and oh, was it muggy, but it was lovely to be in the woods bright and early with the sunlight shining through the trees and the thought of the fun, challenging, hike ahead. We kept a steady pace up the DWS passing another group of hikers who were also traversing the presi's that day - a yearly event for them. We were in for a real treat when we hiked above treeline and looked down at a sea of clouds below us stretching for miles around with blue clear skies above us. Continuing on we came upon Dave Metsky and Mountaingirl who had started up the trail before us. After a short break at the junction we continued towards the summit being extra careful on the wet slick rocks. We didn't stay long on the windy Madison summit where it was hard to stay upright and headed down to the hut. Unfortunately, Dave took a tumble close to the summit, straining his arm, wrist and fingers, and ending up with a bloody shin. As you can imagine this made for difficult hiking so Dave went down the Valley way accompanied by Jen....I hope your arm is feeling better Dave.
Following a break at the hut we continued on the Star Lake trail. Appreciating the view of the lake to our left, it was fun to hike this path (which I hadn't taken before), and to take the steep climb with some minor scrambling to the summit of Adams. No views to speak of from here and we didn't sit around too long in the wind. Once negotiating the slippy craggy rocks down we enjoyed the slightly better footing on the Gulfside trail towards Jefferson. We had some occasional impressive views of the great gulf to our left, enjoyed the hike across the snowfield on Jefferson before reaching the socked in summit. Sheltered from the wind beside the giant cairn just below Jefferson we took a break. A cute puppy dog was all of a sudden my best pal when I took out my banana and peanut better sandwich....obviously a very good eye for gourmet trail food.
We continued our hike in the thick clouds, some of us taking the path over Clay and others skirting around. Skimom was so caught up in the amazing views (well maybe not) from the summit of Clay that she neglected to pick up her navy baseball cap (this is not a "lost & found" listing
The climb to the highest peak was very windy but fortunately the wind was at our backs and helped us along to the top of Agiocochook, aka, Mt. Washington. We took a good break at the Summit House before continuing on, refreshed, down to the Lakes of the Clouds. On reaching the hut some of us enjoyed eye candy while others went in search of chocolate candy - namely brownies, however, none was to be found....By the time we reached the summit of Monroe and then Eisenhower the skies had cleared and we had excellent views of the whole range….very special. Brian and Chomp had a burst of enery and took off running down the Crawford path for 302 …the rest of us followed at a sensible pace in the warm late afternoon sun. After summiting Pierce we headed down the final stretch and it felt so looonnnggg but the trail finally came to an end despite our doubts that.... it.... would....actually....end....
What a treat! The two lads picked up some "refreshments" for us which we all enjoyed in the evening sun before heading off to Barnes for a follow-up.
I didn't have a camera myself but here's some pics that Brian took - he would post them himself but he's not a member.....
http://community.webshots.com/album/563738587WGjEuw
Last edited:
