Mats and I arrived at the Appalachia Trailhead at around 2:00pm Saturday and were off hiking ten minutes later. We decided to head up Valley Way to Madison Hut, but after deciding rather quickly into the hike that we would skip Mt. Madison we took a right up Upper Bruin Trail to Airline Trail straight to Mt. Adams. We encountered little to no snow the entire way up to treeline which was a little surprising but surely welcoming. Once above treeline we reached the Mt. Adams summit detour around 6:00pm and did excatly that - detoured the summit of Mt. Adams. We had our sights set on camping either in Spinx Col or somewhere around Mt. Jefferson and wanted to have a little light while we did it so we waved Mt. Adams goodbye and saved ourselves at least 30 minutes.
Descending into Edmunds Col came quick with only a few random patches of snow and alot of picture taking. We thanked Mr. Edmund for making the trails and kept moving because we noticed the sun was setting. There were some bigger and steeper snowfields on the east side of Mt. Jefferson that required some careful footing but we moved fast enough to the summit to witness a gorgeous sunset! Mats knew the second we were 20 feet below the summit that it would be our spot to tent and threw off his pack before climbing the few rocks to the peak. I did the same but did not do push-ups.. yet.
Mats carved a platform on the last remaining snowpatch near the summit with a shovel-shaped rock and I attempted to make a snow wall on the west side where the breeze was coming from. My laziness worked against me as I tried to hydrate my meal with only half-boiled water. Needless to say my rice noodles for my Pad Thai were a bit too crunchy for my liking. As I tried to eat my dinner, Mats whipped out this 'no water required' hot meal. After a strange chemical smell, alot of steam and 15 minutes it felt like I was at the Olive Garden drooling over his pasta dish!
Well, I have to say, I think that camping spot was the highest and most beautiful spot in the Whites I ever had! We decided that the only people sleeping higher than we were that night was the crew in the Observatory of Mt. Washington. The wind picked up overnight to 40 m.p.h. (speed confirmed by the Observatory worker the next morning) and our lack of guy wire jiggled the tent around as if we were in a giant jello mold! Despite the loud winds and being knocked around by the tent walls we both grabbed a couple hours sleep and woke up to the sun shining.
Sunday was a bluebird day above treeline. The only clouds I saw was a couple puffy cotton balls that disapeared quickly. We were off by 8:00am and reached Mt. Washington's summit around 10:30am. Spinx Col is now snow-free and the spring there is running. We passed by a skier trying to take advantage of the last snowfields down the Great Gulf and also three other hikers that had come up from the east. Other than that, we had the hike and summit to ourselves! And I did a few push-ups - without my pack. The trail from Jefferson to Washington and all the way to Eisenhower is snow-free with only tiny patches of ice that are probably already gone now. I couldn't believe we would only pass by a few hikers the remainer of the day.
We stopped for a snack on Washington and I unsuccessfully tried to call my mom for Mother's Day but I guess those towers up there are radio towers and not cell phone towers. Then came Lakes of the Clouds (with some glacial cravasses) and up Mt. Monroe before 12:00pm. There was no question we'd hit the rest of the summits (even Monroe Jr.) since we bypassed Mt. Adams the day before. We also knew Mt. Jackson wasn't in the cards and I wanted to make sure Mats had his workout so we assaulted all the summits from Mt. Monroe - except a quick go around Franklin - to Mt. Pierce. What can I say, the trail was dry, the weather was perfect, the wind died down once late morning hit and we had a super time going up and down, up and down the Crawford Path. Mats made sure to stop and take some pictures of me which I appreciated since most of my pictures are people-free and my mom is always saying "Why aren't you in any of these pictures?!"
We 'controversaly' dropped our packs for the 0.1 miles to tag Pierce by 3:00pm and celebrated our day with the full size keg of Heineken that we had been carrying the entire time. The trail down to Crawford Notch was snow-ridden from the summit of Pierce all the way down to about 3,000 ft. There was also alot of snow patches between Eisenhower and Pierce. It was mushy monorail and since I was starting to get tired I kept falling off the balance beam and wracking my already sore muscles. But I made it down and found Mats waiting for me, taking off his pants.. I mean his lower pant legs. A mile later we were out of the woods and breaking into that second keg by 5:00pm!
I think we both got in some good Alaska training. I am wiped out!! Thanks for the invite Mats, I had a great time! (my shoulder muscles and feet are still deciding if they had a good time or not).
Pictures are posted on my site: http://hikingleaf.smugmug.com
WOOHOO.
Descending into Edmunds Col came quick with only a few random patches of snow and alot of picture taking. We thanked Mr. Edmund for making the trails and kept moving because we noticed the sun was setting. There were some bigger and steeper snowfields on the east side of Mt. Jefferson that required some careful footing but we moved fast enough to the summit to witness a gorgeous sunset! Mats knew the second we were 20 feet below the summit that it would be our spot to tent and threw off his pack before climbing the few rocks to the peak. I did the same but did not do push-ups.. yet.
Mats carved a platform on the last remaining snowpatch near the summit with a shovel-shaped rock and I attempted to make a snow wall on the west side where the breeze was coming from. My laziness worked against me as I tried to hydrate my meal with only half-boiled water. Needless to say my rice noodles for my Pad Thai were a bit too crunchy for my liking. As I tried to eat my dinner, Mats whipped out this 'no water required' hot meal. After a strange chemical smell, alot of steam and 15 minutes it felt like I was at the Olive Garden drooling over his pasta dish!
Well, I have to say, I think that camping spot was the highest and most beautiful spot in the Whites I ever had! We decided that the only people sleeping higher than we were that night was the crew in the Observatory of Mt. Washington. The wind picked up overnight to 40 m.p.h. (speed confirmed by the Observatory worker the next morning) and our lack of guy wire jiggled the tent around as if we were in a giant jello mold! Despite the loud winds and being knocked around by the tent walls we both grabbed a couple hours sleep and woke up to the sun shining.
Sunday was a bluebird day above treeline. The only clouds I saw was a couple puffy cotton balls that disapeared quickly. We were off by 8:00am and reached Mt. Washington's summit around 10:30am. Spinx Col is now snow-free and the spring there is running. We passed by a skier trying to take advantage of the last snowfields down the Great Gulf and also three other hikers that had come up from the east. Other than that, we had the hike and summit to ourselves! And I did a few push-ups - without my pack. The trail from Jefferson to Washington and all the way to Eisenhower is snow-free with only tiny patches of ice that are probably already gone now. I couldn't believe we would only pass by a few hikers the remainer of the day.
We stopped for a snack on Washington and I unsuccessfully tried to call my mom for Mother's Day but I guess those towers up there are radio towers and not cell phone towers. Then came Lakes of the Clouds (with some glacial cravasses) and up Mt. Monroe before 12:00pm. There was no question we'd hit the rest of the summits (even Monroe Jr.) since we bypassed Mt. Adams the day before. We also knew Mt. Jackson wasn't in the cards and I wanted to make sure Mats had his workout so we assaulted all the summits from Mt. Monroe - except a quick go around Franklin - to Mt. Pierce. What can I say, the trail was dry, the weather was perfect, the wind died down once late morning hit and we had a super time going up and down, up and down the Crawford Path. Mats made sure to stop and take some pictures of me which I appreciated since most of my pictures are people-free and my mom is always saying "Why aren't you in any of these pictures?!"
We 'controversaly' dropped our packs for the 0.1 miles to tag Pierce by 3:00pm and celebrated our day with the full size keg of Heineken that we had been carrying the entire time. The trail down to Crawford Notch was snow-ridden from the summit of Pierce all the way down to about 3,000 ft. There was also alot of snow patches between Eisenhower and Pierce. It was mushy monorail and since I was starting to get tired I kept falling off the balance beam and wracking my already sore muscles. But I made it down and found Mats waiting for me, taking off his pants.. I mean his lower pant legs. A mile later we were out of the woods and breaking into that second keg by 5:00pm!
I think we both got in some good Alaska training. I am wiped out!! Thanks for the invite Mats, I had a great time! (my shoulder muscles and feet are still deciding if they had a good time or not).
Pictures are posted on my site: http://hikingleaf.smugmug.com
WOOHOO.
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