Madison, Adams, and Jefferson

March 10, 2013

While drinking beer last night in the crappy pub, Greg voiced that we wanted a big day and suggested hitting three of the Presidentials. Shaughn immediately signed up, followed by Bryson, and I. The other eight decided to depart the trailhead with us, climb Mt. Adams and then decide what to do from there. Anyway after a somewhat fitful night of sleep due to a fight at the bar involving someone pulling a gun, a yappy dog in the room next to us, and then a noisy phone conversation at 02:00 describing the fight that had just happenned, our alarms went off at 05:00. We ate a quick breakfast in our hotel room and drove to the trailhead for 07:00. We said goodbye to Bill's group and Greg tore off like a bat out of hell down the trail. Fortunately he slowed down to a more normal pace after the first couple thousand feet. Another blue sky day, and although it was about -7 degrees when we started, we soon were stripped to t-shirts in the sunshine. After about a 2 hour speed climb, we arrived at the Madison hut, over 1000 meters higher than our starting point. A quick break in the sunshine and we were off on the ascent. In very short order we were on the summit of Madison, enjoying fantastic views and we relaxed for a few minutes up here as there was not a breath of wind. There were two more mountains beconning, so we booted it back down, taking only eight minutes from the summit back to the hut. From here there are two routes up Mt. Adams. The trail around the north face was well packed down and looked pretty straight forward, so we opted for the east face to the south ridge. This route had seen little use so we all strapped on snowshoes and navigated around the false summit. Following the trail became futile, so we just crossed the exposed snow slopes doing a rising traverse up to the south ridge. One 200 meter stretch crossed some substantial snow, so we crossed it up high, spread well apart in case it decided to let go. Fortunately the snow held solid and we breathed a sigh of relief upon reaching the rocks on the far side. We gained the ridge and then ascended to the summit. Popping over the top we found Bill's entire group up here just finishing their lunch. As we sat down for a quick break, they split into two groups; Rob and Hai headed to Mt. Madison, and the rest had set their sights on Jefferson. The wind had picked up a bit so we dod not spend too long up here, and then followed Bill's tracks towards Jefferson. We caught up to them at Edmands Col, and then climb the peak together. The climb was slow as we were starting to get tired, but in not too long we topped out and got yet another set of 360 degree views all the way to the horizon. Just below the summit cone was a sheltered spot so we all settled in to an extended lunch as a really annoying dog kept trying to steal food. Hilary, Sherman, and Dan were itching for a shot at Madison, so they took off early while we relaxed a little more. Finally it was time to go, so we packed up and head back down to Edmands Col. Here we had a couple options; a climb back up 500 feet or a traverse around Sam Adams. Although the traverse looked tempting because it would avoid the climb, the sun beating down on a large snowfield did not look too safe so we opted for the climb. Muscles screaming, we made the ascent, our group pulling ahead of Bill (who was now down ot a group of three). We arrived in the pass, had a quick break and then descended to the top of the Knife Edge trail. Here we met Sherman, who was standing alone after deciding that he did not want to climb Madison after all. We looked over at the peak and could see two figures, Hilary and Dan making their ascent. Sherman joined us and we picked our way along the exposed ridge and back down into the trees. The descent was relentless as the trail dropped 4000' in about three miles, but finally we arrived back at the trailhead after a nine hour day. As we were loading the car, a local journalist approached us and interviewed us about daylight savings time. She also took our picture, so five climbers from Canada might just become local New Hampshire celebraties.

Shaughn and Bryson, keeping cool.