Time for another hike headed up by Mr. 4000 himself (Ed Hawkins). Today we will be hiking Mounts Madison and Adams. I had a great view of the two mountains on the drive to the trailhead this morning.
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We met at the Appalachia parking lot. There were 5 in our group today: Ed, Jeff, Ken, Lincoln, and myself. Ed's intitial plan was to hike the Bonds today, but with new snow in the mountains, a larger group would have been necessary to break trail into those remote mountains. The Bonds would have been nice today, but I'm sure the northern Presies will be spectacular. The starting elevation is about 1200 feet so we have plenty of vertical to climb today. We left the trailhead a few minutes after 8:00.
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Ed
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Jeff
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Ken
This is my first time hiking with Ken. He has climbed all 115 of the 4000 footers of the northeast 3 times.
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It was quite warm at the lower elevation. I was down to my t-shirt in minutes. There were several hikers who had gone before us and were postholing the whole way making our job a little more difficult.
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After nearly two hours of hiking we got our first view.
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A while later we were above treeline. Notice all the postholes.
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What a gorgeous day to be above treeline!!
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Next we reached Madison Hut. The snow had blown into the corner of the building making it possible to snowshoe right up onto the roof. Ed and Lincoln climbed up first. |
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Here's a close up.
Ed has hiked in the Whites thousands of times and climbed every major peak dozens of times. He is running out of things to climb, so he decided to climb to the top of Madison Hut. The next time we climb Washington, we better keep our eye on him or he'll be climbing some of the antennas.
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Not to be outdone, I decided to climb up.
Now I can actually say that I have climbed something as much as Ed.
We've both climbed to the top of Madison Hut once.
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After a break at the hut, we put on some more layers. It would be extremely windy on the summits. We decided to head up to Madison first. It's less than a half mile from the hut so we decided to leave our packs behind. Here's a cairn covered with rime ice.
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It was so windy on the way up, Ed lost his winter hat with the Coke logo on it. When he retired from Coca Cola he had a dozen of these hats. He said he's down to 5 now. Ed was the first to reach the 5367' summit of Madison.
This was Ed's 43rd time on the summit. I'll have to settle for it being my 4th. It is however, my first time up here since naming my dog after this mountain. I hope to get Madison up here before too long.
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FYI - We're on the Appalachian Trail. The trail follows the ridge in the foreground down to Pinkham Notch before turning north and following the Carter-Moriah Range in the background. Following the white blazes is a little tough this time of year.
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Looking toward Mount Adams, our next objective.
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More rime ice
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Heading back to the hut.
After picking up our packs. We headed off toward Adams.
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Looking back toward Madison.
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View to the northwest
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Nearing the summit of Mount Adams
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Once again, Mr. 4000 reached the summit first. Here he is talking with some fellow hikers.
I believe this was Ed's 42nd summit of Adams and my 3rd. It was my first time on both these peaks in April so I do get to check off a couple boxes on "The Grid". At 5774 feet, this is the 2nd highest peak in the northeast, outdone only be nearby Mount Washington.
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Looking back to Mount Madison.
In the words of Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story: "To infinity and beyond."
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View of Mount Jefferson
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We also had a great view of Mount Washington.
Below Washington is the Great Gulf. Somewhere out there is Ed's hat.
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After soaking in the beautiful views, we headed back to Madison Hut again. We were joined by Tom. Tom was supposed to hike with us today but arrived a little late at the trailhead. He had been chasing us all day. We had the pleasure of his company as we headed down the mountain. Part way down I broke a snowshoe. Ed was kind enough to zip tie it together. It was a great emergency fix, but I'll have to come up with a more permanent solution. This wasn't the only casualty on the way down, Ken broke a hiking pole a few minutes later. We managed to get down the mountain without any further loss of equipment reaching the trailhead about 4:15. What a beautiful day!!
