Madison 8/28/2008

Today I have decided to take the day off from work. I have built up a little bit of Comp-time and I might as well take it. I decided to try to get Mount Madison today. It will bring me to another hut I haven't seen yet as well as add another peak to my list.

I decided to take the Valley Way up as it is a quick and direct route to Madison Springs Hut. Soon upon entering the woods I passed through a powerline Right of Way. I always find these interesting being that I work for a power company and all. I also found this sign fairly quickly. I love taking pictures of signage.

The trail starts off easy enough and is not really steep. There were all kinds of mushrooms along the trail as there have been through the last month or two due to all of the rain that New England has seen this summer. Here is a picture of what I may be "Destroying Angel" although I am not really sure about that. FYI Destroying Angel's are extremely toxic.

I kept trudging along the trail which follows Synder Brook fairly closely although for a large portion of time, you would never know it. I was making very good time when I crossed the Watson Path. I was 50 minutes ahead of "book time" at that point and figured couldn't believe I was making that good of time. I am not a fast hiker by any means, but I do try to keep a steady pace with few breaks. I was getting hungry though as it took me 2 and a half hours to get to the trailhead from my house which puts me well behind normal eating schedules on the mountain. I sat down and had a cheese stick and continued on.

Before I knew it, I was at Madison Springs hut. It took me 2 hours and 40 minutes to get to the hut which is an hour ahead of book time. This is a good day for me already. I went inside the hut and took off my pack and ate a granola bar and decided to continue on up Mount Madison. I thought of leaving my pack for the .8 mile journey to the summit and back, but figured I might need the water so I brought the pack along with me.

The trip up Mount Madison from the hut is not really strenuous, but it is tough on the footing a bit. There didn't seem to be a very well defined path as you are basically rock hoping most of the way to the top. The cairns are well placed though so you know where you are going, and if you get lost... Go up, and you'll get there.

At the top you can see great views in all directions. Washington is of course visible and so are some of the other 4000' peaks, but what grabs your attention first is probably Mount Adams.

I stayed at the top for a few minutes and met a nice gentleman from Brunswick, Maine. This is his second hike this season, and his first above treeline. I stayed for a few minutes and chatted with him and headed down.

I stopped again at the hut and ate my lunch. I was hankering for a bowl of soup that the hut offers, but they were just starting to heat up a new pot so I decided to pass. I had originally planned today to hike Adams as well as Madison, but I decided I had enough for one day. I am not particularly used to this type of elevation gain in a single day and I could feel my quads burning.

I did decide however to hike up and over to the Air Line trail to hike that down. I have heard that the Durand Ridge is very impressive. This trail is also a good way to stay above treeline just a little bit longer than you would on the Valley Way.

On the ridge I was able to see King Ravine. King Ravine is very impressive and is a glacial formed feature of the mountains. Some day I will have to hike the King Ravine trail. I imagine that it is extremely challenging and steep.

Going down the Air Line, you also see the trail Chemin Des Dames which is the "Ladies Trail." I believe that it is about at this point where you get a particularly impressive view of Mount Madison with the Madison Springs Hut. I never realized that Mount Madison had such a distinctive summit. I know that it is fairly steep climbing up, but it is almost a perfect triangle from this angle.

Here is another picture of King Ravine.

On the way down, after I dropped into the woods, the trail just seems to go down and down forever. However, it did not take long to get to the bottom of the mountain.

On the way down, I did notice some Maple Syrup Lines. I don't know if they are legal or not but I imagine if they were illegal, the forest service would have noticed by now as they did look old.

All in all, this was a great trip with some spectacular views. It's also the single greatest elevation gain that I have tackled in a single day. This trip was 200' more than Washington and Monroe but 1.8 miles shorter. This trip's average elevation gain per mile is over 500'. This makes two consecutive trips to 4000' peaks that are personal bests as far as elevation gain goes. Also, this makes Mount Madison 4000' peak number 15 for me. I am almost 1/3 of the way there.

Hedgehog 8/23/2008

Last week I had my heart set on hiking Carrigain. Shelby decided to join me and when we got to North Conway, she realized that she had forgot her boots. Needless to say, her boots now have a permanent place in my trunk. We don't have the time this week to do anything like Carrigain, because we want to say goodbye to Shelby's Brother Garrett before he heads off for his senior year at Western New England college. I thought we could get a smaller hike in so we decided to hike Hedgehog Mountain.

Hedgehog is a mountain that has great views and the only list it is on is the 52 with a view list. In fact, it's the last peak on the list as it is only 2,532' in elevation. We decided to do the full UNH loop on this hike to try to get smoe extra mileage in. The loop is 4.8 Miles total and 1,450' of elevation gain. We figured it would be a fairly easy day.

Our suspicions were correct at first. The first 2 tenths of a mile or so are flat. No elevation gain what so ever. This would be welcomed more later in the day than at the beginning. In a few minutes we had reached the Loop junction and we decided to do the loop clockwise and hit the east ledges first. Shelby did this hike when she was in middle school. Over 10 years ago. She remembered the trail being fairly easy, and she said there would be great views at the top.

This year has been dubbed by some as the year of the mushrooms, and this trail is no exception. There has been a lot of rain this year so far and the mushrooms seem to have sprouted up all over the place.

On a personal note, Shelby and I have been working really hard lately. We haven't been able to get a hike in since we hiked Washington over 3 weeks ago. Shelby has started a new job and the first month or two for her is going to be very stressful. I have also been fairly stressed out at work with the summer being very busy due to all of the thunderstorms. Thunderstorms cause power outages and outages cause complaints which I have to deal with. Needless to say, we are both lacking good sleep and needing this hike to "get away from it all." We thought that this hike would be easy, and it was a very easy trail, easy footing for the most part, but us being tired, did not help and we had a hard time getting to the top of this one.

As tough as it seemed, we soon made it to the first little ledge. We actually sat down and took a nap in the shade for 20 minutes before continuing on. When we did, we got this great view of Mt. Chocoroua.

We took only a minute at the east ledges to take a look, but from here you can see Mt. Mexico, Square Ledge, Wonalancet, and the ever ominous Passaconaway. Hedgehog sits very close to the northeast flank of Passaconaway and it is a very daunting view of the legendary mountain. I never realized exactly how steep it was on its north side as I have never seen this view before.

I climbed Mount Passaconaway last year and had a very hard time with it. I hiked Whiteface and Passaconaway as many people do in a loop, but it was only my second major hike so I was underestimating what this mountain would take out of me.

The east ledges are very steep, and again, I cannot understate the views here, they are absolutley spectacular. I can see already why this mountain is on the 52 with a fiew list. Here is a picture of me on the East Ledges with Passaconaway in the background. Shelby hates it when I get this close to the edge of cliffs and ledges. Anything for a good picture I say.

Here's a picture of Shelby following the trail to the Summit. The south and east of this mountain is filled with these ledges.

As we were hiking down, we noticed that Washington was there in front of us and who knew... it was out of the clouds. I had to take a picture. I believe that the ledges you see are Owls Cliff and Tremont to the left as well as Bartlett Haystack to the right. The Montalban range is also visible just before Washington.

We headed down the trail from here and the trail was filled with roots just like this. For the first half mile or so, the trail was really "rooty", but it got better and we were at the car before we knew it.

We had a little time and I wanted to get some new hiking poles. I have been using cheap Wal-mart ones and well... You get what you pay for. I had broken my second pair in less than a year. The locking mechanism inside is made out of cheap plastic and the screw strips the fitting which causes them to break.

We went to the newly located and expanded EMS in North Conway and looked around. It is a lot like the Portsmouth store except there is more gear and less clothes it seems. I bought a pair of Komperdel poles and a new bandana. You can never have enough bandana's. After that, we went home and showered up and said goodbye to Garrett for another year. Good Luck Garrett.