July 30, 2010 3:52 am
Location: Mt. Moosilauke White Mountains National Forest
Moosilauke is the last big mountain in the Whites. It was a bit of a tough hike, very steep at times but the weather was great and it was nothing I couldn’t handle at this point in the trip.
The peak was above tree line and very, very windy but absolutely gorgeous. It was well worth the work and made me a little sad to clear such an amazing and incredible section of the trail. I will definitely be back to hike these mountains again!
July 21, 2010 1:12 am
Location: White Mountains National Forest Presidential Range Mt. Madison
After hiking the Carters comes Wild Cat Mountain a popular ski attraction. Some hikers take the ski gondola down Wildcat. However this cuts about 1.5-2 miles off the AT and since I am a bit of a purist and want to hike every step of the trail I hiked down Wildcat. The hike down was the most brutal downhill I have done yet. Lots of rocks and bouldering. It took me hours and by the time I made it to the bottom my knees hurt so bad I could hardly walk.
It was 4:30 and I knew I wouldn’t make it to the tent site at the base of Mt. Madison so I shelled out the big bucks to stay at the AMC’s lodge at the Pinkham Notch Visitors Center. The next day it was raining pretty hard and my knees could use the rest so I stayed another day and made it a zero day. Brookie, Flora and Fauna also took the day off but headed to a shelter to visit a friend of Brookies.
Early Tuesday morning I finally headed out for Mt. Madison. This section of the Presidentials has the highest peaks. Mt. Washington, Adams, Jefferson are all in this range. When hiking the AT south bound here most of your elevation gain is made on Mt. Madison. Some 4000 feet I believe. Knowing this and being 7 miles from the base I figured I would be in for a long hard day.
I made the 7 miles to the base fairly easily and there I met 2 women in their 40’s. They were section hikers doing all of NH. They had come down Madison the day before and said “It’s a real booger. All rocks and boulders”.
I pressed on. I don’t want to down play how much work it was summiting Madison but I think after doing all of Maine one is in decent shape and though a bit tiring I had little trouble with it. There were times I looked at the very impressive rock piles I’m front of me and thought they might take hours to overcome. I summited by 1pm.
It was simply magical up there. You could see the other very impressive presidentials including Mt. Washington.