Gulf War III [11.11.05]

Summary
OwnerMITOC Gallery Administrator
Creation Date2005-11-12 20:04:58 UTC-0500
DescriptionC: Is that the trail over there?

D: It must be. There's a downed tree across it.


So the original plan was a daring N-S loop-traverse of the Northern Presidentials.
This is a nice high commitment route, because if you want to bail out, you have to go about a
million miles through the Great Gulf Wilderness (hmmm...)Since we only had one car, we parked at
Pinkham, to hike through the Gulf, then around the ridge.

We managed to get to intervale in 2.5 hours from Beantown, despite having to fix Christiaan's
car with a ice axe/leatherman duo. I took the opportunity to crash on the platform, while C+P
stayed in the cabin with the Carter-Moriah crew.

With a nice early start, and minimal shuffling gear (Hooray! no rope, no rack!), we set out North
to Madison. Well, first we weigh the packs. Polly with a reasonable 23lbs, Christiaan with an
easy 30 lbs, and Dan with an awesome 55 lbs. Its just training anyway. The Old Jackson Road is in
good condition, and we make some good time. Once we get up and past the auto road, the trail thins
out a bit, and the trail is a bit more vegetated. not too bad, though. We wind our way to
the ?Osgood tentsite, and take a quick break while planning our strategy. The weather is very nice,
25F and sunny.

We decide to go up the Osgood trail, because it turns out to be 0.1 mi shorter, and turns madison
into a hike over, instead of a dogleg. Well the Osgood trail needs about 6 feet of snow at this
point in the season. There are trees across everywhere, especially when it gets steep. We make
upward progress, but its pretty slow. Eventually we get up above treeline to some great weather.
There are some clouds, and it is a bit breezy, but the sky is blue and its not too cold. As with the
trail below, the trail above could also use some snow. There is just enough to make the rocks
treacherous, but not enough to turn everything into great big snowfield.

up. up. up. The weather turns a bit more typical of the Presidentials, with some wind and some
cloud cover. We see Madison, but the trail is in some weird other location. So we make the first
ascent of the Adams route up madison. quite nice and scenic, and actually was a great job of finding
easy terrain among broken cliffs. Well, actually it wasn't Madison. It was about 200 feet too
short. Christiaan and Polly don't seem too happy, but I am stoked for more uphill.

more. this time we actually get up Madison. I think its less impressive than our previous Madison.
Polly has a bit of foggy goggle syndrome (no not the kind that is good for MIT undergrads). As it
would happen, we are hiking into a wicked (in the non New England sense) headwind with lost of blowy
snow. bad. bad. we trade goggles, and I agree that they sure are foggy. Steep downhill is tricky
in the icey-ice, but we manage, with the assistance of some expertly cut steps, and not-so-expert
ice skating. At treeline, we decide that 2 something in the afternoon is not a great time to
start the "real fun ridge" with questionable eyewear. Especially in NH where the sun sets at 2:30.

So down the madison gulf trail. since no one has been so kind as to break the trail, we head down this
sketchy snowfield that looks like it leads to either the trail or a 200ft dropoff. Luckily,
it was a trail. Coming down was pretty brutal, with thin powder covering rocks. Not a whole lot
in terms of things to walk down. Christiaan cleared the trail, so it was nice and easy for me in the
back.

Once we got below the headwall, we ate some food, busted out the stove, and whipped up some hot jello. well, my
dragonfly needs a bit of TLC these days, so we hacked and sputtered together some hot jello. Just
what we needed though. Then down through some more deadfall/trail combo. We happened upon a tentsite
with real live people in it, just as we lost the light. Wow! Fortunately, they had come up the trail
we were going down, and so had broken it out. Sort of. They were pretty frickin lost half the time,
but at least we knew they would eventually get us in the right place. A not-so-brief adventure
followed, with cliffs, obstacle courses, and plenty of fun in the dark.

Eventually we got back to reasonable terrain, and managed to follow the trail back. Then back out through
the gulf. We get to Pinkham at 9ish? maybe a bit later. Some serious food-eating and sleep-crashing at
intervale, followed by a hardcore day in North Conway with the tourists.

Christiaan Adams, Polly Anikeeva, Dan Walker