Date: 2014-08-27
From: Mt. Washington

To: Osgood Trail stealth site
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: overcast clouds

I enjoyed a big breakfast of French toast, fruit, muffin, blueberry buckle, bacon and coffee. Yum! The Mt. Washington Stage van picked me up and took me to their home base, where I got the 9:00 hiker shuttle to the summit. Dexter, yesterday's driver and I were the only ones in the van, and we talked about the mountain, his winter work driving the snow coach to tree line and teaching skiing at Wildcat, and hiking the trail. As we got near the summit, I let him concentrate on making his way through a pretty dense cloud cover. Visibility was not much more than 30 feet. Wet and wind-blown hikers emerged from the misty cloud looking for a ride down, and a couple of groups were in the main building talking with the ranger and preparing to hike towards Madison Spring Hut. They took off before I was ready, so I set out by myself. Visibility was down to about 15 feet, and I wandered a bit before finding the trail head. I was able to make out the next cairn so felt it was okay to hike. Before too long, I had descended into less dense cloud and could actually see the cog railway tracks with an approaching train. I took pictures and waved. Also passed three young men headed up who had come from the Great Gulf. The wind was pretty strong but probably not over 30 mph except in gusts. At the low point on the ridge between Mts. Washington and Clay, two men were flying a kite. I recognized them from the day before and stopped to talk. The older one asked me to hold the kite while they attached an extra tail. I was glad no big gusts came along, as the kite pulled pretty hard, and I had visions of taking off over the gulf. But they got things set, and I headed on along the west side of Mt. Clay. The Gulfiside Trail, which is the AT, does not go over the summits of Clay, Jefferson, or Adams but skirts below them (on the west side of Clay, the east side of Jefferson, and the west side of Adams. Since I have climbed all of them before, I was not up for the extra effort and kept to the AT. The trail on the ridge is nothing but rocks. While the cairns mark the direction, one still has to pick a route over the rocks, and the best route is not always easily visible. But the cloud had lifted, and by the time I got past Clay and headed for Mt. Jefferson, the sun was shining. I found a sheltered spot behind a large boulder and called my father ¢ I knew he would enjoy knowing where I was, since he had spent time in these mountains and even skied Tuckerman's Ravine while in college. Several faster hikers passed me, but I was comfortable with my pace and knew I had plenty of time to get to the Madison Hut. The downhill parts of the trail did slow me down. I am trying not to land hard on my knees, and there were plenty of big steps off high rocks, particularly on the descent from Jefferson after passing the junction with the Six Husbands Trail. Between Jefferson and Adams, thru-hikers Bismarck and Hopper came by. They are on their third thru-hike, and I loved it that Hopper hikes in a skirt. That's got to make some parts of trail life easier. They were at the Madison hut when I finally arrived a bit before 4. I wrestled with the choice of asking for work-for-stay or going on over Mt. Madison. One of the hut croo said there were some small stealth sites just below tree line on the other side of Madison, so I decided to continue. The weather was good, the wind not too bad for the Presidentials, and I had a few hours of daylight. I set off at 4:30 and headed for the summit. Just before I got there, Bam passed me. He is a tall thin guy hiking in what looks like a homemade kilt. I took his picture by the summit sign, and he danced off over the rocks. Not long after I went over, Double Shot (tall guy) and Pizazz (petite woman) passed. They hoped to make the Osgood tent site before dark. I took one fall that left me almost on my back and gave me a good bruise on my right elbow, but everything worked, and I carried on. What I had forgotten was the length of the ridge on the east side before the Osgood Trail went below tree line. The going was slow (it took over two hours to do 1.2 miles), the best route through the rocks not always evident, and I barely made it to tree line as it was beginning to get dark. The little site was small, but there was room for my tent, it was sheltered, and I got set up, cooked my dinner, and went to bed.