Jon Todd

So this past Monday, myself and three intrepid co-workers, Aaron, Hillary, and John decided to atempt the Presidential Travers in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Most would recomend 2-3 days of backpacking for this monstruos 26+ mile / 9500+ foot hike. Our goal was to finish this beast in one day.

After sleeping in a Hotel in Gorham, NH John, Hillary, Aaron (whose idea this was), an I arrived at the Dolly Copp campgound a little before 3:00 AM and departed on the hour. We took the Daniel Webster Scout Trail (graciously cleared by Boy Scouts some seventy years ago) up to the peak of Madison.  Concerned that our headlamp batteries might run out on the second half of the trip only 2 of us at a time turned on our lamps, which made for some tricky stepping. At about 5:00 AM we were above the tree-line and missed a turn in the trail. The result was some interesting hiking amongst some pretty fragile plant life that I’m sure sent a dark shadow to the hearts of the White Mountains Rangers. We hit the summit of Madison just before 6:00AM, stopped for a quick photo and pressed on.

We stopped at the AMC Madison Spring Hut to get out of the wind and get some more food into our systems.  When we got inside we saw some of the thru-hikers starting to stir while others slept on tables in the dining area. We only stopped for about 10 minutes, but by the time we left the place was alive with hikers getting ready for their days. Plenty of them seemed confused as to how we got there and why they hadn’t seen us at dinner the night before. I think we gained some respect with the thru-hikers when we told them of our 2:00 AM wakeup and the plans for our ambitious trip. Topped off with food, and drained of other things we headed out of the Hut towards Adams.

 I remember the climb to the peak of Adams being windy and slippery and I think we all took a couple diggers. I generally lagged behind because of both my fitness level and the fact that I didn’t want to end up on my rear too often. The summit at Adams was windy as hell and I could barely stand up to snag a quick photo of myself (no one else wanted to stop up there) before descending into some more sheltered territory.

From there the trek over to Jefferson was pretty uneventful. It was mostly a ridgeline traverse without any big elevation gains or drops. The footing was markedly better as the sun was beginning to dry the rocks and the dreaded wet lichen was becoming less of a problem. We stopped briefly at about 8:00 AM for some more food and a good sit before hitting the Jefferson peak at about 8:45 AM.

At the Jefferson summit we took a moment to look out at Clay and Washington ahead of us, and I remember saying something like “That little nub over there is Clay, does that even count?”. What I didn’t realize is that we were going to descend 700 feet before getting to the 600 foot Clay ascent, and all of that in under a mile. I think the Clay ascent is where I started my 30 seconds of climbing / 5 seconds of resting technique, which is what I ended up doing on most of the rest of the ascents. Even with my slowing pace, we reached the top at about 10:00 AM.

There isn’t much of a descent between Clay and Washington (Amen!) and we quickly made it to the junction with the Cog Railway. This is where we made navigational error #2. Instead of following the Cog up the Northwest face of Washington, we traversed around to the Southwest face, until we were almost inline with the Lakes of the Clouds Hut. Aaron and Hillary we leading at this point and John and I made it very well know that we did not appreciate this extra mileage. Finally at around 11:00 AM, 9 hours into our trip, we made it to the top of Mt. Washington, our tallest peak of the day at 6288′. Let me just take a second here to say seeing cars at the top of Washington is a little disheartening. I mean, at the Katahdin’s summit you can look around and say to yourself, “This was a tough climb, but only after this tough climb can I reap the rewards of this beautiful view.” At the top of Washington I was starting to wonder if I souldn’t've just driven the damn thing.

 

 

We took a leisurly lunch which included some cheese, processed meats, and chili and some deliberation by John about taking the Cog down and calling it a day, and headed out around 11:45. John and Hillary left first and Aaron and I left 5-10 minutes later and we would rendezvous the Lakes of the Clouds Hut. From there it was a pretty easy hike over to Monroe and Franklin beyond that. We hit Franklin at about 1:15 PM and were on pace for a pretty good time.

There was a bit of a descent off of Franklin and up onto Eisenhower and my legs were feeling pretty juiced at this point moving past the 30 second/5 second ratio and into the 20 second / 10 second style. Off of Eisenhower it was a pretty straight descent, with a little climb before the peak of Pierce where we sat for a bit and grabbed some more food. Here, John decided to bail choosing to skip Jackson and Webster and hike the 3 miles to Rt 302 along the Crowford Path and then another 3 mile walk along 302 to the car. The rest of us pressed on the remaining 7.1 miles to the cars.

Tired, but still in good spirits, we hit the Mizpah Hut around 3:45. After stopping for the bathroom and NOT refilling out water (big mistake) we headed off towards Jackson. Or so we thought. Turns out that we headed downhill about .4 miles out of the way down the Mt. Clinton Trail. When we finally figured this out, I got pissed and haulled my way up to the Mizpah hut as fast as I could. Now when we reach the Mizpah hut again I’m still angry/frustrated and we’re getting more concerned about how much daylight we have left so we head off on the correct (Webster Cliff) trail still without refilling our water (HUGE mistake).

We come to the top of a small hill which I had delusionally decided was Mt. Jackson, only to be informed by Aaron that Mt. Jackson was actually that imposing peak 3/4 of a mile away. This is think is when my good natured view of this trip decided to leave. I was beat down, and my legs were deteriorating pretty rapidly. Even the flats were painful. We made it to the Jackson peak around 5:00 PM and I sat down for what seemed to be about 10 seconds before we took off again (I’m sure that it was more like 5 minute, but I was exhausted). I knew that Webster was the Baby of the traverse at a mere 3910′ so I wasn’t completely broken yet.

We cruised through Webster’s peak at around 6:00 PM after much moaning and groaning from myself. The last leg of the trip seemed to take for ever. Each mile marker was torturous: 4.2 miles to 302, then we hiked for what seemed like a day and saw the 3.1 miles to 302 sign. WHAT!?! We’ve only gone 1 mile? How is that possible? These signs can’t be right! This is where I completely checked out mentally. I was whining and sniveling like a little girl and Aaron and Hillary took turns babysitting me while the other went ahead to check the trail. We worked along a ridgeline and around a spur above 302 before finally heading down. The descent seemed to never end. We were way back below the treeline and so we couldn’t get any grip on where we were and where we were going. I sat down for a bit in the middle of the trail after both Hillary and Aaron were nice enough to give me the rest of their water, as I had been out for awhile. Then Hillary went ahead and Aaron stayed with me for a bit, mentioning that we really had to get going if we wanted to finish before dark.

We caught up with Hillary again around 8:00 PM when the light was fading pretty fast and we only had the dusk through the trees to guide us. We all decided that we really had to keep up a good pace to avoid getting stuck in the dark. Then Hillary took of at a near jog down the trail. And somehow, I followed her. She could hear my footsteps behind her and picked up the pace a bit, and I kept up. I was watching her footsteps to guide me which made the dusky light not as bad. As we came to a tree in the road she went left and I right and I passed her. I was almost in full running stride now and although my legs hurt some, I felt like I could run like that for hours.

I skidded to a stop at a sign post and was greeted with the most demoralizing sight of the trip: Rt 302 -> 2 Miles. I almost collapsed. When Aaron and Hillary caought up they couldn’t believe the sign either. We just stood there and stared for what seem like a while. Then Aaron noticed the small “.” before the 2 that we had missed in the bad light. .2 Miles!!!!! We all took off at a run again, Hillary in the lead. At about 8:30 PM we emergerd from the woods and onto the street. We crossed and made it to the car, dropping out packs overjoyed that we were done. Finally finishing 17.5 hours after we set out.