The Presi Traverse of 2012

Sometimes, I come up with crazy ideas.....

Like, hey, why not hike for 20 miles across the White Mountains, making sure to summit Mt. Washington and the other presidential mountains on my list of 4000 footers left to cross off? And do it in one day. Sure, that seems like a grand idea….

Actually, this is a well-travelled path and is called a Presidential Traverse. There are variations of it, but the minimum requirements for complete what is affectionately referred to as a “death march” include hitting the following 7 summits:

 Mount Madison - named after James Madison
 Mount Adams - named after John Adams
 Mount Jefferson - named after Thomas Jefferson
 Mount Washington - named after George Washington
 Mount Monroe - named after James Monroe
 Mount Eisenhower - named after Dwight Eisenhower
 Mount Pierce - named after Franklin Pierce

The route I chose
started me off at the Appalachia Trail Head on Route 2 and then hike south to north to Crawford Notch. The original plan was to wait until the Summer Solstice (June 20th this year), under the theory that it is the longest day of the year. However, the weather forecasted a heat index approaching 100 degrees and exhaustion and dehydration were already going to be on the menu – I didn’t need to pre-order extra helpings; so I set off two days earlier at 4:30 AM. I hit the top of Mt. Washington around 1PM (after getting a little lost trying to find the right trail to summit Mt. Jefferson) and finished at the AMC Highland Center at 8:10 PM.

My hope is to write an extended piece about the trip, but for now, here are the shots from the seven summits.

Mt. Madison

Mt. Adams

Mt. Jefferson

Mt. Washington

Mt. Monroe

Mt. Eisenhower

Mt. Pierce

Year of the Moose

My 2011 climbing season was great for animal sightings. I don’t know what it was about this year over the others in the Whites, but the animals were out to be seen. I saw a Spruce Grouse on the ascent to Mt. Cabot and a fawn on my way down. I spooked a black bear on the trail up Mt. Waumbek (and it was most certainly the other way around. “Mr. Tough Guy” hiking with his whistle and his knife out the rest of the day). But the greatest sightings of the year where the MOOSE!

On a hike at the AMC’s Lonesome Lake Hut , my ten year old son Dan and I got to meet Angus, the fully racked bull moose on patrol. Dan got a cool video of that encounter here. Then in December, during a climb between Mt. Surprise and Mt. Moriah, I almost jumped into a pile of moose scat at about 3500 feet. I said to myself “that’s odd….those look awful fresh.” And then….well... here is the video:

Of course, the average moose stands about 7 feet tall at the shoulder and weighs about 1,400 pounds. Multiply that by 2 and there is quite a bit of startled animal in the woods with just me and my trusty hunter’s knife. But I figure, the best defense is a good offense, or, as Danton would say Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!