Saturday, August 9 - Mt. Jefferson (5716', 3)

It was cool and overcast most of the day, with occasional glimpses of blue sky. Still, it's the nicest day in weeks. I want to stay away from the major trailheads like Appalachia, and off the main trails. After great lengths of internal debate, I decided to do Jefferson by way of the caps ridge trail from Jefferson Notch. It feels like cheating. The Jefferson notch road is the highest public road in NH (closed in winter). You take 9 miles of dirt road to the AMC parking area at the Notch, which is at just about 3000 feet of altitude. The caps ridge trail is 2.5 miles to the summit of jeff, some of it pretty rough with some ledge scrambling, but mostly soft, smooth and quick, relative to most trails in the presidentials. The sky was beginning to clear, at least on the lower parts of the mountain, and I thought the peak might just clear in time for me to arrive. The Caps are three large promontories near the top of the ridge leading from Jefferson Notch to Jefferson. They were in clear air and had very nice panoramic views of the valleys. The tops of the peaks were still wrapped with heavy clouds.

I reached the summit after an hour and 25 minutes of steady climbing. It is a much easier climb than Madison or Adams, each of which has long, tedious, half hour boulder scrambles at the summit approach. Jefferson's boulder scramble takes about 30 seconds. Completely clouded over, not a view to be seen. I spent about 5 minutes at the summit then another 5 to eat my banana at the first cap, and had a nice little talk with a mom waiting for her hubby and kids who were going up a second time in the fruitless hope of getting a stunning view. Let's call it 1:25 up, leave at 1:35, arrive at trailhead at 2:42 (67 minutes down).

It felt quick and easy. The trail really is pretty tough, only averaged 34 min/mi uphill, and I can usually maintain faster than 30 on all but the steepest or most technical slopes. Nevertheless, 85 minutes to a more than mile high summit just seems too easy.

That was fun. If tomorrow is nice, I may go out for a long peak-bagging series.