Post War Hike: 11-13 October: The Southern Presidentials

Saturday 11 Oct, Mother Nature reared her head again and we had to wait out a day to begin our trek from Mt. Washington south.

Sunday 12 October, When we arrived back on top of Mt. Washington this morning, the scene was very different from 6 days earlier. When we initially arrived at the Summit of Mt. Washington at 0915 hrs this morning it was 0 degrees, with negative windchills, 50-60 mph wind gusts, zero visibiility and rime ice was covering everything. Rime Ice The weather folks on the summit said the conditions were going to improve so we enjoyed some hot food at the restaurant and waited to see. The weather guy was right, 3 hours later the clouds disappeared, the winds quit and we were good to go for hiking. We strapped on our Katoola micro-spikes Micro Spikes and headed south.

Hendo's Mom and Hendo geared up/bundled up, on the summit of Mt. Washington, everything is covered in Rime Ice.

Hendo and Hendo's Mom headed south down Mt. Washington

Close-up picture of Rime Ice on blades of grass on the ground

Heading down Mt. Washington with undercast, ie. the clouds are below us in the background.

Our micro-spikes worked great and the day turned out to be absolutely beautiful. Along the way we summitted Mt. Franklin and Mt. Pierce. We were able to get pictures with our Memorial Stones on Mt. Franklin, but the weather was beginning to turn bad and it was getting dark when we summitted Mt. Pierce, so unfortunately we were not able to get pictures on Mt. Pierce.

Hendo with SPC Cassavant's Memorial Stone on the summit of Mt. Franklin

Hendo's Mom with MSgt Love's Memorial Stone on the Summit of Mt. Franklin

A Gray Jay stopped by to say high. Some of the only wildlife we have seen while in The Whites.

A stairway/ladder along the trail on our way to Mizpah Shelter where we spent the night. We did work for stay again, yay!!

Monday 13 October, Wow, what a change one night makes. Today we woke up to an absolutely gorgeous day, no rime ice or cloud in site. Today we finished off the second half of the southern Presidentials, hiking from Mizpah Hut, summitting Mt. Jackson, summitting Mt. Webster, traversing Webster Cliffs and then descending down into Crawford Notch. It was a great day of hiking except for the last bit across and down Webster Cliffs into Crawford Notch. The hike down was very steep and Mom was not a happy camper. No one had mentioned that this section of the trail was so steep, treacherous or gnarly, but note to self...it is!! Go up it, not down it!!! We made it though and completed The Presidential Range, yay!! We went into Conway for the night, as Hendo needed a new pair of shoes.