Last summer, my last 4,000 footer of the year, which was sadly only my 8th (wow do I have a long way to go), was Mount Jackson, doing the Jackson-Webster loop.
I always love parking and being able to see exactly where I'm going. It was a beautiful day, and although late as per usual, I headed out.
that's where I'm going
The entrance to the trail was less than glamorous.
But if I was at all confused, there was my sign.
The hike climbs pretty much right away, and then about .1 into the hike, there is a short .2 mile spur to the Elephant Head lookout point.
It's short enough that I'd say it's worth it. It does add .4 miles to the trip, but the trail isn't hard (and is kind of interesting). And the view is nice.
I was just on that road!
I thought I'd see some sort of Elephant head, but I guess I was standing on the Elephant head. There's a good picture of it here- it totally looks like an elephant's head.
I headed back to the main trail and it got steep fast.
But in another .4 miles or so, there was another extremely short spur to Bugle Cliff, which was basically the same views as Elephant head, but higher up, and therefore better.
Especially in HDR.
The trail then mellowed out a bit, and I found myself very surprised at how much of a mess it was in a lot of places. This trail is insanely popular, and I could see a lot of kids or grandmas having a lot of trouble with the amount of sharp and huge rocks.
Eventually, the trail split. I could go straight to Webster or turn left to go to Jackson first.
I knew the views on the Webster Cliffs were going to be the best of the trip, and I wanted to end with them. So on to Jackson I went.
I also went this way because an enormous group (like 20 people) of what appeared to be volunteers headed towards Webster and I like being alone. The trail got muddy and disgusting. I saw a few people working on the trail up here. I'm blown away that these people do this.
The trail eventually hit a point of pretty constant rising in fairly constant woods.
Then I saw my first preview of Jackson. I thought I was higher up.
dammit
I was surprised at how much trailwork had been done this high up.
And how helpful someone was.
Things got dry pretty quickly, and my hike turned into rock climbing for a little bit.
Then I knew I was close.
Booyah.
I did my best to get my standard homemade sign picture, but this was the best I could get out of like 10 attempts. It was just waaay too windy up there and I had nowhere good to balance my camera (I really need to get one of those bendy stands).
As usual, online hiking reports drastically undersold the views from up here.
Looking towards Willey, Willard, Tom and Field:
The presidentials:
I've been talking about manning up and doing a presidential traverse this year (over a few days), and I was surprised at how manageable it looked once I was 4,000 feet up. But at the same time, this picture is zoomed in. This was my actual view:
that's a loooong way
This traverse looked somehow both kind of manageable and absolutely massive and kind of terrifying, and I could only see to Washington. But then again, nobody says it's small. It is like, 20 miles of hiking after all.
This was looking in the opposite direction from Washington:
And this was directly towards Webster, where I was now heading as daylight disappeared.
Here's an HDR I like way better:
I spent too much time on top of Jackson, and knew I had to make great time to Webster, so I made the trip as fast as I could, which was unfortunately not as quick as I would have liked. There were some very steep, rocky sections:
But luckily, after the initial drop, most of the trail was flat and had boards everywhere, making it nice and fast (other than when I zoned out and walked right off the side of one into mud).
It was neat doing this section, because Appalachian Trail hikers kept coming at me, heading towards the same shelter the people I saw on top of Jackson were going to. They were moving so fast, and they STUNK.
I got to the sign to either go back down or go to the Webster Cliffs, and headed right to the cliffs, as I had heard they rule.
And it very much ruled up there.
The drop in some spots was absolutely terrifying.
shoe for reference
I don't know why this picture is so dark on the left side:
I hung out way too long and took way too many pictures, but sunset up there was phenomenal. Here's looking sort of back towards Jackson:
Looking at the railroad tracks and Willard:
And here's a sweet panorama I put together that stupid Blogger doesn't seem to let me make any bigger:
I loved it up there- it was real scary being on ledges alone at sunset, but man, the views were great, especially being able to look at Willey, Tom and Field and know that I had stood on top of them looking at this mountain. Willard was the last mountain with views on that side to conquer.
As it started to get dark, I hiked as fast as I could, but eventually had to turn on my headlamp and flashlight and slow my pace down a little. I don't really like hiking at night, I just always end up doing it because I'm irresponsible. Usually I don't care that I'm missing the trail, but this time I kind of did, because there was a huge waterfall in one section that I literally couldn't even see.
I checked out Bugle cliff on the way down to see how everything looked at night. Turns out, it was pretty dark.
I got out pretty exhausted, and was psyched to have to walk down the road in complete darkness.
NOT
And that was it. #8 down. Great hike in general- the trail was very interesting most of the way up, and other than some super muddy sections, pretty manageable, at least as far as 4,000 footers go. I'm psyched to start killing them off this year. I have set a completely unreasonable goal of being half way through the 4,000 footers by the end of this summer. Woo!
________________________________________________________________________________
The short version:
Jackson is a very popular hike- not only is it the south end of the Presidentials (though not considered a presidential), but it's one of the easier 4,000 footers, and it's right in the heart of Crawford Notch- tourist central. The trail was messier than I thought it would be, but it's super easy to follow and the views from Jackson are pretty awesome. The true gold was the Webster Cliffs though, so if you're just looking for views, I wouldn't even bother with Jackson. But if you do hit it up, make sure you go to Webster too. I hope to do the Webster Cliff trail sometime, which keeps going all along the cliffs you see when you drive into Crawford Notch.
Directions:
-Take 302 west from Conway into Crawford Notch. Park at the Crawford
depot, on the left right before the AMC Highland Center, and basically
across from Saco Lake. Walk across the street to Saco Lake and walk down the road where you came from. The entrance to the trail is on the left.
-There are signs everywhere you need them.
-Hike time: I don't remember. Probably between 5-6 hours.
-Mileage: 6.9 miles including the spur trips (which are worth it)
-Elevation gain: about 2,500 feet
-Summit Elevation: Jackson: 4,052 feet, Webster: 3,910 feet
-Number of people seen on the hike: The most I've seen, probably over 30 (20 volunteers)
-Number of times I fell: 1 (I think)
currently listening to: Ween- Shinola, Vol. 1
No comments:
Post a Comment