I'd been having one of those weeks when I just felt like I needed to do something bigger than normal. The weather forecast for the Presidentials was looking rough: highs in the low 20s with snow showers and 30-45mph winds.
The Castle Trail on Mt. Jefferson (5712') always seemed interesting, but it's a 4.8 mile, 4200' one way trip, and that daunting amount of distance often leaves me seeking shorter, easier things. Like I said, I was in the mood to do something big, so a big day in the Presidentials with a winter forecast sounded appealing.
A Facebook post I made got a few bites, Pascal, a recent graduate from the Venture Crew I was active in during high school, and Jaime, an intrepid fellow graduate student here at Dartmouth, who really had no idea what he was getting into when he moved from Florida and made friends with me. We made plans to do it in a long day on Sunday.
The Castle Trail is also interesting because it has some short sections of scrambling. The ridge narrows to near knife-edge proportions and has several tall rock towers (castles) that must be overcome. This, coupled with the remoteness of the ridge and the distance of the trail make it one of the more serious trails in the Presidentials.
We left Lebanon at 5:00am on Sunday morning and drove through on and off rain to the trailhead, arriving around 7:30am. We went into Gorham to get some lunch for the day and found the rain had mostly passed, so we geared up and headed out. We knew the forecast, so we were prepared for a typical winter day in the Presidentials, even though it's only mid October.
The first few miles and 2500' or so are actually fairly easy as far as White Mountain trails go. We made good time cruising through the cold forest before reaching the snow line at 3000'
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| Creek crossing early in the day |
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| Beautiful Fall forest |
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| I love the bluntness of these signs. They don't mince words. |
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| Looking at the first castle just above treeline (photo: Pascal Liddane) |
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| Surmounting the castles |
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| Looking back at the final castle |
Scrambling over the castles was a little more challenging given the slight layer of snow and rime ice. The winds were mild, and made for a very pleasant experience. We had some surreal views of the castles coming in and disappearing into the fog. After the castles, the ridge opened up quite a bit and we had smooth but slippery sailing for the last 1700' to the summit. The winds were starting to pick up, and by the time we got to the summit we were feeling every mph.
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| Final steps to the summit |
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| Success! The views are beautiful this time of year... |
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| Lid was stuffed inside my pack for the majority of the ascent, can you tell? |
We summited at 2:30pm, about 6 hours after we left the trailhead. Above treeline, the combination of wind and slippery conditions really slowed us down. There was just enough snow to make things a little dangerous, but not enough for crampons or even microspikes to have been useful.
On the summit, we hid from the wind for a few minutes and checked out the map. We decided we probably didn't want to descend the castles in their icy condition, so we aimed for another trail that would take us back to our car. We descended North from the summit of Mt. Jefferson and did a slow, descending traverse to gain the Israel Ridge Trail coming off Mt. Adams. It was substantially easier than Castle Ridge from a technical perspective, but it added a lot more time above treeline, exposed to the wind.
A combination of slippery conditions and an aggravated knee made our descent very slow. Nightfall hit us just after we passed below treeline on the Israel Ridge Trail, but we were able to descend by headlamp. A couple interesting downclimbs and creek crossings later, we finally made it back to our car at 10:30pm, eight hours after we'd left the summit and 14 hours after we'd left the car that morning.
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| One break in the clouds we got the whole day |
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| Slippery conditions made our descent very slow |
Several things come to mind about this trip. We were very well prepared, clothing and food wise. We didn't run out of food, water or warm clothing the entire day, despite some sub zero windchills. We probably could have each used a warmer pair of gloves, though hand temperature was easy enough to maintain by regulating our core temperatures. We had plenty of food, and I think our nutrition and hydration overall was pretty good. The one thing we were poorly equipped for was a night out above treeline. If one of us had a serious injury, in those conditions an open bivy would have been very dangerous. I reminded Jaime and Pascal of this, saying that a slow descent was much more preferable to a movement-limiting injury. The trekking poles we each had were probably the most useful piece of gear we each brought, followed closely by our Alaskan sized puffy jackets.
I think the only mistake we made was deciding to descend the Israel Ridge Trail rather than the Castle Ridge Trail as we ascended. We reasoned that the castles would be difficult to downclimb in their condition, probably rightly so. We didn't quite realize how much longer we'd be above treeline by choosing to descend the Israel Ridge Trail, and as bad luck would have it, we had to hike Northwest which was directly into the wind.
Navigation was also challenging, the visibility was low and most of the trail signs were covered in ice and unreadable. We checked the elevation of each trail junction we were supposed to pass on our map until we reached the one we wanted to take. Overall, it was an excellent day. I was looking for some adventure, and I found it. Jaime and Pascal may have gotten more than they bargained for, but I believe I was pretty upfront about the whole situation from the beginning, so I don't feel bad =). Perhaps it was a good exercise in Type II fun.
