| The route: Dropped at
the Whitehouse Bridge, up Liberty Springs Trail to Flume Slide Trail, Franconia
Ridge Trail to Lafayette, Garfield Ridge Trail to Galehead Hut, the Frost
trail out to Galehead and back. Up to South Twin, out and back to North
Twin. The Twinway to the Bondcliff Trial, out to Bond and West Bond, back
to Guyot, then East on the Twinway to the Zealand Trail, over to the A-Z
Trail and up to the Mt. Tom Spur. After the out and back to Tom, over the
Willey Range Trail to the summit of Field, then descending the Avalon trail
to Crawford Notch where a stash of food and other goodies would be waiting
in the bushes. The second leg would be your basic full Presidential Traverse
from the Jackson trailhead to Madison, descending the Valley Way. The plan
called for an afternoon start to get over Franconia Ridge before nightfall,
and complete the bulk of the peaks in the Pemi by headlight. This timing
would allow me to deal with the Garfield Ridge Trail while I was still fresh,
while staying below treeline for most of the night, and having plenty of
daylight to traverse the Presidential Range.
Although I was ready to go on Sunday, the conditions
were less than summery above treeline, with wind chills in the teens on
Mount Washington. By Monday afternoon, winds had dropped substantially
and temperatures were on the rise, with a solid window of clear weather
through Tuesday night. It was ON. |