Sunday, January 31, 2021
Start: Appalachia trailhead
End: Crawford Notch, Jackson trailhead
Miles: 20.88
Elevation gain/loss: 9196’/8615′
I met up with another hiker at Crawford Notch at 4:30am; we left a car there and then drove over to Appalachia trailhead together. We hit the trail at 5:15am, but took a few minutes to get our gear settled and put on our microspikes, after checking out the condition of the trail and deciding we didn’t need snowshoes yet.
We climbed up Valley Way, dropped our packs next to the hut, and made it to the summit of Mt Madison by 7:45am. We collected our packs, and headed over to Adams and then Jefferson. Between Adams and Jefferson, we had to put on our snowshoes due to deep drifted snow without a stable monorail. I left the snowshoes on until we hit the Lake of the Clouds hut. We made the Mt Washington summit by 11:30am, and then headed down towards Monroe. We took a short break at the hut to fuel and switch out for spikes. While there, I chatted with an Instagram hiker friend I hadn’t met in person before.
From there, we headed up to Monroe, then over to Eisenhower. Partway there, my hiking partner switched to snowshoes and left them on until we summitted Jackson. I stayed with my spikes, but I ended up wishing I’d switched out between Mizpah hut and Jackson. Once we hit Jackson at 4pm, we hurried our way down to Crawford Notch, arriving just shy of 5pm and sunset.
Transcending Mountains 