Monday, August 16, 2010

Mt Jackson - August 14, 2010 - #2

Alex completed his first 4000 footer!  And what a long hike it was.  Just he and I were camping at the Dry River Campground and headed out early Saturday morning.  This would be his longest and toughest hike so far so I had a few different plans in mind pending our progress.  The ultimate goal was to head up the Webster Jackson trail to the summit of Jackson, then over to the summit of Webster, and then return.   Friday night I was also considering other hikes in the area, one of which was Mt Pierce via Crawford Path but that would be even longer so Jackson it was.

Alex at the trail head
After a big breakfast of pancakes we headed out and arrived at the trail head around 7:50AM.   About 12 hours until sunset to plenty of time and a few places to shorten the trip if we need to.  Took out the map one last time to show Alex the path we were taking and snap a picture at the trail head.  Now the reader that is paying attention to the photo at right will notice what it says on the trail sign...

Ooops, guess I was on auto-pilot after reading about Crawford Path and Mt Pierce late the night before and didn't realize we were at the wrong trailhead until I pulled out the map!

Alex at the correct trail head...
Ok, so back down the road to the correct place, feeling like an idiot.  But I guess that is why you double check the map before you head out!
So up we head at about 8:30 now.  The time I set was to leave no later than 9:00 AM if we were to return by sunset so we were good.  On that pace we had three hours to reach the junction where the Webster Jackson trail splits off to each mountain.  We saw some other hikers getting ready at the parking lot.  There was suppose to be an AMC planned trip on this loop today, not sure if that was them or not.



Alex heading up trail near the start
We headed up by ourselves but for the next several hours were passed by many people, most of whom commented on Alex hiking up such a big mountain.  Heck, according to the records the youngest to hike       all the 4000 footers was only 4.5!  Anyway, it was a nice hike and started to climb uphill pretty quickly though not to steep at all.   We passed the spur to Elephant Head and we wanted to go down.  But since we were coming back this way I told Alex that we could head out only if we returned early enough on the return.  It was .4 miles round trip so certainly enough to make a difference if we were pressed for time later - best to save it for the end if we have time.

This was also the first real hike with the new GPS so I was pulling it out often to check its progress.  I set it to keep a record of our track and log our progress in mileage, stopped time, and moving time.  The times were completely bogus unfortunately as it was only registering a little moving time and almost all stopped time.  The mileage however was increasing and we were making slooooooow progress.  Very slow in fact, so much I had serious doubts if we were going to even be able to reach the summit.  But we would go as far as we could and turn back when we need to.  The first check would be at the trail junction.  I was trying to push Alex along w/o being a slave driver and still keeping it fun - that is a hard balance to keep!   Did not see too much wildlife except many spider webs glistening in the morning son and lots of little frogs.
Alex took this photo of a tiny frog
Saw lots of spider webs like this

Starting to get a little steeper
After a ways there is a short trip out to Bugle cliff which grants the first views back down into the valley at Saco Lake and the Highland Center lodge.  Giving the first visual reward of our progress so far!
View from Bugle Cliff
I kept checking the GPS and we were still way behind schedule, almost 2 hours now and not even half way to where we needed to be after 3.  Oh well, we'll go as far as we can and then turn around and enjoy the trip just the same.
Wouldn't want to slip on this rock!

The trail was pretty much this all the way up - fun!
All of a sudden we reached the trail junction at just over 2 hours, but the GPS mileage said we were not even half way there.  Huh?  Not to happy with that, maybe I am not using it correctly.  More on that later...
Trail junction - 1.4 miles down, 1.2 to go to Mt Jackson

So since we reached the first milestone at 2 hours with a pace time of 3 were good to go and looking good for the summit of Jackson!  We had stopped several times up to this point and eaten some snacks: bananas, peanut butter crackers, cheese&crackers and chatted with  many people passing us by.  No flip floppers!
I figured I deserved at least one picture of me since all the rest were of Alex and the scenery - so Alex too this one.  Great photo!
As we were approaching the summit the trees began there tell tale sign of getting smaller and smaller and consisting of mainly spruces.  I explained this to Alex which of course turned into a half hour conversation.  We ran into a family who passed us earlier in the day who were descending from the summit.  They told us there were lots of Gray Jays up there that were eating out of the palm of people's hands.  That would be cool if they were still there when we got there. Before long we could hear the crowds of people on the summit before we first spotted the bald summit of Jackson.  Almost there!
First view of summit
Getting much steeper now, and requiring some climbing
Careful steps...
Quick rest before final ascent...
Last scramble to summit...

We made it!  Alex at the summit of Mount Jackson.  Elevation 4052 feet.  Mount Washinton and the southern Presidentals are in the background, Dry River valley on the right and you can make out Mizpah Spring Hut on the left on Mount Pierce.
Two of us at summit, with Washington behind us
The summit is mostly bare rock with some small scrubs in the middle but the views were outstanding in all directions.  The summit was crowded I must say but it did not detract from the experience.  The Gray Jays apparently had finished the lunch as none were nearby.  We hung out at the summit for close to an hour, rested, and ate lunch.  Alex also spent a fair amount of time looking at the distant mountains with the binoculars.  I really need a new camera as these pictures do not do justice at all to the views.


Looking west I think towards Crawford Notch, Mts Willey and Tom?
Willey and Field I believe.  In the very far distance is probably the Green Mountains in VT

North out the Notch, view of the Mount Washinton Hotel
Montalban Ridge including Mount Isolation.  One book I have says you can see parts of Sebago lake from the summit on a clear day, if you can I believe this would be the direction.  Didn't read this until after the trip in a book I bought the next day, had I realized I would have looked at the compass, taken out the binoculars and taken a look.  Sebago might be off the picture to the left though, not sure.
South, end of Montalban Ridge on left
Mount Webster in foreground - our next target for the day!

Not sure what mountain that is, but Webster is on the right
Alex enjoying the view
Watching me take pictures
Southern view


After spending probably too much time at the summit we headed down the trail towards Mt Webster.  This is part of the Appalachian trail so Alex and I had a long conversation on how the trail goes from Georgia to Maine but we were NOT going to be hiking all of that today...
Alex decided but first was the safest

The trail got pretty steep right off the summit, but nothing we couldn't handle.  We were making good time to Webster and in no time made it to junction with Webster Cliff trail and the Webster link of the Webster-Jackson trail.  Just 50 feet from here was a geocache so we followed a heard path into the woods looking for it.  Found it real easy and it is at one of the debated highpoints of Carroll County, GPS said elevation of 3850 feet.  The scrub was so dense Alex had to make the final crawl to retrieve the cache or I would have had to take my backpack off to get it.
After a time check I decided not to summit Mount Webster.  Even though it was only .1 miles from this junction at our current pace up we were due reach the bottom at just about sunset.  Had we not spent so much time on the Jackson summit we could have headed up to Webster summit for those views.  We most likely could have made it anyway as it is so short, but better get down as fast as we can - plus the clouds were starting to get dark at this point.

Gray Jay
Eating out of the palm of my hand

After a half hour or so I heard a noise behind me and I looked back on the trail and there was this funny bird looking back up at me only 2 feet behind me.  I heard a flutter and another landed in a tree about 3 feet out eye level giving me these really curious looks.  Just 2 birds bouncing around us like they wanted something.  Figuring they might be the Gray Jays we were told about I took off my backpack and pulled out the crust from Alex's sandwich he didn't eat and held it out.  Sure enough, they swooped on in and took it.  Alex and I had a blast feeding these two crazy birds.  Several times I had them land right on my hand to snatch the bread.  They were also grabbing the bread out of Alex's hands but the claws were too sharp so he didn't hold the bread out flat.  Took lots of pictures and a video or 2.
Quick grab and fly away!


Silver Cascade and pool
After feeding the birds we continued down the trail.  We were making good time as I told Alex we had to get to the Elephant Head Spur by 6:30 if we were going to have time to go out.  He was real excited to see the Elephant Head so that motivated him some.  We came to a really neat waterfall, the upper end of Silver Cascades which you can see from rt 302.  This pool of water was just as clear as could be and looked to be 10-15 feet deep.  Although depth is hard to tell so who knows, but it definitely was deep and looked VERY inviting to go in for a swim!

Alex wanted to stop for a rest all the way down and I told him to if he wanted to, but he was determined to see Elephant Head and get there by 6:30 so he continued on.  We made it to the spur at 6:33. OK, so not by 6:30 but I wasn't going to keep him from seeing it over only 3 minutes!  Besides, we had our headlamps and only .5 miles to go to the view, back, and down and 80 minutes to sunset to plenty of time.  We went out to the Elephant Head, and searched for another geocache that was suppose to be there.  We searched and searched and found nothing.  Thought we found it but it was just some pins someone stuck in a tree.  Our first did not find, oh well - will have to come back and look again.  We also could not find the elephant profile anywhere!  We tried to use our imaginations on the mountains up and down the notch but I saw no Elephant!
From Elephant Head looking south into the Notch, Mount Webster on left
North from Elephant Head, our truck can be seen in the parking lot
Hold on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alex emerging from the trail at the end, officially finished his 1st 4000 footer!
After a snack on the ledge and a short break we headed off for the final .3 miles of our trip back to the truck.

This turned out to be another great hike but a long one.  According to the GPS track log we hiked a total of 10 hours and 48 minutes.  Of that we were moving 1:10 and stopped 9:38.  OK, so that is bogus.  We traveled a total of 4.25 miles.  Um, I dont think so!  Mileage according to the maps is 6.3 miles including trip to Elephant Head.  After we got home I went online and these are known bugs with this particular GPS  (Oregon 450) and Garmin either fails to acknowledge the bugs or refuses to fix them.  It messes up the moving/stopped time as well as distance traveled.   Which is really disappointing, that is one of the reasons wanted a GPS.  It does great for geocaching but trip calculator is messed up.  It reported a total ascent of 2,728 feet.  I have no idea if that is correct given the other issues it had.  I am debating returning it for another model.  Everyone on the forums reports that their older Garmin model's work flawlessly.  Perhaps I'll call Garmin and give them a piece of my mind - not that it will help, but will make me feel better.




But a messed up GPS trip counter surely didn't damper the day - its just a piece of technology and we are out there to enjoy nature and get away from technology anyway!

One 4000 footer down, 47 to go! Will we reach them all?  Who knows, its just fun to get out there and enjoy the hikes along the way and if we do great - if not I'm sure we'll have plenty of exciting adventures in the years to come!

Oh, there is the Elephant Head as seen from the parking area.  The trail is TO the head, not to a VIEW of the head.  duh

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