It was a rare day in the White Mountains in winter with spring like temperatures and great views. I woke up at 6am, and after boiling water for my water bottles and finishing packing, I got to Appalachia parking lot and started hiking at 7:55am. My expectation for the hike was low since the day before it had been raining all day and on the way to the trailhead, all we could see was green and the weather forecast said it was going to cloudy all day. Well, fortunately the weatherman was wrong. We started up Valley Way. The first 30 minutes the trail was very icy and no snow. Stabilizers would have been useful, but we barebooted it. Then after initial icy section, we had snow the rest of the way and we were able to easily bareboot it to Madison Hut. We got to Madison Hut by 11am and put on crampons and then hiked up Madison. Everyone in the group used crampons, but stabilizers probably would have been sufficient. This was a rare day with nearly no wind. I would say at most the wind got to 20 mph, but most of the time it was less and temperature was warmer than most spring days. We spent almost a half hour on the summit of Madison taking pictures and enjoying the view. However Adams loomed in front of us, beckoning to be climbed. We could not pass a chance to hike Adams in this weather; we left Madison Hut at 12:30pm and headed to the Adams. On one icy section, my hiking pole went flying down the mountain, but fortunately Doug leaped across the steep ice save the pole from falling all the way down. Thanks Doug. After the that we missed the trail junction were the airline trail went to the summit of Adams, so we followed someone else’s tracks to get back on trail. And then we made our final approach to the summit. Just before the summit, we were greeted by a hiking hound from a nice couple and then we were on top of Adams at about 2pm and we felt tired after hiking 5000’ of elevation, but felt good after tackling Adams. After stopping to take some pictures, we continued down the Airline trail back to Appalachia. We got to treeline about 3pm. That was 3.5 hours above treeline in the winter (I think the most for me in the winter). We were able to glissade down many sections of the trail and then the trail become a little slushy. We made it back to the trailhead by 5pm. I felt tired, but it was an awesome day.
Nice Clear Morning. Madison hidden behind the trees Taken from Valley
Way Trail..
Mt. Madison from Madison Hut
Putting on crampons at Madison Hut
Summit of Madison. Bill and other hikers making their final approach to
the Summit.
Mt. Washington.
Washington on left, but Adams looms right in front of us.
Wildcat Ski Area
Bill and Robyn
Doug and Mohamed
Robyn, Bill and Doug
I don't know who that guy is. Oh wait its Me. Washington on Left.
Adams on Right.
Silvia
Washington
Rita enjoying the her first season of winter hiking. Doug behind her
munching on some good grub.
Bill on the left. Me and Paul .
Adams beckons to us and we must answer its call.
A UFO approaches Madison Hut from lower left. FBI made us look into a
bright light and then told us that it was only a glove.
Starting up towards Adams.
Looking back at Madison
Chris making his final steps to summit of Adams.
Washington from Summit of Adams
Jefferson.
Wildcat Ski Area
Me between Washington and Jefferson on summit of Adams.
Group Photo on Summit of Adams.
Jefferson on the left. In far distance Franconia Ridge can be seen.
Bretton Woods Ski Area on Middle Right.
Looking towards Route 2 and noticing how far we came up (and how far we have
to descend.)
Looking back up on Adams.
Madison and Madison Hut.
Gulfside and Airline Trail Junction. Sun is starting to descend.
Airline Trail (where we descended.)
King Ravine
One last look at Adams.
One last look at Madison.