Monday, July 9, 2012

Hiking the 4,000 Footers: Mount Jackson 6.21.2012

Mount Jackson is where we formally decided to start hiking all of New Hampshire's 4,000 footers. As I mentioned before- I knew of people hiking this list but I just never really felt the calling to do it. When we woke up early the next morning to hike Jackson my body was also not feeling the calling. We had hiked Mount Tom late the day before and I was terribly out of shape for hiking.

My calves screamed, my knees made noise, but that little voice inside my head that says "let's just go home and take it easy" was beginning to wane. We dosed ourselves with Vitamin I (ibuprofen) and hit the trails on the second day of high humidity and temperature in the upper nineties.

That's sort of the thing with hiking this list. If you work full time it's all about sneaking in the random Friday hikes and sometimes hiking in not ideal weather.

Jackson

We approached Mount Jackson from the Webster-Jackson trail. I had attempted this mountain once before with a friend and had to turn back at one of the river crossing due to high waters. Today's trip the water was low enough that all of the crossings were minimal and unremarkable. It can be truly amazing how different a crossing looks depending on the water levels.

The trail itself was knarly, steep, and rocky. The summit was classic New Hampshire- wind blowing at around 35- 40 mph, but the skies were clear and the views awesome. The way back down was killer as always.

Jackson

so windy my pictures all looked crazy because I couldn't hold the camera straight

It was on Mount Jackson where we finally said- let's do this- let's hike all the peaks. Things were starting to get boring in the day to day and we needed something different. Honestly it makes the work week go by so much quicker and puts all the other worries into a much better perspective.

No comments: