Mount Adams 5799' and Mount Madison 5366'

Airline/Gulfside/Osgood/Valley Way

9.9 Miles 5050' Elevation gain

Kevin, Judy & Wicket

At 60 years old and walking on an artificial hip I can truthfully admit the prospect of hiking the Northern Presidentials again just so my dog (Judy says she's mine) could reach peaks on a list seems absurd, yet here I was...


If we should manage to summit these two today, it would be #'s 39 & 40 on her list, but the thought of returning to these two particular mountains was daunting, knowing full well from past experience how difficult pounding the broken rock staircase from the pavement to the crag can be, and I'm not getting any younger.

I swore years ago, if I ever did another round of the 48 I would not leave all the worst/hardest hikes for last, but in my usual fashion, that's exactly what I did. Psyching myself up to face these last 10 on her list has become a mind game.

Mind over Mountain, the game of "I can do this!" There are always the nagging thoughts of "It was wicked hard when you did it when you were younger!" and I have to counter that thought with, "Yeah, but now my bad leg is my good leg 'cause it's all fixed!"

Then, "It's long and you haven't been hiking much, and it's all rock, and STEEP!" and again I have too counter that thought with, "Yeah, but I did it in winter on a bad leg, I can do it now and it won't be as bad!"

"The weather could get bad while you're out there on the god-forsaken blasted boulders, slipping and sliding in the freezing rain!" All the negative thoughts are there, trying to dissuade me, trying to make me do the SANE thing, "Forget this ridiculous list! Do you think the dog cares?"

"Alright, now you're getting personal, therefore you and all negative thoughts are henceforth banished from my thought process on this." And so on...

I get a decent night's sleep before the hike, unusual, but I was able to calm my mind knowing I could not control what was going to happen the next day, I just had to face it and take it as it comes. Mount Jefferson went well last month, why shouldn't these?

We had watched the weather and had picked what was probably going to be the best day of the week for tackling these two. High pressure had moved in. The skies were full of cool, crisp air and big, billowing clouds. The sun was bright and warm, and here we were...

We had to park down the road a few hundred feet from the Appalachia parking lot, not unusual on a day like this. We were quickly out and ready to go, starting up the Airline which is pretty much a straight line up to Adams.

The first mile or so is a nice hike through open woods, but bit soon becomes a steep, jumbled rock staircase, and continues this pattern for another 3+ miles and a total of 4900 feet elevation gain.

"Ok, we're into this, and there's nothing for it now. Just bear down, suck it up, and get it done." I am winning the Mind over Mountain struggle in my brain. Now, if only my body can do what my mind wants it to...

All of my mental preparedness only leads me to the point where I can let go, and give myself into the hands of the mountain gods. It is up to them to confer with the sky gods and decide if we shall have safe passage, not only up these slopes, but back down as well...

Despite temps in the low 60's, it is humid. I am sweating and breathing hard. "I'm gonna hafta work for it!" I am glad for the shade of the trees, but the canopy is holding in the humidity...

After what seems like forever we pop out of the trees above timberline and onto Durand Ridge. The Knife-edge section of the ridge is ahead of us. With the sun now in our faces, I follow the ridge with my eye up and away into the distant rock-strewn crags above us.

I know from past hikes up this trail that the most distant, almost insignificant bump in the expanse I can see above us, is the summit of Adams, our first objective, but at this moment my main objective is a drink, a look around, and to take some pictures now that we're out in the open.

Indeed, the views from this vantage into King Ravine are pretty spectacular, not to mention the surrounding mountain-scape. My mind is flooded with remembrance of why it makes my body do this.

I am filled with thankfulness that my pain is gone, my body is healed, and I can once again make my body do this without my mind screaming "NO!". Simultaneously I am overjoyed at the memories and experiences I/we have been blessed with over the years as we have ventured into these hills.

The sun is bright when it is not playing here & seek with the beautiful, big, billowing white clouds that are gracing the sky around the summits. They flit quickly over us and dapple the mountainsides with their dark shadows as they pass and are again replaced with warm, bright, sun.

It isn't hot, though the work has me sweaty, and we are blessed with a light breeze that is keeping us cool, and also keeping the bugs from being too bad. Except for the summit, bugs were not much of an issue, another sign the gods were smiling on us...

We plugged away. Given the beauty of the day for us to make this hike, we owed it all we had. Suddenly, like magic, there we were, standing on the summit of Adams. Wicket had reached her 39th summit, and I had returned to where I had reached my 47th Winter summit seven years earlier, and one hip-replacement later...

We sat, we ate, we drank, we marveled at the views, I took pictures. Judy made friends with other people's dogs... Bees buzzed us and were driving Wicket crazy, so, despite not wanting to leave, we began our descent back down. Our next goal was reaching Madison Springs Hut.

I enjoy the descent back down the Airline as the views laid out before us are magnificent. Eventually we come to the junction of the Gulfside Trail which brings us to the hut.

I find this section annoying because the hut is well within sight for most of it, yet you still have to clamor along over a rough, rock-strewn trail for a good distance before reaching it.

As always, the hut is it's own little bee-hive of activity. People coming, people going, people eating, stretching, laughing, enjoying, connecting... We drop our packs and dig out more food...

Now, common sense says you should never leave your pack somewhere, then return for it after summiting. With my luck, something will happen, and I won't have my pack and the things I need. I was willing to take that chance on this beautiful day to sneak up Madison and back to the hut with no pack...

"No water? No way to carry it without my pack... OK, just the camera? Yeah, sure, I'm hydrated, I can make it... 2/10ths of a mile up- "I'm cramping, and I've got nothing to drink!" IDIOT! I sit down, I drink a bit of Wicket's water.

"We're not that far up. We can go back and get your pack and water." "No, I'm alright, let's go." I get up, we start up again, I'm fine. I realize, I just had a reminder from the mountain gods- "Don't push your luck!"

We reach the summit of Madison. We are thrilled-what a day! We high five and high paw and I take more pictures of us, but more of our incredible surroundings. we did it! #40 for Wicket!

The celebration is soon dampened with the thought, "OK, now we have to survive getting back down for any of this to count!" We begin the descent back to the hut, it feels like it only takes minutes. We don our packs again and head down the Valley Way.

The Valley Way has always been known to me as "The easiest way down from the Northern Prezzies", but it never feels like it to me. The first couple of miles descending from the hut is the same blasted, shattered, stone staircase that we ascended on the Airline.

Eventually the trail flattens out a bit while still descending, and the rocks turn to more gravel and dirt, and despite my overall fatigue, my mind is still on guard against negative thoughts torturing me the rest of the way down.

Before we knew it we were down to the waterfalls that run along the lower part of the trail. Wicket made a quick visit to a couple of spots to cool sore paws and drink deeply. The next I knew we were in the parking area again, and I was thanking the gods for our safe passage...