Mt Madison (5367') NH, December 9th '98

It all started with a naive proposal by Pat Brown to go attempt the presidential traverse while visiting intervale. He wanted to test drive his new jacket and pants. I having done part of the hike in the summer, told him, sure we can go up and try a couple of peaks and depending on the time, we'll decide how many we can do (internally I knew this number was very small). I also told him, in a way to discourage him (although this is true and needed), "but you know, if we do this hike we'll have to start very early like 3 or 4 in the morning". I was bluffing of course (in the sense that I thought that he would back down); yeah it is true that you need an early start, but I was thinking Pat was not going to buy into it. Not only did Pat bite into it, but Matt Hollingworth joined us too. At this point I could not retract.

The plan would be to take the webster trail to the top of Mt. Madison, and depending on the time, decide what else to do. We would leave my car (the second car) in pinkham notch in case we did the whole traverse. After dropping my car there, we proceeded with Pat's car to the Dolly Copp Campground where teh webster trail starts. We got there at 4:30am. The entrance to the campground was closed, and therefore we parked nearby and walked in (which we later learned was a mile length!).

After an hour in the trail, I was hungry and tired, and realize that a quote I had mentioned earlier was a little exagerated (rather wrong). I must tell you that I had a bagel for breakfast, a falafel for lunch and two dunkin donut's managers specials for dinner the day before (ie a copuple of hours before). My quote was "Oh, is only a day hike we don't need food". I now know that is important to be well eaten and rested before a hike (although possible without it, not pleasent and dangerous).

The hike to the Osgood Junction (one mile before the summit) was fairly straight forward and pleasant. We used crampoons near the top. We probably made it there by 10am. On the way up I demonstrated Pat and answered Matt's inquiry about how people climbed without crampoons. That is, I chopped steps for a couple of feet in the way up (it is a very time consuming process), but fairly neat. (I always enjoy recreating the old ways, like chopping steps and body rappelling).

We then proceeded to the summit leaving our backpacks ath the Osgood Jct. In less than an hour we were at the top. The weather enjoyed us a magnificent view of the mountain range. The wind gusts were pretty strong, basically we would take a step, balance ourselves against the wind, and then take the next step. On the return, we decided that we would go down and to avoid repetition we would take the Osgood trail to the bottom. This is a nice trail for the first third, at which point you enjoy a nice view of all peaks in the northern presidential range. The remainding trail does not enjoy such a view. We reached the car at 4:30pm after a total of 12 miles of winter hiking. I will admit that I was very tired (as a side note we carried moderate weight backpacks with stove and sleeping bags, for safety).

All three of us near the summit.

Pat and I at the summit of Mt Madison.

Me at Osgood Junction.

On the drive back from the mountain, all of us were pretty hungry and tired. We headed for the Wendy's on route 16. There Pat boasted about his appetite and eating abilities. He recommended the value items -- one dollar items that are filling. There are a total of 10 value items: Biggy fries, biggie drink, nuggets, cheese burger, bacon burger, caesar salad, garden salad, chilli, cream and sour potato, frosty. Pat christened the ideal meal of all ten value items to "full-house". On that night he ate SIX! value items. (Hector, the next night upped the amount to seven, this is all written just to spike Pat).