Another few hundred feet of moderately steep climbing brought us to the top of Mount Parker, and the first of several generally flattish sections of Montalban Ridge. The summit of Mount Parker is very nice for a barely-3000-footer, with a beautiful northward-facing open area on it's top. The view looks along Montalban Ridge towards Mount Washington. It also reveals how far away Mount Washington and Boott Spur are from this point -- something which Jenn noted with a few mildly choice-y words.
Continuing north along the Parker Ridge trail, we noticed a slight degradation of trail quality. The section between Mount Parker and Mount Resolution seems to be less well used, and in sections there's a bit of growth that crowds in on the trail. The footing and the lack of blowdown are good, though, and this section doesn't have any major ups or downs, making fast progress easy.
Although the day was promised to be totally clear, there was a fairly heavy contingent of clouds above us, and we hoped that this would clear away before we got to the higher, nicer summits up ahead. The clouds did nothing to reduce the hot and humid conditions, though, and we were thoroughly drenched in sweat and beseiged upon by biting insects. We got out several different types of repellant and applied them liberally.
courtesy JInnes
By mid-morning, we we nearing the summit of Mount Resolution. Again the trail emerges into beautiful open sections, with a particularly large slab of open bedrock just a few tens of yards away from Resolution's high point. The view of Washington was distinctly closer now, but still looked pretty far away. In the near distance we could see the sharp open edge of Stairs Mountain -- our next peak along Montalban Ridge.
Approaching Resolution Summit
Jenn nears Resolution's Summit
Jenn on descent from Resolution
Heading towards Stairs Col
We we forced to lose a few hundred feet of elevation as the trail descended into Stairs Col, where we reached the end of the Mt Parker Trail and joined the Davis Path. This, a much more travelled trail, would be our route until the top of Boott Spur. It was immediately obvious that the Davis Path is much, much more travelled than the Mt Parker Trail, as it is far more eroded and rough.
A steep climb brought us to the flats just below the summit of Stairs Mountain, where a short spur trail leads off to the summit. This we took, reaching a most beautiful southward-facing ledge atop the highest 'step' of Stairs Mountain. A fairly precipitous cliff drops off from here, right next to the survey marker that denotes the top.
This excellent viewpoint coincided pretty well with our need for a major food break, so we decided to have our lunch here.
After a much-needed energy boost from lunch, it was time to continue north. We were still 5 miles (8km) away from Mount Isolation, let alone Boott Spur and Pinkham Notch, and noon was not far off. Haste was required!
