The conditions of travel gradually deteriorated as we continued north along the Davis Path. The trail (as I've said before) is much more eroded than the Mt Parker trail, and there were now sections of churned-up mud and such. We also started to see a few patches of late-season snow. Nothing major at first, but as the trail gradually gained elevation, it started to become deep enough to be an issue. In places it was alternately solid and soft, resulting in a situation where we would walk a few steps along the top of the snow and then suddenly punch through - usually into some layer of water below. Energy sapping and potentially ankle-turning!
A taste of what's to come
There was also one spot along the Davis Path, at the low point of Montalban Ridge between Stairs Mountain and Mount Davis, where the trail makes a very unobvious left-hand turn. It appears that most people have trudged on straight ahead here (and presumeably have gotten temporarily lost). If you look at my GPS tracklog, I've placed a waypoint here to mark the spot.
courtesy JInnes
The other aspect of the Davis Path as we hiked north was the increase in blowdown. There had been very little to none along the southern part of Montalban Ridge, but up here, in the vicinity of Mt Isolation, there was more and more of it -- resulting in a general reduction in our forward progress.
Therefore, in the interests of time, we decided to skip the short side trip to Mt Davis. We finally emerged onto the wonderful open-topped summit of Mount Isolation at around 2pm, about seven and a half hours after we set out on the Mt Langdon Trail back in Bartlett.
At least there's no blowdown!
Happy to have reached the top of my 47th NH 4000-footer, we were surprised to see another party emerge onto the summit (our hike was on a non-holiday Monday). And, they were surprised to see us. They had come from the north, over Boott Spur and along the Davis Path - the precise route we were about to do, but in reverse. And they had ominous warnings about horrible blowdown ahead. But, we were committed now, so there was nothing to do but tackle it!
courtesy JInnes
Washington and Boott Spur
But first, it was time to have a snack and enjoy the great view from Isolation's summit. The peak is situated such that it has a close-up and excellent view of the Southern Presidentials, including Mount Washington. We could see many small, late-season snowfields scattered over the peaks, adding to the alpine-ness of the scene. And we looked longingly at the open alpine terrain on the upper flanks of Boott Spur, for we knew that once we got to that point, we'd be past all of the soft deep snow, annoying bugs and tangled blowdown.
As much as we'd liked to have dallied longer, we needed to get going, so we shouldered our packs and headed back down into the woods for our last stretch of tough trail.
courtesy JInnes
At first, we wondered at what the other hiking party had told us, for the trail immediately to the north of Mount Isolation was actually in pretty good shape - no blowdown and little to no snow. It wasn't until we got to the section of Davis Path between the Isolation Trail east and the Isolation Trail west junctions, that we encountered what they were talking about. And it was indeed bad in places, with tens of large, long trees fallen across the path, and often at the most inconvenient combinations of angles and height, requiring a good combination of bushwhacking and balancing skills to make it through.
Fortunately, once past the Isolation Trail west junction, the blowdown lessened considerably.
After a stretch of extensive and deep (but fortunately firm) snow, we started the final ascent up to treeline. Just as Jenn was starting to more loudly voice her displeasure about the steep, uphill slog on snow-covered trails, we reached the 'alpine zone' sign. Treeline was now not far away! Sure enough, a few more turns of the trail and we emerged onto a beautiful open side-slope. Above us, a bit of low krummholz and rocky, barren ground awaited. Back down below us was a panorama of gentle-looking wooded hills - although we knew better about the gentle part: the hike up to this point had been tough!
