Our stay at Mount Jackson's summit (which, by the way, was Jennifer's 109th Northeast 111er peak) was as brief as possible, and soon we were heading back down the way we came. I was very grateful to be able to follow our nicely broken out and branch-shaken trail. This was much less strenuous and made much more rapid progress possible.
Although we were now moving faster, there was no way we were going to outrun the rapidly approaching sunset. By the time we reached Mount Webster, dusk had arrived, and we broke out the headlamps. We then carefully made our way back down along the open crags and edges of the Webster Cliff Trail. As we descended, the clouds suddenly cleared away, and there were stars above, a nearly-full moon in the east, and ghostly white-topped peaks visible around us. Although it was a bit of a drag to have been denied clear weather while it had been daylight, there was a special magic to these ghostly, more ethereal views.
Night descends while we descend
We kept marching down our snowshoe track along the top of Webster Cliff. The headlamps of cars were visible two thousand feet below us, inching their way up and down highway 302. Once back into the trees for good at the southern end of the cliffs, we descended rapidly. Once in the lower (more open) deciduous forest, I switched off my headlamp, choosing instead to hike by the now quite-bright moonlight. On a positive counterpoint to our excessively long day with few views, we were now doing some pretty nice night-time snowshoeing, in perfect conditions.
Finally, we arrived back at the trailhead shortly before 9pm. It had taken us just over eleven hours to cover under 8.5 miles (13.5km). A very slow pace indeed.
We were in no mood to contemplate a large and rushed hike early the next morning, so we decided to change our plans and grab a quick bite to eat, then head back home that very night. A winter ascent of Adams and a day in the Northern Presidentials would have to wait for another time.
Interactive Trackmap with photo points, Jackson via Webster Cliff Trail - click map to view
Hike Data - Mt Jackson via Webster Cliff Trail
Start Time:
9:42a.m.
End Time:
8:47p.m.
Duration:
11h5m
Distance:
13.56 km
(8.42 mi)
Average Speed:
1.2 km/hr
(0.8 mph)
Start Elevation:
1319ft
(402m)
*
Max Elevation:
4058ft
(1237m)
*
Min Elevation:
1240ft
(378m)
*
End Elevation:
1260ft
(384m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain:
3197ft
(974m)
*
Total Elevation Loss:
3256ft
(992m)
*
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
