That was our plan today – Lazy start by any standard, but wander up to Jackson we did. There were only two other cars in the parking pull-out and most of the day it seemed we had the mountains to ourselves.
We had not done this before – and knew little of it. There is a ski trail up to a hut built around 1933 by the CCC that is still in use. It’s all USFS land and the trail seemed to be of above average quality. There were a few blow downs but all in all this was a well maintained low-use area.
We went up the ski path to the ‘old trail’ up to the col then hung a right over to the first view on ‘south’ which was unreal. Some of the best panoramic views you could imagine. There was for some reason a dragon fly convention going on at the same time, so it was fun to see somewhere around one hundred of them flying about on the breeze that we all enjoyed facing west.
From there we continued up to the true south summit past what we could only imagine was the scene of a lightning strike. Odd to find this where there is no camping or other signs of heavy use. Had to be lightning. The views from the south summit proper were nice but nothing like the western overlook a couple tenths earlier down the trail. There was a great view looking down into North Conway with Whitehorse and Cathedral prominent sentinels as they are.
We turned around, back down to the col and up to the north summit. That got a bit steep in spots – right where it started to go up like it was angry I decided it would be the perfect spot for some trail running. Sally told me afterwards that as she saw me take off she was wondering what the CPR sequence was for chest compressions / breaths. I ran until my legs failed. Literally I they would no longer respond to requests to lift up and move forward. I stopped and snapped a few shots of Sally coming up behind me and let life return to my lower limbs.
Soon we were at the cabin – lesser views to the east, then we took the ski trail all the way back to parking.
Great hike, some absolutely exceptional views and a great time.
We love it here.
And a couple of ‘killer’ panoramas (large file warning)
First from the western ledge of South Summit, Looking west – north-west.
And then from the South Summit proper, looking north to the north summit.
If you are STILL reading this, and not yet board to tears with tales of Double Head, here is my test video of my GoPro on the end of a mono pod. The trick is getting the right angle so the monopod disappears from the shot – that and a steady hand..
DoubleHead from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.
