Mt. Eisenhower (4,780 ft) 7-15-23

Distance: 7.74 mi.
Elevation: 2,600 ft (overall) 2,851 ft (total)
Time: 2:38 (Crawford Path) 2:59 (Summit) 3:12 (Crawford Path) 3:35 (Edmands Path) 5:26 (Total)
Trails: Edmands Path, Eisenhower Loop, Crawford Path, Edmands Path

With a two day hike planned next week with my oldest daughter, I wanted to get in another hike to make sure I was ready. I have been wanting to hike Mt. Eisenhower via the Edmands Path for a while, so today was a good time to do so. I needed the Edmands Path for redlining and was also going to do a loop around the summit so that I could redline the section of the Crawford Path between the two ends of the Eisenhower Loop.

The trail starts off pretty flat giving you a little bit of time for your body to warm up before doing any real climbing. Today was a bit cool for July, but high humidity meant all the plants along the trail were almost dripping as the morning started off. Before the trail does any real climbing in elevation there is one brook crossing that could be a bit tricky with high water. But even with how wet this summer has been, I as able to easily cross it with dry feet using the rocks sticking up out of the water.

The first and biggest brook crossing of the day

AFter the brook crossing, the trail slowly gets steeper and starts gaining more elevation while mixing in a combination of rocks and or roots at time. Even higher up, the trail is more of a steady rocky climb. The trail even passes through an interesting corridor of thicker trees on each side while it starts to work towards the left as it climbs. While doing this, the trail is on more of a sidehill rather than heading straight up through the woods. Early on in the sidehill section there is also another small brook that crosses the trail. Being so high up on the mountain, this brook was quite small (especially today) which made it very easy to get over.

A slightly slick exposed slab of rock in the trail

A nice straight corridor climbing steadily

Continuing along the side of the mountain, the trail soon levels out and follows its way around towards the main ridge of the Presidentials. Being on the side of the mountain, the trail does get pretty narrow through here since there isn't much room for it to be any wider than it is. This did make for an interesting section of the trail and also gives you a nice break from the climbing. Just before you get close to the ridge, the trail passes over/through a small talus field with a flat(ish) path leading through it. Just past this is the next intersection where you come to the main ridge of the range and the Crawford Path. I took a little break in this area before making the last push up to the summit.

Small talus field just before the ridge

The climb up to the summit starts off a bit steep and rocky, but as you get closer to the the summit the trail levels out more and more. The summit of Mt. Eisenhower is shaped a lot like a big rounded dome. And since it isn't a very long distance to the summit, the last climb up onto it goes by pretty quick I think. On the summit there were nice views today, although the clouds weren't that much higer than the summit itself. There were even a few points where there almost wasn't a view because of being in the clouds on the summit. It was also interesting seeing a few very small rain showers happening in a few places off in the distance.

Nearing the summit

A little bit of raining coming up the western side of Mt. Washington

The clouds were just above the summit

Mt. Eisenhower summit

Instead of heading back down off of the summit the same way I came up, I continued over the summit to make a loop out of it. After coming down from the summit to the Crawford Path, I needed to take a left so that I could redline the short section of the Crawford Path that goes between the two ends of the Eisenhower Loop Trail. This was a quick and interesting section of trail that made for a nice and interesting loop around the summit. It stays mostly flat with some rocky bits, and has only one section that could be a little bit tricky if it were too wet. The trail makes a quick little drop down then climb back up while on a bit of an angle from the sidehill that it is on. With decent conditions, this section shouldn't pose any real problems though. And before I knew it, I was back to the intersection with the top of the Edmands Path.

Looking towards Pierce coming down from the summit

Once at the top of the Edmands Paths again, there were some interesting clouds starting to roll in and over the presidential range. There also appeared to be a few more small rain showers coming our way. There were a prediction of scattered rain showers this afternoon so this wasn't a big surprise. I decided to not waste too much time before going down or on the way down so that I could try to stay as dry as possible on the descent.

Interesting clouds ready to head down Edmands Path

Looking north up the Presidential Range

The trip coming down was mostly uneventful. The trail was just how it was on the way up, although I didn't get lightly sprinkled on with rain a couple times on the way down. I also had the chance to talk with a nice man from the forest service that was out doing trail maintenance cleaning up trees that were down on the trail. On the way down the trail I also made the decision not to do any of the short little hikes around the Crawford Notch area that I had come up with to get some more redlining down on short trails that don't lead to any peaks. It was just so humid today that I had done enough sweating already and didn't want to do more. Even though temperatures were low for the middle of July, the humidty was high and there just wasn't much of a wind to make it any better.

Google Earth representation of the hike

For all the pictures from the hike, just go HERE

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Mt. Pierce, Mt. Eisenhower & Mt Jackson 3-7-20

Distance: 11.8 mi.
Elevation: 2,920 ft (overall) 4,911 ft (total)
Time: 1:54 (Pierce) 3:01 (Eisenhower) 4:01 (Pierce) 5:31 (Jackson) 6:37 (Road) 6:52 (Total)
Trails: Crawford Connector, Crawford Path, Eisenhower Loop, Webster Cliff Trail, Webster Jackson Trail, Route 302

With the official winter hiking season almost over, I needed to get at least a second hike in for the season. The weather was looking pretty good other than a little windy. Given the forecast, I decided it was time to get some of the southern presidentials checked off the list. These would give the chance of great views while providing shelter in the trees for most of the hike. My plan for today was Mt. Pierce, my favorite southern presidential peak, and Mt. Eisenhower. If weather, time, and energy allowed, maybe I would add on either Mt. Monroe of Mt. Jackson.

From the Mt. Clinton Rd parking lot I used the Crawford Connector to get over to the Crawford Path. This short trail was well packed from everyone else previously this winter. Once on the Crawford Path the trail was even smoother. It was like super highway and was perfect for microspikes. The hike up the trail went quicker than I thought it would as I played leapfrog with a group of other hikers. The trail has a steady incline for almost the whole length of it which made it easier to keep a nice pace that was a bit quicker than I expected. Once up to the ridge though, the trees stopped sheltering me from the wind and it was time to adjust layers and put on either some goggles or sunglasses. I started off by tagging Mt. Pierce since it is so close to the junction. It is almost my favorite of the southern peaks on the range due to its great views while still having partial tree cover which is different than all the peaks to the north.

Packed trail heading up the Crawford Path

The summit of Mt. Pierce was a good place to adjust layers, get on my goggles, and strap on my snowshoes. The Crawford Path should be decently packed, but I expected some drifting and would rather have snowshoes on for that instead of not have them on for the well packed sections. The area around the junction of the Crawford Path and Webster Cliff Trail was the first place snowshoes were useful as there wasn't one set path here and there was certainly some drifting in the snow. After this though the trail was pretty easy to follow and had only a little bit of unpacked snow on top of it most of the time.

View from Mt. Pierce

At this point the wind speeds became more evident. You start to come out of the trees more and until you are completely exposed. The wind was blowing in from the west and I was glad to have my goggles on. It was cold enough I also needed to think about having my face covered as well. I covered what I could, but too much covering and the goggles would just fog up. I was generating enough body heat that I was warm enough with some of my face exposed.

Mt. Eisenhower getting closer

As I neared the summit of Mt. Eisenhower the wind was starting to blow the snow around as well which helped make my face colder. Once up onto the summit of Eisenhower I bundled up more and made sure I was covered up well. There is no shelter other than the summit cairn and I wanted to stay and enjoy the views for a while even if it was cold and windy. After a nice break here and plenty of pictures, it was time to head out. I had decided I wasn't going to try and add Mt. Monroe to this hike because it was too much time exposed to the elements. I probably had enough gear, but better gear would have made that much distance more enjoyable. So I turned around and headed back towards Mt. Pierce.

Mt. Eisenhower summit cairn

Mt. Washington from Mt. Eisenhower

The hike back to Pierce went well with the wind still blowing and the sun still shining. I headed back up to the summit to take in the views again and because I forgot to get a picture of Miles here the first time. It was busier this time with more hikers that were coming up just to tag Mt. Pierce. I checked the time and it was still earlier than I had planned. Since I was still feeling good and had the time, I decided I would add on Mt. Jackson to today's hike. If I wasn't feeling it, I could always bail out after the hut and come back down using the Mizpah Cutoff.

Getting back towards Mt. Pierce

The hike down to the hut was good except the last tenth or two. Most of the trail was pretty well packed and there was only a few tight places due to snow laden trees. The last stretch though is a bit steeper dropping down to the hut and the track was pretty messed up here. It seems a number of hikers have hiked through here without snowshoes which made for lots of deep, messy, and irregularly space holes to avoid. It took care to stay out of them with my snowshoes and a couple of times I avoided the trail all together to stay out of them. There were some people gathered at the hut and also a pair of hikers that were setting up a tent in the opening. I was still feeling good so I decided to go all the way to Jackson from here.

Heading south after Mt. Pierce

Mizpah Hut with some snow up against the doors

The trail to Mt. Jackson was a mix of conditions. In places it was clear others had used snowshoes, in some places it looked like only people without snowshoes had been through, and in other places the trail was drifted in. There was only one place where the trail was hard to follow. In an open area there were tracks leading in two directions. I checked out both directions and picked the one that looked better. I'm not sure if I picked the right one or not, but the path eventually had to push through a small band of thicker spruce trees, so it probably wasn't actually the trail. It was a short off trail path that quickly came back onto the trail though. The rest of the hike to the summit went smoothly and even the steep last section of rock wasn't bad.

Mixed trail conditions heading over to Mt. Jackson

Getting close to Mt. Jackson

The summit of Jackson was windy so I bundled back up again before spending some time taking pictures and enjoying the last big views of the day. It felt good to look all the way back up to Mt. Eisenhower and see how far I had hiked today. After ample time enjoying the summit to myself, I decided it was time to head down off the mountains for the day. Just below the summit and back into the trees, I took off some layers and switched over to microspikes. The trail from here down was like a packed highway again and the spikes would make for a faster descent.

View from Mt. Jackson

Willey Range from Mt. Jackson

View west from Mt. Jackson

On the way down I passed a few people headed up, but traffic was pretty light being later in the day. I made good time on the way down as there aren't many steep sections through here and the conditions were so good. The only difficult part of the descent was a couple sections of ice where the lower part of the trail has some short steep and rocky sections in the warmer months. Other than that the worst part was needing to walk the side of the road back to my truck once I was down.

Packed trail coming down from Mt. Jackson

View of today's three peaks from the entrance of the Mt. Washington Hotel
From the rounded dome of Mt. Eisenhower on the left to small open summit of Jackson on the right

Google Earth representation of the hike

For all the pictures from the hike, just go to my gallery on SmugMug