Hillstompers Present: Squeaks(aka Kaela), Splitz(aka Anka), Spiderman(aka Jeremiah), Andre, Zingman/Spikez

Mt. Jefferson 07/18/2001
Route: Castle Ravine trail to Castle Trail, loop from US. Rt. 2
Distance: 10 miles
Time: 1010-2045, 1035hrs
Average Mph: 3 (except for 2 miles at .5 - Droola's pace)
Weather: Partly Cloudy - temps around 60

What a hike! It was a totally impulsive decision to go up Jefferson, made while looking at maps and the AMC White Mountains Trail Guide for cool hikes. The hike up Castle Ravine Trail from US. Rt. 2 looked cool, with an AMC description of "challenging", and the Castle Trail back from Jefferson looked like it promised great views/scenery. We also saw that there would be plenty of water along the trail, and that if we ran into trouble there were plenty of easy side trails to we could use as escape routes. :-) So with that in mind we were off.

After the long drive, the first thing that greeted us at the trail-head was a bunch of "NO TRESPASSING", "KEEP OUT", and "MEAN DOG" signs. I gather that the trail-head bordered "PRIVATE PROPERTY" and the owners were sick of hikers walking all over their flowers or something. In any case the first approx. 4 miles of the hike was at the bottom of the ravine following a large stream. There were quite a few pretty cool challenging stream crossings - but we all had our yuppie poles to protect us and navigated the boulders/rocks/logs successfully. This part of the trail rose and got narrower as we gradually made our way to the the head-wall. At the head-wall the trail rises something like 1500' in .5 mile over what was literally a rock slide. It was STEEP. It was also great fun. Except for Droola - this was one hard trail for him. The schist was so rough that it wore down his claws and his feet were bleeding - but he was having a blast anyhow. He was smiling and his tail was wagging. Our nerves were pulled taunt though. The bleeding feet, and difficult terrain made us sick with worry for Droola. The problem was that he felt our nervousness and would lock up with fear. Later on we realized that our worry made it a lot harder, and the moment we stopped worrying he was great! Sadly we were too dumb to realize this until way later in the day! That last mile up to the top took us over 2 hrs - we ended up leading Droola every step of the way. Even though had we relaxed he would probably have found his own way, and done a much better job than we did in finding an easy route. It was a learning experience in any case. We met some thru-hikers at Edmonds Col (about .1 mile from the top). Two guys who were taking it easy and hiking hut to hut. They said they were only doing 5 miles that day (7.5 miles according to the trail signs). It was a slightly disillusioning experience. Here were guys hiking in the most beautiful awesome mountains on the AT - it was a great day - they only had a month to go - they had it all, and they were sitting there, staring at the ground with depressed looks, while smoking pot. What's up with that?!?

Anyway, we had lunch among the clouds at Edmond's Col, and then did the last .1 to the top. Once there we were so worried about Droola we forgot to take a group picture! We sat around a bit, geared up with vitamins/caffeine/knee braces - in the mean time the clouds had opened up all of the sudden, and we had views! It was great!

The way back was 5 miles along the "Castellated Ridge" via Castle Trail. This was awesome after a bit of trouble for about the first .5 mile as we tried to figure out how to lead Droola down the Schist. However once we FINALLY figured out that he was smarter than we were, it went much better and my nerves weren't strangling me! :-) The ridge looked like a serrated knife edge! The views were amazing - especially when we looked back at the rock-slide we had climbed coming up! It was also a very technical trail. But since we had no choice but to go on, and we *weren't* worried about Droola, we took it on with gusto. Especially the 6 foot drop offs! It was great! We'd come up to a 6 foot cliff drop off and without any worry or nerves we'd figure out a way to get down. It took a while, but was darn fun! For some of the big cliffs we'd scramble down first, then Spiderman and I would form steps by bending over and leaning up against the rock, and Droola would just walk on our backpacks to get down! It was great - there's a movie clip of one of these further down. However Droola handled some of these by himself without help. At one point there was a maybe 5 foot drop off with no way of going around because there were bigger drop offs on either side of the trail. However growing from below those drop-off on the sides were alpine spruce trees. Very tightly knitted together. So we get to drop off, I scrambled down to figure out how to get Droola down, when all of the sudden, he takes a flying belly flop leap right into the trees!! AAHH! But the branches were so tightly woven together that they held him up! He swam (doggie paddled) down through the branches. Jumped/flopped back onto the trail below the drop off and after shaking off some pine needles took off down the trail! What a goof - I can just image him thinking to himself - "I wonder if those branches will hold me up, hmm. What the heck, here goes nothing!" It was pretty cool. That's all I can say about that.

In the end, we found out that some of us weren't prepared with flashlights. We had taken so long with Droola that we were hiking the last 2 miles in the dark. Not total night, but enough for us to pull out our awesome Tikka LED head-lamps. Those who didn't have flashlights learned an important lesson. :-) The whole trail down was just really cool, first the ridge and then nice flat woodlands. It was there that we had our first "encounter" with a bear. Well possibly a bear. It was dark. I was out in front a bit, and heard a heavy movement in the woods parallel to the trail maybe about 20 feet out. I stopped to listen. Squeaks, who came up behind me and looked in the direction I was looking from a different angle, says she saw a big black shape on four legs ramble away. I was more busy staring at the trees directly in front of me and trying to listen so I didn't see a thing. Droola almost made off into the woods, he was so excited, but we grabbed him in time. It was pretty cool anyhow. Too bad we didn't see it up close and personal.

So there ya go. It was a hike worthy of the hillstompers. We should do it again for those that missed it!

                      ~TT

This production has been made possible by the continuous support of our muscles and bones,
and the generous amounts of pain we endure.

See you next time, and remember folks:
It's really just "One mo' mile!"
or
"We take the trail 1 calorie at a time!"
or
"Just a Quarter mile more!"