Starting out with Mission one for our returning guest. The plan was to meet at Galehead Hut in the morning, bag South and North Twin, then return our guest to the hut while the guide — Redline Guide Debra McCown — headed back down.
The Twins: For these two peaks, we applied a tested formula. He hiked to the hut and spent the night, I met him at the hut in the morning to hike the peaks, and he spent another night at the hut before hiking down. We had great weather to bag both North and South Twin and the stunning views that the Pemi Wilderness is known for. It was a dime of a day! —Debra
Mission two for our returning guest, again with Debra, was to take on Owls Head as an overnight. It’d a great way to get it done since it’s such a long walk in the woods. Having the second day makes it more leisurely.
Owls Head: We started this hike in a thunderstorm, but on a route that’s almost entirely below treeline, we felt well-protected by the forest. Our guest was really daunted by this peak because of the hike’s 16-mile length. I assured him that most of those would be easy miles, though of course ‘easy’ is relative. We tackled it as a backpacking overnight. He specifically wanted to climb the slide, but otherwise we made use of popular bushwhacks — Black Pond to cut distance and avoid the two biggest water crossings, and Brutus to bypass the slide on the descent. He found the first day challenging, but on the second day he had a ton of energy, riding the high of his summit success all the way back to the bridge. —Debra
Mission three Last but not least, our guest took on and took down Mt Jefferson with Debra’s help. She met him at the Lakes of the Clouds hut and together they started a long day toward this final mountain. Upon claiming it they reversed direction aiming for Jewell Trail and out.
Mt Jefferson: If any peak could be called our guest’s nemesis on his quest for the NH 48, it would be this one. He previously tried and failed twice on this towering above-treeline summit. First he attempted it as a day hike via Jewell, and the elevation gain proved too much for one day. Next he tried it from the hut, but without adequate rest following a major 4000-footer hike the day before, and lacked the energy for a serious attempt. With past successes bagging peaks from AMC huts, we opted to plan his third attempt from Lakes of the Clouds again. He hiked to the hut the night before, and I hiked up to the hut to meet him for the hike in the morning. It was harder for him than either of us expected, but he stuck with it, and 13 hours after we began hiking from the hut, we arrived in the parking lot following a successful summit. —Debra
