It was my second visit to the little col between Mounts Madison and Adams. Dick Teague and I stayed at the hut that night. This was in the days before the AMC used standard menus. Somebody had experimented and the results were "YUK!"
We were off early after a much better breakfast. I gorged myself knowing that there would be no lunch and dinner would be very late that day. We climbed the little hump through the scrub trees to the shoulder of JQ Adams and then headed across the Gulfside trail.
It was pretty level, after all we'd already done most of the elevation gain the day before climbing to the hut on Valley Way trail. In the AMC guidebook it told about the Gulfside and Rayner Edmunds painstaking work placing stones. In many places it seemed like a cobblestone highway.
We hiked past an area called Monticello lawn with waving sedge grass. The day was beautiful, a little on the warm side. I hiked on ahead of Dick, his ankles were bothering him again. Unknown to me at the time this would be our last hike together. He had a little more experience in the mountains than I, we both enjoyed the calm morning
At Edmunds col I stopped and waited for him, we decided to leave our packs and head on up. I don't do this anymore, it's not worth the cost in weight for the safety of a packs contents. But we headed on up packless and picked our way over the rocky path.
It wasn't a bad climb at all and soon we were on top with about a dozen chattering hikers. An older guy we had passed made it to the summit and lifted his arms outstretched to the sky in victory
We had great weather and views from the top but with all the people we headed down dreaming of water and snacks....there again, another reason not to leave your packs behind. Thoughts of them being stolen flooded my thoughts but sure enough they were at the bottom of the Col.
We decided to head down the Castle trail which wound quite nicely along the scenic ravine of the same name. If was a fairly rough trail but all downhill of course. I took a picture which is still hanging in my cubicle at work, I'm looking at it remembering that day
I ran out of water below where we headed back into the trees. Dick gave me some of his but he was going to run out if he kept doing that. It was hot. I got sick (probably from the food the night before) but not far from a shelter of sorts along the trail. It had a bathroom or sorts and I found a spring with some nice cool water coming out of deep green moss.
I had to trust it, I know water should be filtered but I read somewhere that spaghnum moss has cleansing properties and I was thirsty. I filled my lone water bottle and headed on down.
We checked out the guidebook and map and had decided upon taking the Link which would "Link" us to Appalachia. I'd never been on it before......if I knew what lay ahead I might've gone to Lowes and road walked back to the car
Pretty quickly I remember us running into mud and lots of exposed roots. The trail didn't seem terribly well marked and it was now into early evening. We picked our way across a muddy bog often times sinking over our boots in the sucking mud. At one point I saw what looked like a fresh bear track
It was probably approaching 8pm when we finally reached the end of the Link and headed down a more civilized trail. That was one day when the car looked mighty fine. It was mostly dark by then
I've never been back to Jefferson, Anne went over it a couple of times on a Presidential traverse but I've never found myself back there. Someday I will have to do it in winter I suppose, maybe I'll take the Jewell when I do.