Mt. Madison and Mt. Adams

Pete and I hiked Mt. Madison and Mt. Adams. Our original plan was just to hike Madison, but since the weather was cooperating we decided to add Adams as well. We started hiking from the Appalachia parking area about quarter past 8. The temperature was 10 degrees at the start, but it didn't take long for us to warm up on the trail. We took the Valley Way trail, which in the most commonly used trail in winter to access Mt. Madison. The trail is mostly protected until after the Madison Hut. It was a mostly uneventful hike up to the Madison Hut, however, a couple did pass us with about 1/2 mile to go until the hut. The thing that made these two a little strange was the fact that the guy was stripped down to his T-shirt, and the girl just had a sports bra. They did have ski pants on, but keep in mind that it was around 10 degrees out. I had 2 wicking layers on and two jackets and I was pretty comfortable, so I have no idea what they were thinking, but it was a good topic of conversation for awhile.

Once we got almost to the Madison hut we put on our crampons due to the ice. From the Madison hut to the summit of Madison was 1/2 mile. We hit that summit and ate some lunch behind some large rocks to get out of the wind. Then headed back to the Madison hut and on to the Star Lake trail towards Adams, which was 1 mile and 1,000 vertical feet away from the Madison hut. This section of trail was pretty tough, we walked over the frozen Star Lake and then the tail got really steep up to the summit of Adams. After reaching the summit of Adams, we headed back down by way of the Air Line trail, which was a more direct route back to the parking lot. We had to use our crampons almost the whole way down to the car. We were definitely beat after this one. Definitely the hardest hike in a while. 10 Miles, 5,000 vertical feet in 7.5 hours.


Madison and Adams hike 03-01-2009 from Peter Rhodes on Vimeo.

I had the song in the video below in my head the whole day. Not really the kind of "pump up" music I should have listened to before the hike, but pretty funny.