Shira and I decided to head up to Mount Jackson for our first NH 4000 footer together--in winter, on a really cold day, no less. She crushed it! Also, it was her birthday! Who wants to hike in subzero temps on their bday??? That's why I love her :)
It was icy, but the snow coverage wasn't good enough yet in early January (it's definitely changed by now).
We got a quick glance at 302 off the viewpoint, and actually got a little lost on the way up, as the trail wasn't immediately obvious. No fret, as we were able to take an old abandoned trail up to the viewpoint.
And before we knew it, we started getting views in the winter wonderland of the Presidentials. Unfortunately most of our views were obscured by clouds.
This was my 5th time up Jackson, and Shira and I's first NH 4K peak together. So it was a special occasion, to say the least!
When we got close to the summit, we immediately got our warmest layers on and got blasted by wind. It was so cold we could only take our gloves off for a few seconds before we needed to immediately put them back on.
The descent was tricky, given the approaching darkness and not ideal snow cover. To make matters worse, one of my microspikes broke on Shira's boot, so I gave her mine and we carefully navigated down with one microspike down. All in all, this was a typical type 2, bordering on type 1 fun adventure in the winter in the White Mountains!
We started on the Webster-Jackson trail. Given the cold temps, we figured we probably wouldn't make it over to Jackson. We got a 1 PM start, so we knew we wouldn't have much time to waste.
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