Late Winter 2002 Mount Jackson and Doobie, New Hampshire
View from Elephant Head
I'm writing this about a year and a half to two years after the fact, so it may be lacking in detail, but the pictures are nice so here's a story to go along with them. It was well into winter and the snowpack was good. We scrounged up some crampons for Kevin and decided to make a loop over Mt. Jackson and Mt. Webster. It looked like a fairly easy winter hike, some views but not a lot of crazy technical stuff. Ten or twelve km total, and a few hundred meters climb. We made a late morning start because we are lazy. On the way to the trailhead, we passed a motel that appeared to be having an interesting kind of convention. A little further down the road, we passed an apparent attendee. We parked near the Crawford Depot, and set out up the Webster-Jackson Trail. Very shortly, we came to a trail junction for an outcrop called Elephant's Head. It wasn't very high up, but had nice views.
Doobie wasn't shy about accepting snacks
We continued up the trail and passed a log that had some attractive fungi growing on its cut end. Before long we came to the junction where the Webster-Jackson Trail divides, one branch going up Webster, the other up Jackson. So far the trail had been so well packed that we didn't need to wear our snowshoes. We were liking that. The trail up Webster was completely unbroken, but the trail to Jackson was still well packed. Jackson it would be. We thought it would be easier coming down through the unbroken trail. A short way up, we stopped for a snack and noticed a Canadian Jay (or Gray Jay) hanging out on a branch near us. We offered him a bite of our food and he gladly accepted. We finished our snack and started climbing again. We noticed that the bird was always nearby. We soon came around a corner in the trail and saw the word "doobie" scratched in the snow. It looked quite fresh, and we had not seen another person all day. The only reasonable explanation was that the bird had done it. Clearly, this was Doobie's territory. Onward and upward we climbed, through a sometimes very close trail, but getting ever closer to the summit. We finally made our goal.
Kevin resting after gaining the summit
It was windy and cold on top, but Doobie didn't seem to mind. He even met a friend up there. We found the top of Jackson to be rather icy and decided to put on our crampons for the trip down off the cone. We stayed long enough for a few souvenir photos from the summit toward Mt. Webster, west to Mts. Field and Tom, and toward Mt. Chocorua. We couldn't find the trail to Mt. Webster so we went back down the same way, and stopped for lunch as soon as we got into the trees enough for shelter from the wind. We still had a nice view during our meal, though. On the way down we noticed a sign for Bugle Cliff that we had missed on our way up. We checked it out, and it was pretty nice, although snow and nightfall limited the views somewhat. We finished the last few minutes of walking before being totally benighted, and headed home for some hot food and drinks.
