Presidential Traverse (Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Monroe, Eisenhower, Pierce)

I’ve gotten 21 peaks done in less than a year. I’m definitely happy with my progress. Doing the Pemi Loop so quickly into this journey was awesome. It brought my numbers up a lot, and it forced me to do something very difficult. Doing difficult things is so rewarding when you complete them. It may be painful, but it’s so worth it. You can learn so much about yourself after finishing something difficult. It can also be addictive. Once I realized I can accomplish one difficult thing, I immediately start thinking about what other difficult things I can do.

The next difficult thing happened on October 15, 2022. Tim flew back in, and we big plans for the weekend. We were tackling the one day presidential traverse. 7 peaks, about 23 miles and over 9,000 feet of elevation gain. All in one day. Let’s go. That wasn’t the only plans for the weekend though. On Sunday, we were signed up to run a 15 mile relay race, so we were each taking a 7.5 mile leg. For both of us at this point, running that distance wouldn’t be an issue. But running that the morning after conquering a monumental physical task like the presidential traverse might prove difficult. Bring it on.

The story begins at 1AM Saturday 10/15/22. That’s when I picked up Tim at Logan Airport in Boston. I had probably slept for 2 hours before I got up to drive to the airport. Right from Logan, we headed up north. The plan was to get a ride with Rob from Rides with Rob. We had a ride lined up with a different rideshare service provider, but that person got sick and was able to hook us up with Rob thankfully. The reason we needed a ride is because the hike was not a loop or an out and back like all my other hikes. We were going to start it at the Appalachia trailhead off Rt. 2 in Randolph, NH. The peaks we would hit, in order, would be Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Monroe, Eisenhower, Pierce. After Pierce, we would then head down to the AMC Center at Crawford Notch. We met Rob at the AMC enter and he drove us to Appalachia. That way, my truck would be waiting for us when we finished, and we wouldn’t have to deal with getting a ride after doing a monster hike like this.

We got to the AMC Center right around 4AM. Rob met us there at 4:30. He got us to Appalachia by 5AM, and that’s when we started hiking. Our first trail was the Airline Trail, which would take us up to Mt. Madison. The trail was obviously steep and with it being dark, we were taking our time headed up. We had our headlamps, but we had gotten some pretty heavy rain recently, so everything was muddy and slippery. Mid-October in northern New Hampshire means all the leaves were down already, creating an even more slippery hike. We just had to jump on Gulfside Trail for a quick out and back to the summit of Madison. The Madison Hut was at the intersection of Gulfside and Airline, so we left out packs at the hut, since we would be coming back to it after we got to Madison. We made it up to the peak of Madison around 8AM. The sun was up by this point. Madison was great. We had been above treeline for some time, and had great views of every direction. We could very clearly see where we were headed next - Mt. Adams. We had a quick snack and then headed out.

When we got back to Madison Hut, we jumped on to the Star Lake Trail. This led us past Star Lake (crazy right?) and then straight up to Adams. Getting to Adams ended up being tough for me. The trail was incredible large rocks and a lot of big climbing. My legs started to cramp up pretty bad. I was getting slightly nervous at this time. Having severe leg cramps this early in the day was making me worry about the rest of the day. I just stopped for a second, and drank a ton of water with electrolytes and tried to stretch out my legs a bit. I was dehydrated from not drinking much at all going up to Monroe. The water and electrolytes completely healed me thankfully. It put my mind at ease and I was able to crank out number two on the day. We reached the peak of Adams around 9:45. We were happy with our progress. We weren’t setting any records, but we were on pace for a successful one-day traverse. We were slower than others, but we were steadily moving along. One foot in front of the other. Adams was great, of course. Once we were above tree line before we got to Madison, we had not gone back down under, and wouldn’t be going back under for quite some time. So all the views from these peaks were just tremendous.

From Adams, we took Lowes Path back over to the Gulfside Trail. We would be on the Gulfside a lot today. The Mt. Jefferson Loop took us up to Mt. Jefferson, and then would lead us back to Gulfside a little further down. The hike from Adams to Jefferson was fantastic. Just a trail full of rocks, with views all over. Being above tree line for all these miles was truly incredible. I was drinking plenty of water to make sure I stayed hydrated and snacking along the way. All was going well as we got up to the peak of Mt. Jefferson around 11:30. Because of the time, we really didn’t hang out too long. We took our pictures and got on our way.

We decided to go up to Mt. Clay, even though it does not count on the official 4,000 footer list. The distance to go that way seemed about the same as staying on Gulfside around, so it just seemed like a no-brainer to go check out Mt. Clay. We took the Mt. Clay Loop off of Gulfside and passed over Mt. Clay on our way to Mt. Washington. We planned on stopping at Washington to fill our waters, have a bite to eat and just hang for a little bit. Mt. Clay Loop led us back to Gulfside, which would lead us up to Washington. The hike up to Washington seemed to take forever. You can see the observatory up at the summit from a long time. Because you can see it from so far away, it seems like you’ll be there in no time. But it seemed like a mirage because we just kept hiking up and we weren’t getting there. We finally arrived at Mt. Washington just before 2PM. Later than we wanted to be there, but not by much. We weren’t too worried about time at this point, but we were conscious of it.

We walked around a bit to take it all in. We were at the highest elevation in the entire northeast. It was our 4th peak of the day. 25 peaks now! Then we went inside and found a table to sit down at. I had brought half of an Italian sub with me, which I quickly devoured. We had a few snacks, re-filled our water, changed our socks and got ready to get after it. We went out and walked around a bit more before taking off. It was crazy how many people were up there from either hiking, taking the auto road up, or taking the Cog railway. I was sort of turned off by it honestly. I am more of a fan of the mountains that are les traveled and not so much of a tourist attraction. As much as I enjoyed the break, I was looking forward to getting a move on away from all the people.

Mt. Monroe would be up next. Since we were at the tallest point, we would have to descend quite a bit before ascending to Monroe. The descent started a little rough and rocky, but it ended up being a nice hike away from Washington. The weather was just perfect. We have continued to get so lucky with our hikes and perfect weather. We took the Crawford Path down to the Lake of the Clouds hut first. There was no reason to stop there since the huts were closed for the year. We took a few pics as we passed by and kept going towards Monroe. We took the Mt. Monroe Loop off of Crawford Path to bring us up to the peak. It would then take us down the other side and meet up with Crawford again. We were up to the summit around 3:30. Mt. Monroe seemed easy to get to compared to the ones we had already done. The climb was not that bad at all, and the views continued to be perfect. As time continued to tick away, we did not stick around on Monroe long at all. We took some pictures and got right back to it.

Once we got back on Crawford Path, the journey to Eisenhower was pretty smooth. It was a longer stretch, but not terribly complicated or steep. We passed over Mt. Franklin, which is not an official 4,000 footer, on our way down Crawford. We passed over Franklin at around 4 and reached Eisenhower around 5:15. 6 peaks in about 12 hours. Slightly slower than we expected, but we were happy with our progress. We were both hurting a bit at this point, but still going pretty good. Eisenhower was (surprise) also spectacular. But the best part about our time here was meeting a woman that just completed her 48th. She was so happy and it was very cool to be able to celebrate with her up there. We had been leap frogging them a few times throughout the day, but it wasn’t until this time when we found out she was finishing the list. They arrived there after us, and seemed intent on hanging out and enjoying the moment, so we let them enjoy it, and we hit the trail to get to the last one of the day - Pierce.

It had gotten progressively easier after Washington, which was good because we were getting tired and achy fast. The day had been long already and we still had a couple miles to go. Pierce wasn’t too far out, but then we had to get down the mountain to the truck. We were finally getting to areas that weren’t completely above tree line. Dusk was setting in, so we would definitely have to get the headlamps out soon for the trip down the mountain. Crawford Path took us to the Webster Cliff trail, which is where Pierce is located. Since we were going to go back to the Crawford Path to get down, we dropped our packs there and head up towards Mt. Pierce, which was not very far from there. We reached the summit at approximately 6:15. We had gotten all 7. I now sit at 28 peaks. Not bad at all for less than a year’s worth of work. Their was still some daylight, but we were losing it fast. We enjoyed our last summit, and then started back towards Crawford Path to head down. We could have stayed on the Webster Cliff Trail down, which would have led us past the summits of Mt. Webster (not an official 4,000 footer) and Jackson (which we already did here). Since we didn’t need to do those peaks, we opted to take the quicker route down Crawford.

It was dark as we descended and it started getting slippery and wet again as we dipped down below tree line. My knees and feet were killing me at this point. Tim stubbed his toe, so that was throbbing. We were quiet and just on a mission to get down. There was nothing we could do about the pain other than just deal with it. Accept it and keep going. Again - one foot in front of the other. For the first time all day, I was leading us. Going downhill in the dark has its challenges on a narrow path, but I was able to keep us on the trail and we down to Rt. 302 around 8PM. When we started seeing cars driving on the road, it was so refreshing. What a beautiful feeling to know we had just accomplished that amazing adventure and we were back at the truck for some more food and some cold ones. Always have to have the beers on ice waiting for us. I had the rest of my Italian sub, and Tim had his whole thing since he left the entire sub in the cooler.

This was easily the biggest physical challenge I have attempted, and we knocked it out of the park. It took about 15 hours. We were hoping for 14, so the extra hour is not really a big deal. We were just happy we finished, the time wasn’t important. Now we just had to get back to my house to grab a few hours sleep before we run this relay in the morning. Oh boy, this should be fun. We probably didn’t get on the road until closer to 9 by the time we finished eating and drinking. The ride was boring and long as we were both exhausted. We tried putting on a comedy podcast to keep us both entertained. It worked a bit, but the drive was still rough. We didn’t even unpack our stuff when we got to my house. We had been up for about 24 hours at this point, we had hiked 7 4,000 foot peaks, 23 miles, 9,000 feet of elevation and had been in the truck for about 5 hours. It was pretty easy at this point to fall asleep.

6AM came quick. We had to be down at the start of the race by 7. Thankfully, it was in town and only took 5 minutes to get there. We were both hobbling around, but we would get through the race. Here is the link to the race. We’re both glad we did it and will be returning for a greater challenge in 2023. More on that later.

The race started at 8AM. Tim took the first leg from Milford down to Brookline. I drove down to the other side of the trail to get ready to run the 2nd leg. They tell people to transfer car keys so that the person running the first leg can drive back to the start where the relay race ends. We didn’t need to do that. Tim decided he was going to go all out and run my leg with me. So he ended up running 15 miles instead of just the 7.5. He’s an absolute animal. We definitely did not run our fastest time - not even close. But we finished. We pushed ourselves and got it done.

It was a fantastic weekend. We set our sights high and we conquered a really large feat. It was a huge win both physically and mentally. Less than a month before this weekend, I ran my first half marathon and I crushed that. All these feats have made me realize I have a lot of untapped potential. A year or a few years ago, I never would have thought I could accomplish these. Now I realize I can accomplish even more. I just have to keep pushing and setting my sights high. It’s getting addictive, and I can’t wait for my next big adventure.