northern presidentials

[keepin' on]

I'm heading to The Perch in a few weeks for a long weekend. My cohorts and I are planning on doing day hikes from our camp (at the Perch). Can anyone suggest hikes to take around the area? I have never hiked there and I am a bit overwhelmed by the vast trail network. I have heard of some waterfalls over there, any recommendations? As always, thanks in advance. This is a wonderful group with a vast array of knowledge! Any and all suggestions are appreciated!

 

[Brownie]

The Perch

The Perch, my favorite camping destination in Whites!
Hope your not planning to go Labor Day weekend, or if you do, best get your Perch site on Thursday.
There are only 4 platforms and you don’t want to get stuck in the Perch shelter.
It’s OK, but can get quite crowed, especially in rain.

My worst experience was with 12 people 2 dogs, and major rain & mud…not fun.
I have had many more trips in decent conditions, staying at the highest platform with grand views.

When you first look at a map it does look quite complicated, but all trails are designed to either get you to the Gulfside ridge traverse or go below and around the each peak staying in protected tree line.
If weather is great, go hit summits MT Jefferson, Adams and Madison.
Connect all three via Gulfside Trail, and the trip over to Madison Hut is always a pleasure to see the “crew”.

You could also easily do a day climb to Mt Washington and back on same Gulfside route.

If the weather is bad, go take a lower protected route, like Grey Knob to visit the shack and on to Crag Camp.
When weather is REAL bad I often still want to get to the ridge line for a brief visit, this is best done by going directly to Edmands Col up the Randolph Path.
I went there one time 100 mph winds and quickly retreated to Perch for shelter.

In my opinion, if you have already worked that hard to get to the Perch for a base camp, which BTW happens to be the highest legal camping in the Whites, it’s not worth descending to visit waterfalls down lower.
Better to explore the higher country as this is the best base camp in the Whites to see the awesome Presidential range.
You can always check out falls on trip in or out.

Enjoy!

Brownie

 

[jfb]

There's supposed to be some waterfalls along the Israel Ridge trail on the way to the Perch from Bowman, but probably the best waterfalls in the area are along Snyder Brook (Brookbank and Brookside trails).

From the Perch a good dayhike would be to take the Israel Ridge trail to the summit of Mt. Adams, the Gulfside (and summit loops) over Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Clay as far as the Westside trail junction (IMO best view in the WMNF) and return back via the Randolph Path from Edmand's Col.

 

[keepin' on]

thanks for the feedback!

 

[David Metsky]

From the Perch consider going over Adams, down the Butress trail into the Great Gulf, then up Six Husbands to Jefferson and back. That's a fun day. Or go over Jefferson to Sphinx Col, down the Sphinx trail and back up 6 Husbands.

You can drop from the Perch back down to the base of King Ravine, then ascend via the King Ravine headwall or the Great Gully trail.

From the Perch take Israel Ridge down to the Link, take than into Castle Ravine. Then climb the Castle Ravine trail to Edmands Col. From there you can bag Jefferson or just loop back to the Perch.

-dave-