quality time on Mt Washington 8 Sep 06

I had originally planned on doing a circuitous hike around Mt Jefferson, but had a change of heart after a discussion with a friend of mine, who's a retired WMNF forester & who's been gallivanting around Mt Washington a few times in recent weeks & taking lots of good pictures.

Tentativeness of weather led me to work Labor Day so I could take off Friday instead, in case this wkend weather looked iffy & I'm glad I did -- Friday was a nice day. My revised plan was to take the Tuckerman Ravine Trail up and Nelson Crag down with something (Alpine Garden tr?) in the middle, start by 7:30am and finish by 3:30 to zoom off to another site elsewhere in the state.

Tuckerman Ravine trail had only a moderate amount of traffic; I only saw a couple of dozen people & I spent a bunch of time (too much time, probably) looking around. The ravine this time of year is filled with arnica and asters in bloom:


I'm not quite sure which aster this is (asters & goldenrods are among my weaknesses, along with violets, grasses, sedges, mosses, ferns, etc. etc. etc.) so if anyone knows, the ID would be helpful.

There were a bunch of butterflies, too (can anyone ID?):


After reaching the top of the ravine, my route got vague (or rather, the description of it gets vague ) & I spent much of it off-trail around the cone of Mt Washington. Found some squashberry (Viburnum edule)

which I thought was on the rare list in NH, but it's not. (Used to be on the Maine list. It is rare in VT and NY) I did run into some more occurrences of mountain heath & moss plant, though, which are among my favorites.

another bug ID question: anyone out there familiar with caterpillars in the alpine zone? this guy was crawling on top of my backpack after I put it down.


I ended up hiking over to Mt Washington, a little bit of a detour, but I had two reasons. Mt Washington and Adams and Madison had always been on my list of I-can't-hike-them-in-one-day mountains (I've been there via the huts though), because of the 4000'+ descent (knees, ankles, etc.). After hiking the Bonds & a couple of other strenous hikes this year, however, a light went on & I realized I was just making a mental barrier for myself. So I headed over to the summit. The 2nd reason was I wanted to refill my water bottle.

By this time it was shortly before 4pm. I made a quick visit to the summit (high temp for the day was a balmy 55F !), to clear views & not too many crowds, then headed down via the Nelson Crag Trail. I like this trail going up, but it's a bit on the steep side in sections to head downwards, more so than Glen Boulder Tr, & probably more so than Boott Spur Tr though I haven't descended that one yet.

On the terraces of the Nelson Crag trail, there were some nice areas w/ deer's-hair sedge (Scirpus caespitosus):

I'll have to recheck the pics I took on Boott Spur because I think I mis-ID'd something else as this & it was probably an alpine rush of some sort instead.

I got back to Pinkham Notch by late twilight w/o using my headlamp; I was feeling a bit stubborn for some reason & didn't want to turn it on until it got dark. A long day but a good one.

edit: there are still plenty of ripe blueberries & bilberries above treeline. Very tasty! Get them before the birds / bears do, or Old Man Winter does.

Jason,

Nice pix and good information, as usual. I wish I could ID the butterfly or caterpillar but lack even field guides for those.

Mike

Jason, that little beauty is a Milbert's tortoiseshell. They must have a thing for alpine summits, because I once saw a dozen or so among the goldenrods on Lafayette. Their habitat is described as moist pastures and marshes, however.

Beautiful pics!