Jefferson Loop By Jefferson Notch Rd

On Sun May 23rd, we found the Jefferson Notch Rd closed, so we parked at the WMNF lot just west of the Base Station, crossed the road to the Jewel trailhead and hiked for .4 mi where we turned left onto the Boundary Line trail, which had to be recently maintained as it was wide open - flat easy hiking.

Clay Brook was running a bit high but we found an easy crossing on rocks about 50 yards downstream.

After hitting the Jefferson Notch Rd. at 2500', we enjoyed a pleasant walk on the car free road right to the empty Caps Ridge lot (weird!) and trailhead. If there are 500 trees down, they must be on that part of the road under 2500', as we saw no significant blowdown to speak of on the road. Total ascent time was one hour, fifteen minutes from parking lot to parking lot at an easy pace.

Caps Ridge Trail trail, on the other hand, has four to five blowdowns, the first, and the biggest, just a few minutes from the trailhead. Although taking only a couple of minutes to bypass them, we had to take considerable care to relocate the trail, especially because pockets of snow hid the trail here and there. (No postholing while crossing snow, however).

We had the Caps Ridge to ourselves right up to the summit, where other folks were streaming in from the Gulfside trail.

Headed south to Clay where we enjoyed the best views of the day, the air particularly clear compared to hazy Saturday's. Nice snow pockets still remaining, but only a couple on trail heading up Clay and again solid. Saw five or six skiers in the Great Gulf.

Descended on the Jewel trail where we hit three foot snow as soon as the conifers provided deep shade, maybe around 4300 feet. We hiking boot skied pretty well for about 40 minutes until the snow ran out at about 3500 feet, trail then being virtually snow free the rest of the way. (Memorial Day weekend hikers will probably find a lot less snow on the Jewell).

Great loop!

HH1 said:

On Sun May 23rd, we found the Jefferson Notch Rd closed, so we parked at the WMNF lot just west of the Base Station, crossed the road to the Jewel trailhead and hiked for .4 mi where we turned left onto the Boundary Line trail, which had to be recently maintained as it was wide open - flat easy hiking.

If there are 500 trees down, they must be on that part of the road under 2500', as we saw no significant blowdown to speak of on the road.

Click to expand...

I agree that the 500 trees down report makes no sense, as the JNR was a major snow machine route until the end of March. This road closure could be a nefarious plot to keep spring skiers off the East Jefferson snowfields?

The north end of the road usually gets thrashed during the winter far more than the south end and usually requires NH DOT a couple of weeks to get it in shape in the spring. There are only gates at either end, so its difficult to only open up one end for travel to the Caps Ridge trailhead. Given the current staffing and budget contraints, I would expect the reopening to be a very low priority as the only reason the road really is needed is to access one major trailhead (and one minor one) and retain bragging rights to the high public road in NH.

The other good reason to keep it closed for a bit is to cut down on the "goofer" factor as this trail gets a higher than normal number of folks who equate "high trail head equals easy hike".

I personally find it to be a PITA that its not open as it adds 20 to 30 minutes of driving time to get to Crawford Notch from my house up in Gorham.

Nice report! And, I agree with you. It is a nice loop!

Although it might sound nutty, even when the Jefferson Notch Road is open, I've done a similar loop. I parked at the Caps trailhead and did a clockwise loop using the Caps Ridge, Gulfside, Jewell, and Boundary Line trails. Yeah, it kinda sucks having the 1.4 mile road walk at the end (i.e. from north end of Boundary Line to Caps trailhead). But, it's a pretty easy grade & smooth-surface trekking. Plus, you always have the outside chance of some kind soul offering to give your sweat-soaked body a ride up to the trailhead!