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Hiking Mt Jefferson in February

Hiking Mt Jefferson in February

Mt Jefferson (5712′) is the third-highest White Mountain 4000 footer and a difficult mountain to climb in winter with a long approach hike often complicated by deep snow, high winds, and frigid temperatures. This has been an especially cold and windy winter this year which has sharply curtailed the number of days where it’s safe enough to do above treeline hikes, like Jefferson, that have a substantial amount of open exposure.

The last time I climbed Jefferson was in December of last year when we caught a relatively warm and wind-free day to climb the peak. As luck would have it, we had another such day on February 1st, with temperatures in the low 20’s (Fahrenheit) and winds below 15 mph. I was joined on this hike by two friends, Wanda and Larry, who are super experienced 4-season hikers with a long list of White Mountain accomplishments and volunteer service.

Snowshoeing up the above-treeline section of the Jewell Trail
Snowshoeing up the above-treeline section of the Jewell Trail

The best approach in winter is to climb the Jewell Trail to the Gulfside Trail and then up the Jefferson Loop Trail, but once you pop above treeline on the Jewell at mile 3.0 (approx 4500′), you are totally exposed to the elements for 2.5 miles until you reach the summit of Jefferson. There are two ways to shorten the distance slightly by parking at the hiker parking lot at the Cog Railroad Station ($10/person) and by bushwhacking above treeline from the Jewell Trail to the Gulfside Trail (near the northern Mt Clay Trail junction) if the snow is deep enough and solid enough to protect the Krumholz (and avoid spruce traps) growing on the west face of Mt Clay.

While we had fine weather for this hike, we had to break trail from the Cog Railroad Station where we’d parked to Gulfside Trail. We got about a foot of new snow in this last winter storm and there haven’t been many people climbing the Northern Presidentials lately to pack out the trails. It wasn’t a full break, since one person had gone ahead of us wearing 30″ snowshoes, but the snow was powdery and unconsolidated requiring snowshoes and televators to climb the next 2.6 miles with 2700′ of elevation gain. It was pretty exhausting with just three people rotating the lead.

Snowshoeing along the Gulfside Trail to Mt Jefferson
Snowshoeing along the Gulfside Trail to Mt Jefferson

When we got above treeline, the Jewell trail became increasingly difficult to find and follow, since the cairns that mark it are often buried. We followed a pre-existing track that was lightly broken out but gave up after a while and tried to take the Jewell-Gulfside cutoff. While there were sections of wind slab that could hold us, the snow was not really deep enough to cover the rocks or voids between the vegetation so we gave up and climbed straight up to the Gulfside Trail.

Expecting drifts (from experience), we kept our snowshoes on until just past the Sphinx Trail Junction before taking them off and leaving them next to a cairn before switching to trail crampons for the final ascent to the Jefferson summit. The snow just wasn’t deep enough for snowshoes and the “trail” was mostly packed windslab, frozen snow, and ice.

Nate on the summit of Mt Jefferson.
Nate on Mt Jefferson.

Hiking got a lot easier without the snowshoes and we quickly reached the summit. We chatted with a few hikers who were already there, when I spied a hiker I recognized approaching. It was Nate, a hiker that I’d met a few weeks previously on Mt Carrigain. He was climbing Jefferson and nearby Washington on the same day.

Hiking down to the Jefferson/Clay col. Mt Washington looms in the background.
Hiking down to the Jefferson/Clay col. Mt Washington looms in the background.

After you summit Jefferson, you have to climb back up the Gulfside Trail to get back to the Jewell Trail, so it’s important to leave some gas in the tank. It’s only a 400′ climb, but it feels like it just keeps going up and up. Having eaten an apricot jam sandwich on Jefferson, I was feeling revived but my companions were dragging a bit.

We descended the Jewell Trail rapidly. Gravity was our friend.
We descended the Jewell Trail rapidly. Gravity was our friend.

We put our snowshoes back on and retraced our steps down the Jewell, picking up speed as we went. Gravity is my best friend. When we reached treeline, the trail we’d broken in the morning now looked like a trench, with calf-high sidewalls. We flew down it at 3 mph making the descent from 4500′ down to the Cog in 45 minutes. That was a very satisfying way to end a challenging day above treeline!

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3 comments

  1. Gosh, I wish I lived further north. This looks like a lot of fun! I finally got some snowshoeing in last week, but it was short-lived as it is raining today. It looks like you are getting pummeled with snow again though! CT is just a little too far south. :-)

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