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After
a while, the rain let up, so I decided I might as well make a
summit attempt. Erin didn’t want to go, so she stayed in the hut. I
started up the Osgood Trail. After passing
through a small area of scrub, I scrambled up over the clutter of
talus,
following a line of cairns and paint blazes on the rocks. It was not a
quick easy climb, especially since I was already tired, the rocks were wet, and 50+ mph winds
were trying to blow me off balance.
About
halfway up the 550-foot vertical rise of the summit cone, the wind
suddenly picked up, pummeling me with thick sheets of rain which were
blowing in sideways out of the Great Gulf. Cowering close down to the
rocks, I waited for a couple of minutes to see if
was going to subside, all the time thinking about McDonald Barr who died of hypothermia
on Mt Madison in 1986 during an August storm. It did not let up, so I
decided to play it safe and call it quits.
Since I was getting battered by wind-driven raindrops and 75 mph gusts here, on the more-protected side of Mt Madison, I reasoned that conditions
on the summit would be much worse. I picked my way carefully down
the rocks, crouching low during the worst gusts, until I reached the
safety of the hut again. By now, the rain and the wind had slackened a bit, but it was
probably still worse higher up.
I
found Erin inside the hut, and we refilled our water bottles, and then headed back
down the mountain via the Valley Way, which is the safest route up
or down during bad weather since it is more sheltered than the Airline or any
of the other trails that converge in the vicinity of Mt Madison.
The
upper part of the Valley Way was a little slow going because the rocks
were wet and the footing was rough. About 45 minutes from the hut, it
really began to pour and we had to put on our rain gear. We passed a croo
member climbing up the trail with a heavy packboard full of food and
supplies. He didn’t have on rain gear and was getting drenched.
About
a half-hour from the car, the
rain let up. Erin continued
down the Valley Way, while I took an alternate parallel route down the Fallsway close to Snyder Brook by a series of small cascades. I returned
to the Valley Way on the Maple Way and reached the car a couple of
minutes after Erin.
We
drove into Gorham and stopped at McDonald’s to get supper, then got some
gas and a couple of sodas and headed back home, stopping only once along the way to
call home and leave a message that we were on the way back. I was
disappointed that I hadn’t summited, but was glad that we made it back
down safely and had at least reached Madison Spring Hut. The mountain has
to win some of the time.
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Rear kitchen door of
Madison Spring Hut. The rear of the hut faces Mt Madison and the Osgood
Trail. |
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