On the 5th and final day of our Labor Day camping and peak-bagging extravaganza, the only sensical choice was to hike Mount Madison. The other 5 remaining peaks were too remote, and since the weather was still simply stellar, we just had to knock off the last remaining exposed, rugged Presidential.
Our leg muscles were primed from the previous “rest” day on Mount Pierce, but we still choose to take the easiest route to the summit of Madison: the Valley Way trail to the Osgood Trail, an 8-mile round trip with a 4100 foot elevation gain. It’s a well-used trail that passes the legendary Madison Spring Hut, where we stopped 2 years ago during our Mount Adams hike. Had we been properly strategizing our 4000 Footers back then, we would have gone the extra .5 mile to summit Madison too. But I seem to recall being on the verge of collapsing, and besides, if we had done that, then we would have missed…
Mt. Washington from summit of Mount Madison
… a simply stunning afternoon on the summit of Madison, with a wind too gentle to even disturb the flies that congregated around us as we ate our snacky lunch.
Summit of Mount Madison
Gotta love the skort.
Summit of Mount Madison
Before we commenced our final mountain descent of the vacation, we stopped at the Madison Spring Hut for a small nap.
Wake up, Mr. P! Vacation’s over…
