Mt. Jackson
Trail: Webster Jackson trail
Date: June 10, 2001
Attending: Gabe, Simone, & John Chicoine
Miles: 5.2 Time: 5.5Hrs
AMC huts, / shelters / camping site: None
Weather: Sunny, 80 at base, 70’ish on summit,
Where have we been? I can’t believe this is our first 4K this year. We’ve been so busy this winter snow shoeing and x-country Skiing that we never bothered to make the long trip up north. We tried for Ocseola in May, but Tripolli Rd. was still closed so we hit the ever wonderful Welch-Dickey loop. It seems I’d been fooling myself into thinking that I was staying in shape over the winter by doing lots of X-country skiing. Here in North Central Mass, we were X-country skiing the back side of Mount Wachusett to the summit into the second week of April. As soon as the skiing was done, we hit the bikes.
But! Nothing works the body like a true 4K hike. We enjoyed Jackson last time we hiked it, but there was such extreme weather (driving sleet and thick fog) that we couldn’t see 30ft. This time the sun was shining, the temps were warm, and the views were abundant. Jackson has a very nice viewpoint. I rather doubt that Jackson would ever take the place of Mt. Pierce as a winter hike, but the views are almost as nice. We were treated to an abundance of White Lady Slippers (we’re used to pink, and even yellow, but never remember seeing white). The Trilliums were out too, along with other flowers. Gabe even spotted a 4 petal Trillium. We had no idea such a thing existed. We took a picture in case no one believed us. There were lots of people out on the trails on this hike, and we enjoyed 45 minutes on the summit before we headed down. We were all tired from this one, (not bone exhausted, but tired). The hike down to the car took us as long as it took us to hike up. We had a few sun showers on the trip down, “Thanks God”. We did stop to enjoy a longer than usual, ritual foot washing in one of the rivers on the trail. This was a prep hike for our AT Massachusetts section hike in a few weeks. If this was a test, I failed! I am not in the kind of shape I need to be in for the rigors of an 8-day, 100 mile hike. My knees are not going to be my friends. (I’ve still got 3 weeks to work on it.)