To celebrate my birthday I decide to do a solo trip up to Mt. Adams. I stayed at a campground in Jefferson on Friday night. I was at Lowes store at 7:00 am Saturday morning. Went up Lowes path to Grey Knob Cabin. Arrived at the cabin at 10:30, lightened my load and continued up to the summit of Adams. As soon as I left Grey Knob I was above treeline. It was a great day with temps in the 60's. Hiking up to the summit alone was very nice and I found myself walking at a much slower pace than normal. I reached the summit at noon. Because I was staying at Gray Knob Cabin I was in no hurry to leave the summit, so I stayed up there for 3 hours, just enjoying the views. Washington and the auto road were very busy as was the glider traffic. When I got back to the cabin I ate and then went to watch the sunset with Greg (the caretaker) his brother and dogs. We went to the top of grey knob on a trail that he knew. There was some difficult rock climbing to get up there. It was worth it, the sunset over Mt. Jefferson was spectacular. Hung out at night with Jenny a student from Yale. There was a group from Canada at the cabin but they didn't speak English and I don't speak french.
The next morning I was up at 7:00 ate some oatmeal and was off. It rained all the way down but it was warm. I took gregs advice and went down the trails that he uses, it was easier going down than Lowes path would have been. Got back to Lowes store at about 9:30. Walking in the woods alone in the rain was different, I didn't see a human all the way down.
DMP