We got to Crawford Depot at about 9:30 after our usual stop at the Bridgeside Diner for breakfast. After getting dressed and packing up we hit the road for the .1 mile walk to the trailhead. The snowbanks on the sides of the roads were about 6' high from the plows, we had trouble finding the trailhead and walked by it twice. When we finally located it we found that it had been packed down for us. The trail started out rising gradually to the first lookout at Bugle Cliff, a real nice view down into Crawford Notch. The trail then got steeper as we took the left branch for the summit of Mt. Jackson.
For the next two hours we hiked up thru snow flurries to within 500' of the summit. Here we met up with the group that had broken the trail for us. There were 5 backpackers being led by "Chuck". Chuck was the only one of the nine of us without a hat or hood on. As we came above tree line the temperature was about 15-20 degrees but the wind had picked up to about 30 mph. I offered to break the trail the remaining way to the summit. The climb up to the summit was very steep with snow 2' to 3' deep in some places. The wind had also picked up to about 60 mph. I reached some signs on the trail and scraped them off to find out we had made it to the top. Looking back I saw that "Chuck" had made it but still hadn't covered his bald head. He was headed off for a presidential traverse.
We couldn't stay long on the top and didn't want to take out the camera's in the blowing snow, so we headed back down below treeline. The trip down was quick with lots of sliding, but we couldn't stop to eat because if you went off the trail at all you would posthole 3' to 4'. When we got back to Crawford's we climbed in the truck, got changed and headed to Elvio's for pizza.
DMP