My original plan was to go up the Caps Ridge trail, take the Link trail (despite its bad reputation) over to the the Castellated Ridge then head for Adams via the Castellated Ridge, Cornice and Gulfside. Finally heading back over or around Jefferson and down the Caps all the way to the car.

Karen had other things to do and was also less than keen to revisit the Caps after the adventures of a couple of weeks before. So, I asked Lisa (fresh back from a trip to Everest Base Camp) if she would like to accompany me, "Sure", she replied. If only she knew then...

Left early and arrived at the Jefferson Notch Road trailhead at around 6:15am. Got geared up and on the trail by 6:25. Ominously, even the parking lot was cloudbound. "It'll blow off as the day gets going.", I offered. If only I knew then...

After a lot of recent rain the trail was pretty damp and squishy in places but not too bad. Worse was the soaking from the trailside scrub. Could use a trim sometime soon. We made it up to the Whirlpool Ledges in just under the hour to find views consisting of the inside of clouds. This did not bode well, but I was still confident that they would blow away.

A few minutes of hiking after leaving the Ledges brought us to the Link Trail junction. This would be our route over to the Castellated Ridge, joining it just below the Castles. Not a lot of good things have been said about this trail but I was willing to give it a chance and make my own mind up.

It started out pretty tame and the going was not bad at all. After the first stream crossing though things started to deteriorate. The roots got more tangled, the ups and downs more aggressive and the rocks more of a scramble. There was one spot at a later stream crossing that was quite nerve-racking. It involved crossing a small slick ledge above a fairly steep and long drop off.

Lisa gave me a scare at one point by slipping on a wet root and going down fast. She ended up on her back, head first down a steep slope but managed to grab a root to stop herself from sliding further. Although already stopped I grabbed her ankles. My first reaction was not to grab the camera... honest. A relatively soft landing avoided injury and we continued on with even more caution.

The Link between the Caps Ridge and the Castles is only 1 1/2 miles but it is pretty tough going, particularly towards the Castles end. On a dry day it might not be so bad and, combined with the Caps section, saves about a mile and 1,400' of hiking as an approach to the Castles as opposed to starting at Bowman.

Not a moment too soon we arrived at the junction with the Castle trail. We stopped to take a breather and a gorp and glug break before hitting the Castles.

Not long after starting up the Castellated Ridge it started to rain. And it rained, and rained and rained. We decided to stick it out for a while longer in the hope that this too would blow over. After a few awkward little scrambles we came to the first real tester. A wide, flat slab rising up at a pretty steep angle. The surface was quite rough and it offered some traction despite the rain. I headed up the left side using mostly rock hand and foot holds. Lisa went up the right and hauled herself up using many an obliging branch.

The Castles continued, interspersed with areas of scrub that, most annoyingly, managed to make us even wetter. The rain also continued and I confirmed to Lisa that I had abandoned any hope of heading for Adams, unless by some miracle conditions changed. It didn't look like they were going to.

We carried on up and the rain accompanied us, along with a good stiff wind. By now we had layered up and gotten into waterproof jackets but neither of us had brought rain pants and our legs were getting quite soaked. Temps were in the low 50's and I monitored myself and Lisa for signs of hypothermia. I had Lisa don some winter mittens to protect her hands. The plan now was to take the Cornice trail to the Caps Ridge trail and then down. I had not heard many good things about that section of the Cornice either, but it was shorter and seemed preferrable than returning by way of the Castles and Link trail.

We stopped for a breather and gorp break in the lee of some large rocks and for a short while after there was a respite from the rain. This was only short lived however and the rain came back with a vengence.

Visibility was pretty bad but the cairns made for easy navigation. When we came to the Cornice trail junction however neither of us could make out the route, or any cairns in the direction of the Caps Ridge trail. While we were pondering this a group of four hikers arrived down from Jefferson Summit. They had spotted a car at Bowman and climbed up from Jefferson Notch by way of the Caps and were returning via the Castles. They offered for us to go down with them and to run us back to our car.

Lisa was tempted but I pushed for us to carry on the the summit and then head down the Caps trail. We thanked them for the offer and went our separate ways. Lisa was wet, chilly and a little concerned about the lack of visibility and my decision to keep going up. I explained that had we gone down with them we were facing a descent of the Castles and a total hike out of 4 1/2miles. If we headed up to the the summit and then down the Caps we would have a 1 1/2 miles less to travel and, in my opinion, the Caps presented less of a challenge for the descent. We pressed on. It kept raining.

Visibility was pretty bad, but keeping a watchfull eye on the trail and cairns, both in front and behind, was reassuring. The half mile from the Cornice to the summit drained me somewhat, but we finally made it to the large cairn just off the summit hump. I told Lisa the true summit was up the little bump but she declined the diversion and we hardly broke step as we turned onto the Caps Ridge trail.

It was 47* and still raining. We were wet but on the way down. The summit cone is a real boulder hop and the very wet conditions made things even more tricky. Before long though we hit the Cornice trail junction and then got down to the Caps. There are only a couple of real intimidating sections on the Caps but the rain added a new twist and made for a few more awkward ones. There was a certain amount of cursing of the weather but we finally got off the rocks and into the scrub then forest.

Despite the rain we made good time after leaving the rocks behind. Two weeks previously it took Karen (with her banged up knee) and me 3 1/2 hours to get from the summit to the Link junction. It took Lisa and me a little under two hours. I think we swam some of the way.

We cruised down the rest of the trail, still meeting folk heading up despite the rain. Not far out from the end of the trail we met a concerned man who asked us if we had seen others on their way down. It seemed that their group had gone up together but had split up and now he was concerned at the delay in the return of some younger members of their group. I hope they made it down safely.

At a little after 2:30 we made it back to the car. Lisa had not brought a change of clothes but luckily I had enough dry clothes to do for both of us. Of course the rain had stopped minutes before getting back to the car and the sun was even trying to break through. We changed into dry clothes, emptied water from our boots, threw the waterlogged gear in the trunk and headed off for hot food.

By the time we got down to Bretton Woods the sun had come out and the clouds had broken up. Go figure. A quick look back did confirm that the higher summits were still in the clouds though, so we didn't feel quite so bad.

So once again my designs on Adams were thwarted and I got no views from Jefferson. If I had to sum up this hike in one word it would be... WET!