September 21, 2024

Start/End: Crawford Notch, Rt. 302

Peaks: "Webster" (3,911'), Jackson (4,052')

Elevation Gain: 2,730 ft

RT Mileage: 6.34 mi

Duration: 4 hours, 7 minutes

Rock Difficulty: Class 1

After Isolation for Flags on the 48 last weekend, I was back in the Whites on the 21st. Anticipating foliage to be approaching high color, I decided to go with the classic loop over Webster and Jackson from Crawford Notch. I hadn't hiked this loop in over two years, so it was probably time to revisit it anyway.

Waking up at 5:10 AM, we left the house at 5:35, and arrived at the trailhead just after 8:00. Foliage hadn't progressed quite as far as I had expected since last week, and I didn't start seeing decent color until exiting the freeway onto Route 3 on the way to the trailhead. In any case, we started out on the Jackson-Webster Trail at 8:10. Almost immediately we came to the fork to Elephant Head, where we decided against the detour since we'd be getting a similar view from Bugle Cliff later on anyway.

After an initially steep ascent out of the notch, the trail leveled out and began to traverse across the slope. 0.7 miles in, we reached the aforementioned Bugle Cliff, which offered the first foliage views of the day.

Another 0.7 miles in, we came to the fork between Jackson and Webster. Last time we had hiked Jackson first, so this time we decided to hike the loop the other way and do Webster first. After first descending to a minor stream crossing from the fork, the trail ascended more steeply the rest of the way to the summit. We summited just after 10:15.

The views from Webster were better than I remembered, but I was a little surprised to see that fall color in Crawford Notch was actually a little behind color on either side of the notch. While surrounding areas were approaching high color, the notch itself appeared to be hard stuck in low color. After a short break on the summit, we began making our way over to Jackson.

The 1.1 miles to Jackson from Webster were fairly straightforward for the most part, first a gradual descent to the col between the summits then a gradual ascent most of the way to Jackson. The trail did steepen for the final 100 vertical feet to the summit, and also partially broke out of the trees. We summited Jackson just before 11:30.

There were three gray jays frolicking around on the summit, and I had more fun photographing them than I did the scenery. I'm pretty happy with some of the shots I managed to take, and you can see a few of them in the image carousel above. Anyway, after another short break on the summit of Jackson, we began making our way back to the trailhead. After an initial steep descent off the summit, the rest was smooth sailing, and we were back at the parking lot at 1:00 PM.