Summit #2: Mount Jackson

I've climbed another 4000-footer! Its called Mount Jackson and it is 4,052 feet high. Mount Jackson is in the Presidential Range of mountains. When we climbed Mount Tecumseh in January I didn't have a lot of energy because I didn't eat breakfast, so this time we ate a huge breakfast beforehand at the AMC Highland Center Lodge. I had four sausages, scrambled eggs, hot chocolate, orange juice, and cereal. Now THAT's a good breakfast! It really helped and I had a lot of energy all day.

When we started out the hike it was snowing and foggy. Cars blew wet snow in our faces as we walked down the road toward the trail head. We were the first ones up the trail, so the snow was deep and fluffy because it snowed the night before, and we had to pack it down. On our way up the mountain we played a fun game. First you pick a subject, like "animals," then someone says an animal name, like "octopus," and then the next person has to say an animal name that begins with the last letter of the word before, like "snake," or "sea gull." And so on.

We got to the summit about 3 1/2 hours after we started. It was really foggy and we couldn't see any other mountains, which is too bad because usually there's a great view of Mount Washington. My dad took a bunch of pictures of me, but we forgot to bring the earth flag, so we couldn't take a picture of that. We'll remember next time. About ten minutes after we were on the summit some other people came up. Their names were Ken, Janice, and Meg, their border collie dog. We told them about my Summits for My School project and we gave them a copy of my letter. They told another hiker, named David, and his son about my project, and on the way down the mountain when they passed me, David gave me $20 for my school.

Before we left the summit we were thinking of also hiking to Mount Pierce from Mount Jackson, to do two 4000-footers in one day. But the snow was too deep and it probably would've been very late when we got back down.

My favorite part of the hike was when we saw some of Mount Jackson's famous Canadian Jays. We were walking down the mountain and we heard a bird call. We said, "Oh, maybe that's one of the jays." Then my dad took the bread out of my backpack that we took from the restaurant the night before. I put some of it in my hand and the jays landed right on my hand (and now I'm thinking that I should've put some bread on my head) and ate it. My dad got some great pictures of the jays. They are not zoomed in. The birds love hikers and were really that close.

About six and a half hours after we started we got back down, safely, to the bottom of the mountain. Then we walked back to the Highland Center lodge, took off all of our gear (except for our clothing, of course) and went inside for snacks and drinks. Then we got in the car and drove home.

If you'd like to see more really good pictures of the hike, click here.