We started at Lowes store and continued up Lowes Path. We barebooted at the beginning, but shortly before the log cabin, it was necessary to put on crampons due to icy conditions on the trail. When we got to Gray Knob, we dropped our overnight gear and headed above treeline. It was cloudy with little visibility, but with no wind. We followed the cairns up to Adams 4. After Adams 4, we could not see the cairns, but we were easily able to find our way to thunderstorm junction (since we hiked here a month ago and knew which direction to go). From here, we just followed the tracks up to Adams summit. From Adams summit, we continued down to Madison Hut and up to Madison Summit. After Madison, we had to go back to thunderstorm junction and we followed our previous tracks back to Adams 4 and then continued back to Gray Knob where we spent the night. When traveling above treeline, hikers should not count that their tracks will be there when they return. Since there was little to no wind, the tracks stayed on this day, but even the slightest wind can fill in tracks quickly as we found out the next day. Gray Knob is an unheated cabin near treeline on Lowe's Path. A great place to spent the night with access to above treeline hiking. This weekend was fairly warm for winter, probably around freezing. The next day, the forecast was for little visibility with increasing winds throughout the day so we decided to just to Jefferson. We took Gray Knob trail to Edmunds col and continued up to the Summit of Jefferson. There was very little visibility, but we had no trouble finding the summit. It had snowed a couple inches the night before, and while it was not too windy, there was breeze around 10-20 miles per hour, which was enough to fill in our tracks quickly. When we descended from Jefferson Summit, we could not find our tracks and a couple of time we could not see the next cairn. We looked around for bit, and we eventually found the correct way down to Edmunds col. Then we continued back to Gray Knob and down Lowe's Path to the trailhead. A great warm winter weekend with little wind for hiking above treeline. Although we did not have any views, it was a great weekend of hiking.
Below Treeline
Lowe's Path at treeline
Looking up at Adams 4
Brian on Madison Summit
View from Madison Summit
Summit of Jefferson
Andre at the big cairn just below Jefferson summit
The view from Jefferson Summit (maybe 25 feet)
Andre and Brian on Jefferson Summit