Join us for a magnificent hike up Mt. Madison, one of the peaks in the Northern Presidentials in the White Mountains. Madison has plenty of above-treeline travel, with rough terrain and breathtaking views.

We're planning to run this as an "introduction to above-treeline hiking" trip. If you have prior experience hiking below treeline in the winter and you're looking for your first foray into above-treeline travel, this could be the perfect trip for you!

We'll be hiking up and down Valley Way. The hike is about 7.7 mi and 3,800' of elevation gain, with about a mile of above-treeline travel. This is a significant amount of elevation, so you should be in good physical shape.

Prerequisites

We don't have strict/inflexible prerequisites, but as a guideline, you should:

• Have done at least 2 MITOC B-level (below treeline, in the White Mountains or similar) winter hikes (or equivalent), at least one in temperatures below 20°F.
• Be in good physical shape: you should have done a hike of >= 7 miles and >= 3000 ft of elevation gain in the last 6 months.

If you don't satisfy both prereqs above, you're still welcome to enter the lottery for this trip, but please email the leaders briefly summarizing your winter / 3-season hiking experience, so we can make sure that this trip is a good fit for you.

Clothing

Elaborating a bit on clothing: it can get very cold and windy in the Northern Presidentials, so you need appropriate clothing, including being able to cover all exposed skin, having boots and gloves/mittens that are warm enough, and having wind-proof upper and lower layers (like a rain coat / rain pants, or a shell jacket / shell pants). This is not the right trip to find out that your clothing isn't warm enough for hiking in < 20°F weather, so you should have some prior experience with your clothing setup in colder temperatures. We'll go over clothing in the pre-trip meeting, and if any of your clothing is sub-optimal, we'll try to figure out solutions.

Logistics

There will be a required pre-trip meeting at 5:30pm on Thursday to review gear and logistics. We'll send details by email after the lottery runs. This trip will require light traction (microspikes, or better yet, Hillsounds) and ice axes.