We were on the Caps Ridge trail by 10:30; it was fairly dark and
about twenty minutes out, we met a party who were feeling their way down
by the light of a single small digital camera. They borrowed a spare
light from Mike, which we found by the car in the morning.
Our first photo opportunity was at 11:15; we weren't at the summit,
and this is a 16 second exposure with the moon light showing from behind
Mt. Washington (the slope of Mt. Jefferson is on the left).
By 1:30, we're at the summit of Mt. Jefferson, and have been hiking by moonlight alone. Shooting to the west, there's enough moonlight to show details of Monticello Lawn and Mt. Adams in anther 16 second exposure.
If I knew the height of the bump to the left of Mt. Adams, I could figure
out how much to rotate this image, but that's for another day.
This is a little more North than the previous one.
Sunrise starts surprisingly early; at 4:00, we're at Thunderstorm
Junction, and this is a 1.3 second exposure.
We reach the summit of Mt. Adams at 4:48, and settle down to eat
bagels and take pictures. This one's taken at 4:58, and is a little
north of the sunrise.
Only minutes later, there's sun to be seen, and lots of mist over
the Androscoggin river. It was too cold to rest long, and we headed
over towards Madison Hut.
Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum).
This is pretty common, and should be simple to identify, but I'm just
not seeing it now.
After a stop at the Madison Hut, during which I napped and the rest of the party went to tag Mt. Madison's peak, we headed down by Valley Way. By this time, I was really really tired, with my legs shaking; we reached deciduous forest quickly, but had a total of 3.7 miles to go to get down to Appalachia where we'd left a car. I didn't stop to photograph the other somewhat familiar lower elevation flowers, but saw bluebead lily, bunchberry and starflower.
Here's some Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) which I photographed during a rest stop, in an effort to think about something other than my aching legs.
Both down next to the river and near the car, I saw butterflies; they turned out to be White admiral, (Limenitis arthemis arthemis).
We were driving back soon after 10:15 in the morning.