The 2015-2016 will go down as the winter that wasn't. A serious lack of snow combined with increased family and school commitments had me left with only the occasional morning resort laps. While those certainly made the weekdays more tolerable, I was ready to get out into the backcountry. Fortunately, my schedule lined up with Huff's enough to get in a weekday trip up to Mt. Washington. Despite it being well into spring, winter had made a comeback in the Whites, and the weather forecast held a high of 30F and wind. Combined with a bit of recent snow and wind loading, we weren't exactly sure what we'd find, but decided to get out and take a look for ourselves.
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| Hillman's from a distance |
We left home after sunrise, and were hiking in our trail runners by a leisurely 9AM. After ascending into the bowl, we were able to get a better sense of the snow conditions. There was some minor wind deposit in and around the established bumps on the trail, but navigating around it seemed reasonable.
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| Huff |
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Since neither of us had sharps, we resolved to kicking steps into the frozen crust. We hiked up to about the choke point of the gully, and made a decision to quit while we were ahead. The ski down was more survival than anything, crust and stiff wind buff. Not exactly ideal skiing, but at least we were able to get out there and enjoy the remaining snow.
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A couple weeks later, I had another window open up in my schedule. This time around, the weather was forecast for a more spring-like 60s in the valley and 30s up high, much nicer than our previous wintery experience. Since my usual partners weren't available, I had planned to go up solo, but shot a last minute email to JShefftz to see if he'd be roaming around up there as he so often is. Sure enough, he had plans to lap the NE snowfield before heading to Tuck's to catch LG on the way down. We decided to try for a rendezvous on the mountain.
My day trip schedule had me rising at 0300 to get an early departure from the Pinkham lot. Since I had to be back for daycare pickup in the evening, I knew I had to move fast. Luckily, I was on trail by 0730 and chugged my way up the TRT and Lion Head. Aside from a few choice photo ops, I kept moving in order to get as much in and still make my strict deadline.
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| View from LH (NE snowfields on the far right) |
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| LG |
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| Hillman's |
Just before the transition to skins, I caught up to JS (guess I was moving fast), and we skinned over to the NE snowfields together. The snowfields were in excellent condition, with almost the entire potential run still in. It had snowed a few days earlier, and with the solar gain and reasonable temps, we caught perfect corn laps. After a few laps, I let Jonathan spin one more as I set to repairing an unfortunate equipment malfunction - my CAMP pack had torn at the bottom and required some McGuiver-like tape mending.
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| JS |
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| "One good run deserves another!" |
We traversed on skis back over to the top of the bowl, then hike around to LG. Somehow we beat the numerous hikers coming from the bottom and scored first tracks down the gully. Jonathan of course knew a crew climbing the bowl, and we stopped to briefly chat before enjoying the soft bumps to the bottom. Reminded of my need to get home for daycare, I booked it downhill, leaving my partner for the day to enjoy a few more laps of corny goodness. Somehow I beat my cut-off time and got on the road with almost 30 minutes to spare. Unfortunately even the best laid plans can be completely derailed by I-95 traffic. Luckily, daycare was very understanding!
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| Ouch. |
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Ollie decided to help me with
my post-tour stretching. |
