Category Archives: Skiing

(Not So) Solo Presidential Venture

This past weekend was great, and nothing went as planned. It also stands as a testament to the unpredictable and extreme weather around Mt. Washington.

My original plan was to backpack two days, one night, and then ski Tucks today (Sunday). I’d been itching to camp out, and a solo trip seemed like the way to go, since Sweeney and Rob were busy getting their backcountry powder fix in the Wallowas in Oregon. From the get go I had to make some quick adjustments to my trip plan. Originally I wanted to park near Glen Falls, and head up to Boot Spurr, and then hike along the southern part of the presidential ridge, hitting Monroe, Eisenhower, Pierce, and possibly Jackson, camping at elevation, but below treeline at Nauman.

But, when I got to Glen Falls parking area south of Pinkham Notch, the area was gated and all the signs were bagged. It didn’t look too inviting so I re-routed my ascend to the Boot Spur trail. Later I saw cars parked where the gate was, so I guess it wasn’t too big a deal. At Pinkham I checked the weather, then threw all my gear, both winter clothing and overnight essentials into my big 70L Osprey Aether pack, and headed up the Ravine trail to the cutoff.

As I crossed the bottom of the Sherburne, it was completely bare and dry. The Tucks trail was a mess of mud and rock at the bottom. Were we really just skinning from the base only a month ago? And skiing all the way down? It looked like a different world.

As I got higher up on Boot Spur I began breaking through the remnants of snow and ice into the running water below, which I was not a fan of. The wind was picking up, and looked like it trying to blow down the trees. As I crested treeline I nearly got blow away. The wind was fierce and it was very exposed. I’d read that the summit was reporting gusts above 85 mph, but I did not expect to need to make a hasty retreat to the shelter of the trees.

I snapped a quick photo of the bowl as I got above treeline on Boot Spurr

I quickly realized there was no way in hell I was hiking ~5 miles completely exposed on the peaks. I didn’t really want to give up and go back the way I’d come though, so I decided the brave the wind for about a mile while I headed up to connect with Boot Spurr Link trail, and descend into the Ravine. I threw on my shell, gathered my wits, and made agonizingly slow progress against the wind, sometimes on all four or bracing against cairns. The steep descent of Boot Spurr Link wasn’t too much fun–no one had broken trail and I was postholing the entire way down the Hermit Lake.

It was still early morning, but there were a bunch of skiers at Hojos, heading up to Hillmans and the bowl, so I decided to make a day of it, and enjoy the blue skies and warm weather (and lower wind speeds). There was the usual assortment of spring skiers, including people duct taping their skis to their packs and almost falling down left gully. I hiked around the bowl a bit and took my time before descending the Tucks trail. I felt a little silly hanging out in the bowl with a big pack but no skis with me.

Hillmans Highway from Hojos

Skiers heading up left gully, which had some soft bumps

The rapidly deteriorating bowl, and waterfall hole

Afterwards, I camped out at Barnes Field and prepped for some skiing Saturday, since my backpacking plans had been comprised. Due to some miscommunication between Alex and I, we didn’t meet up Saturday like we’d planned, and so Saturday morning I hung around Pinkham Notch until it looked like things were going to soften up, then made my way up to Hermit Lake on my own. I made record time to Hojos, about 40 minutes I think, and chatted with a few people on the way up, including a guy who was planning to summit via Lion’s Head, since they just re-opened the summer route.

At Hermit Lake I talked with a ranger who speculated that the bowl still wouldn’t soften up to prime corn for another hour or so, so I took my time and snapped a few photos for a group who were from the Johnson State College Outing Club. When they found out I was on my own, they offered to let me join them. They seemed like they knew what they were doing, so we departed together to ski Left Gully. It turned out I’d been hiking up the Tucks trail with their friend earlier, and a few of them had been into back-country skiing and coming up to Tucks for a number of years. It worked out great, they were super chill and it certainly made the day more fun than skiing on my own, and also gave me some peace of mind.

Though it was supposed to be cool and cloudy, the sun broke through, and I was sweating bullets in the heat as we ascended. We hit Left Gully just as it got soft, and had a great first run. I was feeling a bit slow on the ascent, I guess my jaunt Friday left me a bit tired. For second run, we headed up Left Gully again just as some hiker narrowly avoid taking out the whole line after he lost his footing and slid down the entire run. We topped out and headed towards Hillmans Highway across the rock fields, looking for a bit of variety. I hadn’t skied Hillmans all season, so I was game to give it a try. There was a choke point on the descent where you had to side-step down and the snow pack briefly got narrower than my skis, but the rest of the run was good spring conditions, though I doubt it will be worth skiing much longer. The Sherburne was in rough shape. You could kind of ski 30% of the way, as long as you didn’t mind skiing over rocks and grass and doing a bit of hiking in between.

In the sun on top of Left Gully, you can see my skin beginning to take on a reddish hue.

The weekend ended up much different than I’d planned, mostly due to the rapidly changing weather. Mt Washington is getting a bit of rain today, so it probably wouldn’t have been as much fun to ski anyway. Thanks again to the friends I met at from outing club, especially Jess and Sam, it was a blast skiing with you guys!

And We’ll All Float On Okay…

Euphoric. Unreal. Ridiculous. Life changing. I’m almost doing our experience a disservice by trying to put this weekend into words. The past three days at Jay have been the best skiing of my life.

It all started Thursday night when Rob and I left Boston and made record time to Jay Peak in search of the forecasted storm. We awoke to disappointment–no snow. Yet. We met up with a few of Rob’s friends, and hit the glades for a typical day at Jay. It was tracked, but good snow. It finally started snowing around noon and by mid afternoon it was puking huge flakes. For our last run, four of us headed for Big Jay where we got some sweet fresh tracks.

As we pushed cars up the access road to get by, little did we know the weekend was just getting started. The glades were starting to fill in as Rob and I ran to the Flyer for last chair.

That evening we made a rendezvous with the rest of our crew as they headed up in the storm. The final tally was seven of us, including me, Marshal, Sweeney, Rob, Alex, Deb, and Denaro. We woke up in a rush at the dark hour of 6 am, wide-eyed and pow-hungry.

After shuffling cars at the mountain we hopped on the lifts and scattered, everyone happily enduring 50 mph gusts on lift-rides for the blissful two feet of snow on the ground, and counting. The wind actually helped fill in the tracks, so it was almost constantly fresh. I skied The Orchard which was almost entirely untracked, and then we grouped up and headed for The Dip.

The Orchard, getting buried on Saturday.

The snow just kept piling up, and we were just getting more amped as the day wore on. Around three we made what was in hindsight a bit of a bonehead decision. We gathered our packs and started hiking for Big Jay. Before we left the resort, Marshal turned around and said he’d meet us back at the lodge. Most of the group had skins, but Denaro and I were going to have to boot-pack. After some deliberation we embarked on what became our Big Jay adventure.

The boot pack was tolerable, and we were making good progress, but began encountering issues when Sweeney’s skins fell off, and he started hiking instead. As we approached Big Jay the drifts got deeper, and the snow was not letting up. I was post-holing occasionally, and in a few spots we gave up and crawled to avoid breaking through. We transitioned, determined the group order, and made a concentrated effort to stay together. As we descended, the light began to fade, and most of our goggle lenses became too dark to use. A few of us spent some time wallowing and righting ourselves in the chest deep drifts. At one point I went to stop behind Sweeney, but my tips bounced off an icy rock and I rolled into a ten foot deep tree well. I was surprised I kept my cool, but it took a lot out of me as I swam up out of the snow and then Sweeney lent me his poles for support to hoist myself back onto stable snowpack. Needless to say I plan to avoid any future encounters with trees, or tree wells.

I’m sure each of us managed a few good turns, but in the end it was too darn dark to pick up any speed. We utilized Rob’s GPS to stay on target, and keep heading out towards the car.

By the time we reached the bottom and began traversing, we were skiing by moonlight. We had a few headlamps with us, but the rest of us were forced to keep an eye on the blurry dark shadow of the person ahead. No one had any major mishaps, but at one point Sweeney made a turn and dissappeared into a stream bank in a cloud of snow. Not much further on Deb got caught in a ditch, and then Denaro and Sweeney found some open water, which instantly froze to their skis and began gripping the snow like climbing skins. Finally, we were out on the road, where we skied back to the car by 6:30. It was buried so we whipped out an avy shovel and began digging and clearing it off. As this was going on, a pickup rolled by and kindly offered to tow us out, and asked where we were headed. We were mostly clear so we declined, but he proceeded to inform us that a tour bus had wedged itself on 242 from guardrail to guardrail only an hour or so beforehand, and they were bringing a wrecker and a tow truck up the pass to unstick it. Needless to say, there was no going that way, which meant the ski boots were staying on for the foreseeable future. The 6 of us piled into Rob’s car and navigated a route around. Unfortunately the route included a road closed for winter, and the only other way would’ve taken us 2 hrs to get back.

What we needed was a snack break, so we pulled into the local grocery store in Montgomery. All the back doors of the car were frozen shut, but we managed to grab the attention of two guys walking by to open up the trunk for us. As we stumbled out I realized one of our saviors was an old high school teammate of mine! What are the odds? We chatted briefly, but I’d gotten food on my mind and needed some asap.

With the goods acquired, we decided the only sensible thing to do is head back up the pass and wait for the bus to get towed. We made it halfway before Rob’s car could no longer make forward progress. Alex and Denaro tossed out ideas and saved the day: we started making rearward progress. Rob turned the car around and backed uphill mostly blind. And it was STILL snowing. At the top we found a few cars and emergency vehicles. Sweeney and Alex decided they were going to go on ahead and ski/hike the road back down to Jay. Just as we got all the gear back out of the frozen Thule, the bus was freed! Back in the car, it was time to drive to the lodge. We followed the snow plow, but even so, as we crested the pass, there was so much snow on the road it was flying over the windshield. Car faceshots!

Back at Stateside, we found Marshal, only 5 hours later, who we kindly left without keys or boots. After a quick change we dug Alex’s car out and left Jay, over 14 hours since we’d arrived. Jay was reporting 35″ on the ground as of 7 pm.

On Sunday, we were rewarded. Even though I almost didn’t want to get out of bed, once we got to the mountain, we were lifted. It was in the teens, Sunny, and there was 47″ inches of fresh pow on the ground. My legs were burning on our first run, but then we hit the jackpot. We started lapping the Dip, getting fresh tracks every run. You could do no wrong. We found some cliffs to huck, steep trees–everything was skiable. We hiked back up the access road a few times, grins on our faces the whole way. Several kind gentlemen let us pile into the bed of their trucks and drove us back. It was unreal. There were bottomless drifts, and everywhere you went you were floating on air.

Cue Sweeney’s camera work.

Rob, post-huck

Denaro catching air

Me following suit

Deb dropping in

Marshal breaks a slab loose

Alex catches some air

I almost get lost in pow

…but break through

Deb goes for it

Rob charges off the edge

Time to head back up, with grins plastered to our faces. We were able to hitch a ride a few times from some kind people. Photo credit: Deb

Another lap

Pow spray

There were also a few (minor) mishaps:

About to make friends with the snow drifts

Swallowed by the POW

The rest of the day looked like a lot like this. Eventually we were gassed. But we still couldn’t stop smiling. I’ll never forget those turns.

Update: Sweeney posted his goPro footage of the weekend.

A Foggy Endeavor: Chuting the Bowl

Our game plan, once again, was heading to Mt. Washington. Winter tricked us again this week, and left NE without much significant snowfall.

We’re quickly becoming regulars at Rob’s ski club where he, Sweeney, and I crashed Friday night. We got an early start Saturday for the usual skin up to Hermit lake. Avalanche risk was on the low-end of moderate, and after getting some details from one of the forecasters, we went to go scope out the bowl.

Even in the bowl it was a balmy 20 degrees, with little wind, and some serious fog with light snow. We hiked up past the lunch rocks and headed for the Sluice, with Sweeney in the lead for the first run. Sweeney quickly found an isolated pocket of thin cover that broke through to water runoff below, but we were able to safely skirt it. Cresting the top of Sluice the cover thinned and left us in low brush. It was time for me to do a test run of my new (used) Garmont AT boots. After a slow transition, we descended through the fog. The snowpack was firm and a bit chattery on the steeps, but overall pretty decent.

Sweeney’s camera is to thank for the shots, and he kindly played the main photographer role. The fog made for very low lighting.

Rob on edge passing the lunch rocks

Rob, again.

Me, past the base of the Sluice

Me, part 2.

By the time we were down to the base of the bowl we were already considering what to hit next. The visibility was coming and going, but the Chute looked good. It held firm, heavy snow all the way up, that made us feel more comfortable with the stability.

Rob and I ascending the Chute

Our descent was pretty socked in. At one point I thought I saw Rob not far ahead of me, and called out, not realizing I was trying to talk to a rock less than 20 yards away. When we reconvened, Rob remarked he thought the pitch was steeper than usual. I found it difficult to gauge in the pea soup fog, but it had felt steep.

Rob charging over the lip.

Me, getting ready to drop in.

The snow was good, and it was early, so we headed back up the Chute for a third run, a record number for me in the bowl. At this point the snow had switched to medium dendrite flakes, and was definitely collecting on the slope. The wind joined in by buffeting us as we crested the lip of the bowl. By our third lap I was finally getting used to my ski boots, and was able to play around a bit more towards the bottom.

Rob emerging from the Chute

Rob, on the right.

Me just past the narrows

Back in the bowl, we decided to call it a day, partially given the increasing weather, though we had time for another go. Back in Pinkham we were informed that the Chute had been measured as Steep as 62-65 degrees in spots, in other words, pretty friggin steep, and hands down the steepest I’ve ever skied.

Gulf Of Slides

Sunday was a different story. The forecast called for -15 degree temps on the summit with 65 mph winds, and the actual weather was even more severe. Given this, Rob and Sweeney were still considering heading into Huntington Ravine to check it out, with a friend of Robs. But they had Hotronics, while I have a history of frostbite, so I made other plans.

My main goal for the day was to stay warm and below treeline, so I skinned by myself up the Gulf of Slides ski trail.

I was aiming for the gulf in the middle. You can see the wind blowing snow around up top.

Trail head just past the Sherbe

The skinning was tricky even though cover was decent, because of icy slopes on steeper sections. At the entrance to the Gulf I scoped around what I presumed was the old slide path that tore through a swath of mature trees. I quickly decided it was bitter cold and blustery, and headed down.

I think the Gulf is supposed to be up there.

Looking downwards, not much of a view.

Disappointed with the skiing, I packed up and took advantage of a half day ticket at Wildcat while I waited for my friends to return. It turns out they encountered similar conditions and turned around at the base of Huntington, which was completely whited-out.

Its been fun up on Mt. Washington recently, but I really hope a POW day is in store for us soon. I sure could use some more tree skiing.

One Water, One Coffee, One Beer…

…Such was our demeanor when we lumbered into Cafe Noche in Conway Village and hastily ordered all of the food and drink appropriate to the circumstances. We had just skulked down from a day of superlative skiing in Tuckerman Ravine and were on the ride home this past Sunday . Let’s rewind back to last Friday night for a full trip report…

Over the course of last week, Mount Washington somehow managed to pick up enough snow to fill in most of the lines in Tucks to a reasonable state. Most of it was due not to actual heavy snowfall but to wind loading. Our hope was that during the course of the week things would sinter enough that much of it would be skiable for the weekend. We rallied in North Conway and prayed for a favorable weekend update and avy forecast.

As we got closer to the Notch, we were dismayed to see that snow was falling a good deal more heavily than had been forecast – great for the Wildcat crowd, not so great for us. Between new snow and windloading we could be in for some sketchy conditions. We arrived at Pinkham to find a fairly startling mix of Moderate and Considerable ratings.

We decided we’d skin up the Tucks Trail, change into crampons at the Lion’s Head Winter Route, climb to the ridge, and have a look at the east snow fields from which point we could easily summit and lap the East Snow Fields. With so little protection from the wind and such mellow terrain, they should be pretty scoured and free from touchy slabs.

We arrived at the Winter Route to find a log jam of climbers messing around with their gear. We were promptly advised by one of them, that shortly down the trail we would encounter an hour long wait while dozens of novice climbers were coached up and over the steeps. None of us relished the idea of standing around in the wind in sub-zero temperatures, and we were forced to abandon Plan A.

We quickly settled upon a contingency plan: we’d try our hand in The Lobster Claw, with the thought that it might be just filled in enough to be skiable, but still small enough to preclude the presence of any truly large slabs. We continued to HoJo’s, de-skinned, got dressed for the cold, and prepared for some boot-packing.

Rob looks dubious as we head up into the bowl.

Alex breaks trail as we begin to wallow into drifts…

We realize it’s time to stop and evaluate the situation.

Some deep and crumbly looking snow pack.

Once we got into the bowl, it became totally socked in and gusty. We started toward the snow fields under The Lobster Claw, bushwhacking through the un-buried shrubs and into ever deeper drifts. Eventually, we realized that we needed to seriously consider the safety of the situation. We started digging some snowpits and discovered small chunks of slab breaking off before we’d even finished digging out columns. Kinda shady… The poor visibility and double-digit sub-zero temperature didn’t help much. We decided to go no higher than the snow fields at the bottom of the Lobster Claw and stay out of the slide paths. We’d get a few good turns in, and then pick our way to the Cutler River for maybe a few more untracked turns before the Sherbie. In short: skunked.

We tried to make the best of it…

Ziehl in front and Alex in the background getting ready for action.

One of about a dozen decent turns….

Gettin’ tossed back…

Alex celebrates our prodigious accomplishment of skiing about 6 turns.

Well we tried to make the best of it anyway. It was better than not skiing… After picking our way through all the shrubs and junk in the floor of the ravine we began searching for the Cutler River in what was probably slowest wilderness travel I’ve ever participated in in my life: a knee to thigh deep wallow through frozen bushes and back and forth across the only partially frozen Cutler…

Yea. Adventure…

We finally make it to the skiable part of the drainage and get ready to make about 4 more turns…

Ziehl gets in a few good turns before the bottom of a pitch.

And then there was profanity…

Back at HoJo’s we conclude that we’d made the right choice…

And right on cue, as soon as we get back to the car, the skies clear and it turns into a beautiful day…

Well that was a debacle. We called it quits for the day, planned out some rest and refueling, and contemplated our next move. After some thought, we decided we’d get an early, start head up to HoJo’s and see what the report called for. We were none too enthused about the inbound skiing story in New England, and thought a bad day in Tucks would probably be better than the same day in the resort. We were pleasantly surprised, to say the least. We arrived at HoJo’s to find that Left Gully and Lobster Claw were both de-escalated to a rating of Low. Our path was laid clear before us: we quickly agreed to ski The LG and then make our way across the bowl to The Lobster Claw. The LG if nothing else would be long, steep, and fast. The Lobster Claw, we knew from the previous day, would have a decent amount of snow at least toward the bottom. It was a good 20 degrees warmer, less windy and visibility was great – in hindsight I could have used my black lenses. We eagerly went after The LG.

: Rob leads the charge up LG.

: The bowl from about half way up LG. Temping, but maybe not such a great idea.

: At the top of LG, setting up a bench to get into our skis.

: Check out that boot-pack.

: Skier ready!

: Rob charges some really firm, wind scoured snow.

: Toward the runout, Rob steered us toward this sweet stash.

: Ziehl slashes some powder turns toward the bottom of LG.

After warming on Left Gully, we decided to traverse across the floor of the ravine to scope the conditions on the south facing aspects. In the clear skies, we could see that the coverage in Lobster Claw was a lot worse than we’d expected. We decided to poke around under Right Gully to see how the conditions would be. A number of people had already hiked all over lower portions of the south facing aspects. The snow felt a good deal more stable than it had the previous day, and the southern aspects had been in the sun for a while by the time we got there, but we were still concerned about the pillowy convexities toward the top or the Sluice and Right Gully, so we stuck to the low angle bottom parts. This was easily the best skiing of the weekend. Ziehl took a turn behind the camera for a few runs.

The view on the way out. Has to be one of the bluest days on record for this place.

After a short dry spell of epic skiing, we finally hit some good luck and scored some high quality turns. It seemed like we might finally be through the worst part of the winter (the part with no good skiing) and with lifted spirits we headed back down into The Valley in search of sustenance.Gear List (click links for more product info):