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Mike and I packing for our trip to the White
Mountains of New Hampshire. Though it was going to be
the
first weekend of spring, we knew there would still be a
lot of snow and ice in the White's. There was even
snow in Philly
.
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We started from the
wilderness parking area off of N.H. rt.16 near camp Dodge. This is
the beginning of
the Great Gulf trail. After a short walk from
the parking lot we crossed this Swinging bridge crossing the
Peabody River. Similar to a bridge
in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia. Elevation at
the
parking area is around
1330ft.
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Melted snow and ice in
the
Peabody River.
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2.5 miles into the
Great Gulf trail we came to an area called the Bluff at 2278ft.
The Bluff was significant
for two reasons. The
first is the view. The following three pictures were taken from the
Bluff of the
surroundingpeaks. The second point about the
Bluff was the trail got significantly more difficult from this
point on. Most day hikers turn back at this point and only a few
people had ventured further into the
wilderness leaving the snow
deeper and more difficult to
walk through.
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Unfortunately I don't
remember the exact directions of each of these peaks, though I think
this one is
called The Horn. The auto road actually runs around
the top of this on its way to the top of Mt.
Washington.
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I think this is
Jefferson's Knee
at 4742 ft.
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Crossing a bridge over
the west branch of the Peabody River. Mike's sportn' the new ghetto
punk outdoor
clothing line
from EMS.
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Looking upstream of the west branch of the
Peabody River. You can just make out the peak of what I think
is the top
of
J.Q. Adams.
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We camped at the
junction of the Six Husbands trail and the Buttress trail next to
Jefferson Brook.
Elevation was around
3350ft. Approximately 5 miles from where we started. This was
after the first night.
We got around 4inches of snow that night.
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Here's Mike in the
"kitchen area" of our campsite. I dug out a little pit for the
stove so the wind couldn't
get to
it. Of course each time it snowed, I had to dig it out
again. When we first setup camp, the snow
surrounding the
tent and the "kitchen area" was pretty soft, but by the end of the
weekend it had hardened
into a nice floor of sorts.
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Pouring Mike some hot
water for his oatmeal/yogurt covered raisen hot cereal.
Having a creek next to the
campsite was real
convenient. I had to break through the ice to get to the water,
but boiling water is
a lot less tedious
then boiling snow. Though it looks cold in this picture with my
puffy down coat and
balaclava, the
following morning was much colder. I had my
hood up with frost all around my
face.
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Here's mike eating and liking his
oatmeal/yogurt covered raisen concoction.
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I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Looks like
some kind of cold mountain man pose or
something.
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We decided to make an attempt on the summit of Mt.
Washington. We knew more snow was headed our
way, but decided
we'd try to get as far as we could. We hiked
back the Six Husbands trail to the
Great
Gulf Trail junction with the Wamsutta. The plan was to
take the Wamsutta up and across the auto road
to the Alpine
Garden Trail, where it met the Nelson Crag trail to theSummit of Mt.
Washington.
Elevation gain would have been around 3000ft. And
yeah, the trail was pretty steep.
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We got to use all the toys for this hike. We
started with our trekking poles, but when it got too steep
and
icy for them we pulled out the ice axes. As the trees got
shorter and the wind began to whip at our faces,
the goggles came out
too.
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That's Mike under all
that gear.
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Between the ice and snow covered rocks, crampons became
necessary.
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This was at about 4500ft. looking back across to the
valley where our campsite was. I like the ice on the
left side
of the tree.
We didn't make it to the summit. Our best guess says
we were within 100yrds of the auto road at 5200 ft.
- 2/3rds of
the way there.The storm was getting stronger and it was getting more
and more difficult to
follow any path at all above treeline.
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From time to time while walking Mike and I would fall into
holes in the snow. The depth of these holes
could be anywhere
from 3 ft. to 6 ft. deep depending on the drifting in that area (as
a testament to the
power of the wind in the White Mountains, the
snow up there drifts in the woods under the cover
of
trees). Sometimes only one leg would fall in and you'd
catch yourself with your pole, hip or other leg.
Other times
both legs would fall in, which made getting out not very easy. Add
to that the weight
of the packs on our backs and some holes were
quite a struggle. Drifting seems to play a large part in
the
creation of these holes. It appeared as if the snow either
fell or drifted too fast to fill in pockets around
live trees
(growing vertical, but burried in the snow), fallen trees, rocks or
just air pockets. The ones with
fallen trees in them were the
scariest. Crashing through a 4 ft. hole with 30lbs on your back
didn't leave
your ankles a lot of time or space to get through
without injury - we were lucky. The other tricky thing was
the
snow on the last day falling into the holes and packing around your
legs. The 8 or so inches of
fresh snow we received the night
before was all too eager to spill into the hole around you and pack
you in.
I was calling it quicksnow.
In this picture I am in a
hole. We kept saying we needed a picture of one of us in
a hole, so here it is. Both
legs went in to my waste.
It was my pack that kept me from going
further.
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We spent a lot of time
in the tent. With storms moving in and the cold darkness
of night, we were in the
tent by 5:30 each night. I had
purchased this weather radio to get up to date weather reports
for the
conditions around Mt. Washington. When the
reports were over, we'd switch it over to FM and listen
to
some 80's station out of Portland, Maine.
It really helped pass the time and keep our minds off the wind
and snow outside.
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The second night was much colder than the first. The
first night lows were in the 20's somewhere, so
inside the tent
it was around 40 degrees. The second night the lows were in
the single digits, so the inside
tent temp was around 30 degrees.
Funny thing was I was much warmer the second night. In the morning
when the thermometer was outside the tent it read 10
degrees. This picture is of the frost on the
thermometer
inside the tent when we woke up. The worst part was the frost
snowing off the inside of the
tent onto your face everytime the
wind blew hard that night.
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Finally back to the car and safe. I
thought for sure with all the snow we received in the mountains we'd
have to dig the car out of the parking lot. Once we hit the
Bluff on the way back the snow nearly vanished
for the last 2.5
miles.
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This the summit of Mt. Washington as we drove by. That's
actually snow being blown off the summit. The
average
wind speed for that day on the summit was 46mph with gusts at
74mph.
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Lessons learned about winter
camping and the White Mountains of New
Hampshire.
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