Saddleback & The Horn via Grey Ghost, Tri-color and AT

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Woodsman

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Date: 4/10/14

Conditions: Excellent snow cover on the ski trails, but highly variable on ridge line with everything from bare ground to ice to deep drifts. The AT was a little hard to follow in a couple places, particularly one spot in the col between the two summits, where the trail dips down into the woods under a very old blowdown. While the trail is easy to pick out as it goes up the far side of the dip, the blowdown makes it hard to see where you enter the short stretch of the trail through the tangle of spruce in between. I tried clearing the blowdown, but it wouldn't budge. It was a walk under and since there seemed to be 4 - 5 feet of snow in the woods I suspect it is of no consequence in the summer. The little gully heading up from the top of the quad lift to the AT was well traveled, as was the AT to the Saddleback summit, but there appears to have been little traffic further north.

Special Equipment: I used snowshoes, with snowshoe crampons, all day, although I did end up taking them off 6 to 10 times on the walk along the ridge line when bare ground surfaced.

Comments: Based on appearances from the bottom of the mountain, I walked up with skis hoping to get in some turns on the summit snow fields, but the snow on top was too thin to make this reasonable. However, the snow on the ski trails corned up nicely in the afternoon and the ski down was terrific. While Saddleback is currently operating only on the weekends there is still a lot of snow on the trails if you want to have them to yourself on the weekdays.

A beautiful sunny and warm, but windy day, with views to Mt. Washington.

Jay Baxter

Co-adopter, Centennial Trail
 
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