Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Monroe, Eisenhower, Pierce, Jackson 12.30.14

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Bombadil

Active member
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
Messages
322
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Location
Groton, MA
12.30.14
Presi traverse via valley way, star lake, gulfside et al.

Valley way was great with microspikes, very firm and a lot of the water holes were nearly frozen solid. I wore micros up Madison but they were a little overmatched with the lurking ice. Winds up on Madison were enough to almost knock you over.

I switched to crampons and took star lake which had only a very faint track down low. It was more work but it was calm and felt warm in the sun despite the frigid temps. If I went airline like most I don't think I would have recovered from the cold blast and would have aborted. Instead I stayed warm with nice easy climbing up windslab snow with French technique. I nearly was bowled over at the summit when I went back into the wind. I used connecting snow pockets to make haste along gulfside. That was probably a lot quicker than staying on the rocky, bony trail itself.

From edmands col I started up the trail then at the well known snow field I traversed up to the top of it, easily done with crampons but unlikely feasible with other forms of traction. I connected snow fields to the summit (off trail).

Descending Jefferson to sphinx col was the most unpleasant stretch of the day only due to the lack of a nice snowfield--virtually rock under thin snow cover with every step. Gulfside around clay was better.

Descending washington I took the steep snow fields to make a direct line to the trail below. It has nice snow coverage and is always my favorite aspect of a winter traverse--dropping nearly 1000 feet off washington in minutes.

Monroe to Eisenhower was thin and icy in places, from there on microspikes would have been adequate but I stuck to crampons.

From pierce to Mizpah the trail was super well packed out, microspikes were perfect. To Jackson it was a little chopper but still easy to navigate, and well traveled. Jackson to 302 was a concrete sidewalk. All standing water is now frozen again. Until it snows again, if it's below freezing I'd leave the snowshoes in the car for jackson. There's some ice down low so micros strongly recommended.

big thanks to Jason P for help with the carspot this morning!

Super cold day for a traverse (temps were tough but really the wind was the killer), but glad I went for it despite a lot of self doubt about time/speed/time out with the frigid windchill.

Pat
Pcushing21 at yahoo dot com.
 
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