U
Unregistered
Guest
Three of us skied into the hut on Saturday morning (2/14), then onward to Thoreau Falls and back to the hut. Trail conditions were beautiful and quick on skis with packed powder and few obstacles. Hut was crowded Saturday night with members of the Seacoast Ski Club but the environment was warm and friendly.
Sunday we decided to summit Zealand Mt. as I remembered it was quite sheltered and hopefully not too cold. Upon reaching the bald, boggy area where the Twinway Trail levels off, we encountered 4' drifts and high winds making navigation and travel quite slow. We did manage to find the trail where the Zeacliff Trail intersects and follow it down into the trees. After five minutes hiking through the deep snow, we made the decision to turn around due to the fact that one friend's snowshoes were falling off and at risk of failing. The cold and windy conditions up high along with the drifting would have made any gear failure into a very dangerous situation quite quickly.
I decided to post mainly to make the point that a summit and trail that I consider to be quite sheltered after hiking it multiple times in the summer can be quite dangerous and hard to follow on a day as nasty as last Sunday.
Sunday we decided to summit Zealand Mt. as I remembered it was quite sheltered and hopefully not too cold. Upon reaching the bald, boggy area where the Twinway Trail levels off, we encountered 4' drifts and high winds making navigation and travel quite slow. We did manage to find the trail where the Zeacliff Trail intersects and follow it down into the trees. After five minutes hiking through the deep snow, we made the decision to turn around due to the fact that one friend's snowshoes were falling off and at risk of failing. The cold and windy conditions up high along with the drifting would have made any gear failure into a very dangerous situation quite quickly.
I decided to post mainly to make the point that a summit and trail that I consider to be quite sheltered after hiking it multiple times in the summer can be quite dangerous and hard to follow on a day as nasty as last Sunday.
