Monadnock conditions?

vftt.org

Help Support vftt.org:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Jonatha

New member
Joined
Jan 8, 2004
Messages
60
Reaction score
4
Has anyone been on Monadnock the last couple of days? If so, conditions? Thanks!
 
I was up there on Saturday. Foggy, rainny, cruddy. Had a lot of fun.

The trails started off muddy and then quickly turned to slushy snow and ice near the summit. I expect that there is probably more ice and it is harder with the recent colder temps. I went without crampons and had no problems, there were enough rocks exposed to make walking easy.
 
We summitted Monadnock via White Dot and returned via White Cross on Sunday afternoon. The trail was frozen from the halfway point to the summit. We wore 10 point crampons from just above this point to the summit and on the return to about the same point. The summit was a giant ice cube and the ledges were solid ice. A great day for crampon use. We saw many people using stabilizers and Yax Trax, which were basically useless in these conditions. With crampons, the hike was a blast.
 
awesome - I like to "train" here at a couple times a month to keep the legs going. I was there about 2 weeks ago and there was no snow or ice. This will make it interesting!!
 
Monadnock 12/16

Just got back - we went up and down White Dot. Crampons for sure, though we passed one man with stabilizers. I am going to attempt to attach a photo - you be the judge of whether you need crampons, we were grateful to have them! Great day!
 
Jonatha said:
Just got back - we went up and down White Dot. Crampons for sure, though we passed one man with stabilizers. I am going to attempt to attach a photo - you be the judge of whether you need crampons, we were grateful to have them! Great day!

Wow! Those are about the best early winter conditions I've seen on the Grand in a while -- hopefully a harbinger of things to come. I highly recommend Marlboro Trail for an A1 ice scramble.
 
other trails with more ice

There are other trails with more ice. Red Dot? They're East of the white Dot/Cross trails. We did it once, it was a solid frozen brook from top to bottom, faster and easier than in summer. Really fun- ask at HQ for info.
 
Top