Mark
Member
Not wanting to miss out on the entire winter season, I emailed a hiking buddy and managed to quickly plan a Wildcat Ridge traverse. We hoped to go up from Glenn Ellis Falls if the crossing of the Ellis River was not too bad.
We got to Pinkham Notch just before 9:00 and drove around for a few minutes looking for the trail head. When we got to the Pinkham Notch Visitor's Center, we knew we had gone too far, so turned around and pulled into a short section of plowed road about 3/4 mile south of PNVC. (If you look on a trail map, it's the northern end of the short loop road off Rt. 16.) It looks like they took down the sign for Glenn Ellis Falls parking for the winter. We followed the loop road around to the southern end where we crossed under Rt. 16 through a tunnel to get to the Wildcat Ridge trail.
We immediately came to an easy stream crossing. There was good footing and still a strong snow bridge for the crossing. It was so easy that we suspected that it wasn’t the Ellis River crossing, but a feeder stream. We concluded that we were wrong when the trail quickly started straight up the ridge. You don’t get much chance to warm up before you have to start climbing on this trail!
We immediately put on crampons and left them on for the rest of the day. The trail was very icy in many spots. We left our snow shoes in the car and didn’t really need them for the hike. This trip would have been very difficult if not impossible without crampons.
The trail climbs very steeply and we were soon looking down on Lost Pond and Pinkham Notch. The clouds were screaming over the Presis across the valley. We were getting some pretty good blasts of wind in our faces when we stopped on the open ledges to admire the view to our west, but it was not too bad when we were in the woods.
We soon made it up to the first summit and past the ski area buildings. From there, it’s up and down and up and down all the way to Wildcat A where we had good views down into Carter Notch.
We turned around and hiked up and down and up and down back to the col between C and D. We brought sleds up with us and planned to sled down the ski trails. Someone had suggested the possibility of bushwhacking from this col over to Pole Cat to avoid climbing back up to the top of D. We were not really planning to do this, but when we got to the col, we saw fresh ski tracks heading off into the woods in the general direction of the ski trail and heard voices from the skiers ahead of us. We decided to try to follow them on the premise that they might know where they were going.
They didn’t.
After about 20 minutes of following their tracks, bushwhacking through dense growth and repeatedly falling into fir traps up to our chests, we turned around and retreated to the trail. We chalked up the exercise to experience. Now we know how hard it is to make any progress off trail even with a minimal snow base.
(When I got home later, I downloaded the track from my GPS and saw that we were not even close to getting to the ski trails and heading in the wrong direction. I wonder where those guys ended up.)
We were actually thankful to be back on the trail even though we had to climb 200 feet back up to D. We got to the summit around 3:30 and decided to wait until the ski area closed before heading down. We changed into warmer clothes in the old summit station which looks to be one good gust of wind from falling down. We hung around in the sunshine until around 4:30 to give the skiers a chance to get off the trails. My friend brought a Swiss Bob and I brought an inflatable tube for the ride down. We stayed on Pole Cat for the entire ride down since it had the gentlest grade.
The trail was very, very icy and we soon found that we could easily get going too fast. I used my collapsed hiking poles like an ice axe to slow down which worked pretty well, but the easiest way to stop was usually just to roll off the tube, sprawl out and skid to a stop.
Just after we started down, a ski patrol member skied up behind us. We thought he was going to give us a hard time, but he just wanted to make sure we had crampons with us in case we needed to walk down. We warned us to be careful and let us know we were on our own in case we got hurt. He also said he would warn any groomers that might be working about us. We kept an eye out for groomers anyway, walking down the edge of any sections of trail where we could not see ahead of us. It was kind of fun sledding down the trail, having the whole mountain to ourselves, although I did spend a lot of time off in the woods off trail. (Snow tubes are impossible to steer.) My friend did much better with his Swiss Bob.
Once at the base lodge, we still had to walk a couple miles back to the car along the road, but the trip down Pole Cat was worth it.
A few pictures from the afternoon can be found here
We got to Pinkham Notch just before 9:00 and drove around for a few minutes looking for the trail head. When we got to the Pinkham Notch Visitor's Center, we knew we had gone too far, so turned around and pulled into a short section of plowed road about 3/4 mile south of PNVC. (If you look on a trail map, it's the northern end of the short loop road off Rt. 16.) It looks like they took down the sign for Glenn Ellis Falls parking for the winter. We followed the loop road around to the southern end where we crossed under Rt. 16 through a tunnel to get to the Wildcat Ridge trail.
We immediately came to an easy stream crossing. There was good footing and still a strong snow bridge for the crossing. It was so easy that we suspected that it wasn’t the Ellis River crossing, but a feeder stream. We concluded that we were wrong when the trail quickly started straight up the ridge. You don’t get much chance to warm up before you have to start climbing on this trail!
We immediately put on crampons and left them on for the rest of the day. The trail was very icy in many spots. We left our snow shoes in the car and didn’t really need them for the hike. This trip would have been very difficult if not impossible without crampons.
The trail climbs very steeply and we were soon looking down on Lost Pond and Pinkham Notch. The clouds were screaming over the Presis across the valley. We were getting some pretty good blasts of wind in our faces when we stopped on the open ledges to admire the view to our west, but it was not too bad when we were in the woods.
We soon made it up to the first summit and past the ski area buildings. From there, it’s up and down and up and down all the way to Wildcat A where we had good views down into Carter Notch.
We turned around and hiked up and down and up and down back to the col between C and D. We brought sleds up with us and planned to sled down the ski trails. Someone had suggested the possibility of bushwhacking from this col over to Pole Cat to avoid climbing back up to the top of D. We were not really planning to do this, but when we got to the col, we saw fresh ski tracks heading off into the woods in the general direction of the ski trail and heard voices from the skiers ahead of us. We decided to try to follow them on the premise that they might know where they were going.
They didn’t.
After about 20 minutes of following their tracks, bushwhacking through dense growth and repeatedly falling into fir traps up to our chests, we turned around and retreated to the trail. We chalked up the exercise to experience. Now we know how hard it is to make any progress off trail even with a minimal snow base.
(When I got home later, I downloaded the track from my GPS and saw that we were not even close to getting to the ski trails and heading in the wrong direction. I wonder where those guys ended up.)
We were actually thankful to be back on the trail even though we had to climb 200 feet back up to D. We got to the summit around 3:30 and decided to wait until the ski area closed before heading down. We changed into warmer clothes in the old summit station which looks to be one good gust of wind from falling down. We hung around in the sunshine until around 4:30 to give the skiers a chance to get off the trails. My friend brought a Swiss Bob and I brought an inflatable tube for the ride down. We stayed on Pole Cat for the entire ride down since it had the gentlest grade.
The trail was very, very icy and we soon found that we could easily get going too fast. I used my collapsed hiking poles like an ice axe to slow down which worked pretty well, but the easiest way to stop was usually just to roll off the tube, sprawl out and skid to a stop.
Just after we started down, a ski patrol member skied up behind us. We thought he was going to give us a hard time, but he just wanted to make sure we had crampons with us in case we needed to walk down. We warned us to be careful and let us know we were on our own in case we got hurt. He also said he would warn any groomers that might be working about us. We kept an eye out for groomers anyway, walking down the edge of any sections of trail where we could not see ahead of us. It was kind of fun sledding down the trail, having the whole mountain to ourselves, although I did spend a lot of time off in the woods off trail. (Snow tubes are impossible to steer.) My friend did much better with his Swiss Bob.
Once at the base lodge, we still had to walk a couple miles back to the car along the road, but the trip down Pole Cat was worth it.
A few pictures from the afternoon can be found here
