Hi-cannon or Lonesome Lake trail?

This year, with not that much snow, I was wondering if people favor Hi -Cannon to Kinsman Ridge trail or Lonesome Lake to Coppermine Col ??

A few years back in a year of plentiful snow I remember breaking trail from North Kinsman over the Cannon balls towards Cannon Mnt but found the route finding difficult and exhausting myself in the deep snow decided to retreat following my own tracks rather than push on . It was late on a moonlit night before I made it out of the woods.
I was thinking of exploring some of the other winter routes but not from the skiing side of the mnt.
thanks

Both Fishin Jimmy and Hi-Cannon are barebootable as of Jan 21 - Descending Hi-Cannon, I used snowshoes to the top of the ladder, but could have gotten by without them. Kinsman Ridge has some drifting and about 3 inches of new stuff, the underlying trail is still a bit soft as well. The traverse from Fishin' Jimmy/Kinsman Ridge jct. to Cannon took about 2 hours of snowshoeing.

I have hiked High Cannon trail many times in the winter (day and night) . It is a wonderful trail. Many great views of the valley, and Lonesome Lake. I highly recommend it.

That being said, you can loose the trail near the summit. The terrain flattens out, and the wind blows everything flatter. One section in particular has many, many spruce traps. I found snowshoes a must for this area. Thing is, even if you lose the trail, it is somewhat obvious where you need to go to get to the top. Especially at night - just follow the light (of the observation deck).

Sometimes I will take the Kinsman Ridge to Lonesome Lake trail on the way down for a change in scenery. Parts of the Lonesome Lake trail near the lake can dissapear under drifts also. One winter I completely lost the trail, but followed my nose to the lake, and picked up the trail down from there.

There was an ice apron at the top which I thought required crampons

Click to expand...

There is a very crowded and tricky area at the top of the ladder - although it's only a step or two away from solid ground. It hasn't formed into an pure ice shelf quite yet, but I could feel my screwboots digging into the ice under the new snow on the shelf as I crossed over to the top of the ladder. A good place to take your time and use crampons, if only to get past the ladder, as taking a fall here would not be fun.

Don't know what the ladder looks like now, but back in the end of November it looked like THIS

The day I went up everything was covered in a glaze of ice so I was in crampons before the ladder. With a little care I ascended the ladder keeping the points of the crampons straddling the rungs. At the top of the ladder there is a shelf which needs to be traversed to the left. There is a wooden beam that runs from the top of the ladder along the edge and a few inches above it. You can kind of make it out in the picture. I imagine with snow build up the area on top of the ledge would fill to the beam. The beam should however provide some stability to any cover.

The scariest part for me was traversing one of the ledges a little further up. It was covered with ice and sloped off into the clouds. Still makes me shudder to think "What if I'd snagged a pant leg half way across..?"

Have fun and be safe!

Bob

FYI,

I was on Hi-Cannon on Saturday 1/24 and the ladder was an easy climb - all snow. I had on snowshoes for a little added help,
but the trail is packed out and has little ice.

On the way down Kinsman Ridge to Lonesome, there were
some small tricky sections. One wrong step and you'd slide
several steep feet off trail... as I did - and wrapped my poles around a tree.

Great day - the skiers on the top of Cannon were amazed to see two frozen hikers emerge in -19 F temps.

-Blue