Great Pumpkin
Member
Trail Conditions: Both Stony Brook and Carter-Moriah were unbroken to the summit of Moriah, but our gang of seven fixed that! Y'all are welcome! 
The segment from the junction to the summit had varying amounts of snow from 12-24" on an unstable base. The honorable Creaky Knees reports sighting a large snowshoe hare that must have been thru-hiking, since he pounded out the CM Trail to the summit; too bad he wasn't bigger. The big stream crossing at 1.1 miles was nicely frozen/snowed over, as were the two smaller ones higher up.
Required Equipment: Snowshoes, preferably of the 30" variety are a must at this point anywhere in the Whites; don't leave home without them. Ditto poles. Left our crampons in the cars.
Comments: A night at Pinkham led to a discussion at breakfast and a decision to forego our original plan to head for Mt. Isolation. Major props go to the six sumitteers, who also did a lot more of the trail breaking than I did: Creaky Knees (No. 37 Winter); Spaderman (a repeat winter trip on Moriah); Roger (trail-buster extraordinaire); Keith (No. 16 in Winter?); RJ (No. 26 overall); and the hiker sometimes known as Little Man (No. 28 overall). I didn't feel great, and decided to turn around on the ledges about 1/2 mile beyond the CM junction, and had a couple of hours of solitude before being caught by the young guns with about a mile to go. Started at 7:45 a.m., and last man out was at 4:45 p.m., in the gathering darkness. Line of the day goes to Creaky Knees: "Hey, we're here to break trail, not wind!!"
The segment from the junction to the summit had varying amounts of snow from 12-24" on an unstable base. The honorable Creaky Knees reports sighting a large snowshoe hare that must have been thru-hiking, since he pounded out the CM Trail to the summit; too bad he wasn't bigger. The big stream crossing at 1.1 miles was nicely frozen/snowed over, as were the two smaller ones higher up.Required Equipment: Snowshoes, preferably of the 30" variety are a must at this point anywhere in the Whites; don't leave home without them. Ditto poles. Left our crampons in the cars.
Comments: A night at Pinkham led to a discussion at breakfast and a decision to forego our original plan to head for Mt. Isolation. Major props go to the six sumitteers, who also did a lot more of the trail breaking than I did: Creaky Knees (No. 37 Winter); Spaderman (a repeat winter trip on Moriah); Roger (trail-buster extraordinaire); Keith (No. 16 in Winter?); RJ (No. 26 overall); and the hiker sometimes known as Little Man (No. 28 overall). I didn't feel great, and decided to turn around on the ledges about 1/2 mile beyond the CM junction, and had a couple of hours of solitude before being caught by the young guns with about a mile to go. Started at 7:45 a.m., and last man out was at 4:45 p.m., in the gathering darkness. Line of the day goes to Creaky Knees: "Hey, we're here to break trail, not wind!!"
