B
Barkingcat
Guest
Date Hiked: Wednesday, April 2
[By way of preface, the warm temperatures from April 1 and the day or two prior were smacked with a front with colder temperatures and very high winds that evening and April 2. The snowy, powdery trail conditions from a few days before became wet/soft snow that then froze into solid sheets of ice everywhere, accompanied by high winds (over 100 mph on the summits around Pinkham Notch).]
Trail Conditions: Nineteen Mile Brook and Carter-Moriah Trail before Carter Dome summit are a solid sheet of ice anywhere from two to four inches thick. At summit and beyond along the ridge, powdery drifts of a foot or two on top of solid crust. Carter Dome Trail had about a foot of powder over inch-thick crust up top prior to Zeta Pass; below Zeta, about a foot of loose, granular snow in the sun and slick/icy in the shade. In this area, too, snow/ice bridges are disintegrating from the sun.
On Carter-Moriah headed up toward Carter Dome summit, just below the "pulpit," there has been extreme melting and re-freezing. In one case, the ice was so thick, steep and treacherous that it was easier to bushwhack around it and pick up the trail again just past the pulpit.
At this point where the trail is exposed, wind gusts were so extreme that we had to crawl for about 100 yards to keep from being blown off the trail. Freaky.
Given the high winds from that day, remarkable absence of new blow-downs -- there might be a dozen all told, and most had been there for a while. All are easily negotiable.
Special Equipment Required: Traction, traction, traction -- there's a lot of ice on steep sections of the trail going up. Snowshoes helpful further down to avoid postholing.
Comments: One byproduct of the high wind other than making the hike extremely challenging: it cleared out all of the clouds. Gorgeous, sun-drenched, blue sky views everywhere from Carter Notch to the summit of Carter Dome. We had the entire hike to ourselves until late in the day, when we saw evidence (Stabilicer prints) of one other person headed most likely to the Carter Notch Hut.
NOTE: We found a pair of sunglasses on Nineteen Mile Brook on our way out and left them at the trailhead signpost.
Barkingcat
Your E-mail address: [email protected]
[By way of preface, the warm temperatures from April 1 and the day or two prior were smacked with a front with colder temperatures and very high winds that evening and April 2. The snowy, powdery trail conditions from a few days before became wet/soft snow that then froze into solid sheets of ice everywhere, accompanied by high winds (over 100 mph on the summits around Pinkham Notch).]
Trail Conditions: Nineteen Mile Brook and Carter-Moriah Trail before Carter Dome summit are a solid sheet of ice anywhere from two to four inches thick. At summit and beyond along the ridge, powdery drifts of a foot or two on top of solid crust. Carter Dome Trail had about a foot of powder over inch-thick crust up top prior to Zeta Pass; below Zeta, about a foot of loose, granular snow in the sun and slick/icy in the shade. In this area, too, snow/ice bridges are disintegrating from the sun.
On Carter-Moriah headed up toward Carter Dome summit, just below the "pulpit," there has been extreme melting and re-freezing. In one case, the ice was so thick, steep and treacherous that it was easier to bushwhack around it and pick up the trail again just past the pulpit.
At this point where the trail is exposed, wind gusts were so extreme that we had to crawl for about 100 yards to keep from being blown off the trail. Freaky.
Given the high winds from that day, remarkable absence of new blow-downs -- there might be a dozen all told, and most had been there for a while. All are easily negotiable.
Special Equipment Required: Traction, traction, traction -- there's a lot of ice on steep sections of the trail going up. Snowshoes helpful further down to avoid postholing.
Comments: One byproduct of the high wind other than making the hike extremely challenging: it cleared out all of the clouds. Gorgeous, sun-drenched, blue sky views everywhere from Carter Notch to the summit of Carter Dome. We had the entire hike to ourselves until late in the day, when we saw evidence (Stabilicer prints) of one other person headed most likely to the Carter Notch Hut.
NOTE: We found a pair of sunglasses on Nineteen Mile Brook on our way out and left them at the trailhead signpost.
Barkingcat
Your E-mail address: [email protected]
