Snowslopping in the Ossipees 3/28/09

MY BF and I took Trail Bandit up on his offer to hike in the Ossipees yesterday. We met with him and his friend, Mary, in the bottling plant parking lot. The trails featured mixed conditions from bare ground to deep snow. I lost track of how many times we switched from bareboot to snowshoes. As we hiked, Trail Bandit regaled us with stories of his many adventures and mis-adventures in mountains all over the world. We summitted Mt. Roberts and visited the Faraway bench.

The descent was tricky as we plunged through slushy snow in a direct line down the valley, crossing the actual trail several times. Eventually, we reached the bare road and removed the snowshoes for the last time before we reached the cars. Fortunately, the rain held off all day!

You could not ask for better companions on a hike in the Ossipees than Trail Bandit and Mary. As his map suggests, they know all the trails, including the ones not on the map. And then there are his remarkable adventures around the globe, which never fail to interest as he recounts them. I gather you ran into a lot of deep slush, which can be a trial. Maybe next week will bring better conditions (or a monsoon). At least you picked the better day this weekend.

I did pretty much the same hike starting a few hours behind you. From the Faraway viewpoint we continued on the trail until it headed north then made our own shortcut east to rejoin the High Ridge Trail which we followed to the Faraway Mtn Trail intersection. We then broke trail on the Faraway Mtn Trail until we found your tracks coming south from the Faraway viewpoint. It was nice to have broken trail again. We followed all of your shortcuts, both the ones on TBs map and not. Though we missed the one from the Faraway viewpoint.

We used snowshoes consistently from where Mount Roberts Trail leaves the ledges for the woods to Cold Spring Road. Prior to that we put them on and off and tried skirting around ledges to find snow. We were lucky enough to start the hike after the sun came out.

Nice! Dare I say spring is here to stay?

Nice! Got my eye on those mountains this time of year. What are the favored south/west facing slopes?

happy trails

forestgnome said:

Nice! Got my eye on those mountains this time of year. What are the favored south/west facing slopes?

Click to expand...

Checketh your e-maileth, sir

forestgnome said:

What are the favored south/west facing slopes?

Click to expand...

rocket21 may have put this in his e-mail, but if time is short, no slope would fit your bill better than Hill 1223.