Washington 4/14/12

I met Tim at Pinkham Notch friday evening around 7 and we hiked up to Hermit Lake. Pack weight up to the shelter was about 45lbs With 2 packs on, one with camping gear and one with winter hiking gear. Wind blew pretty strong all night at the shelter, I wished I had brought a bivy bag to block the wind because my 20 degree bag wasnt quite cutting it at times even though temps were not that low. But for the most part I got an ok nights sleep by wearing my down coat inside my sleeping bag. We woke up with the sun (not sure what time). After a little breakfast we started up the Lions Head summer route in winter conditions. The slide path crossings were loaded, dry and slabby. Conditons like these are why there is a winter route that avoids avalanche terrain, but it has been closed for the season. Once above tree line winds were pretty brisk, when I got home and looked at the MWOBS website it said they were in the 60 mph range while we were up there. We didnt see any other hikers on the ascent, or at the top. We summited about 9:30 and hung out in the wind blocked entrance for a while to refuel. Before leaving we went up top and snapped some pics with the summit sign before heading down. Our first other hiker we ran into was about 1/4 mile below the parking lot while descending. By the time we got to treeline there was a steady flow of hikers ascending, including an interesting women who was using some sort of pick axe gardening tool as an ice axe. The descent from lions head down was very wet and mushy as temps had climbed and the sun was intense. From treeline down we were in T-shirts for the rest of the day.

Skies were Blue and views were awesome:
Tux

Tim

Rime Ice on Splitrock



At the Summit:
Sharing the entrance with a pickup truck:

Tim (Somebody has attached prayer flags to the summit sign.)

Me:

Not going to lie, I would be super excited if the prayer flags were a permanent fixture. Nice TR! Looks more like winter up there now than it did on Jefferson a few weeks ago!