Bombadil
Active member
12-22-12
Originally we had planned on a traverse from Unknown Pond thru Starr King but we had a few people drop out and only had 2 of us to break trail (though from Bunnel Notch Trail jct to the summit a couple pairs of snowshoes had been through before the freeze which helped for that mile or so). As Bryan posted for his Waumbek hike on the same day, things looked too good to be true at the trailheads. There's a pretty large gradient of snow and down low it might seem as though snowshoes aren't needed.
There was a light coating of snow <2" at the beginning of the hike but within 45 minutes we switched to snowshoes in the soft, slushy snow. The upper rain-soaked crust began to freeze as we gained elevation and the temps dropped, making for some pretty clumsy conditions as the icy crust didn't support weight. When we reached the Bunnel Notch Trail jct it looked as though 1 or 2 hikers had been through on the previous day. There was definitely 2-3' up high with trekking poles getting plunged up to the handles a few times. We lost the trail upon first descending Cabot towards Bulge but we found it within 100-200 vertical feet and generally were able to follow it to the Horn. There's a handful of large blowndowns but nothing that would really keep you from following the trail. Snow was coming down pretty good by the time we reached the Horn and in some sections our tracks had been covered over with blown snow on our return. Met a few hikers from NY just below that Cabot summit so the trail should be decently packed out to Cabot now.
Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo.com
Originally we had planned on a traverse from Unknown Pond thru Starr King but we had a few people drop out and only had 2 of us to break trail (though from Bunnel Notch Trail jct to the summit a couple pairs of snowshoes had been through before the freeze which helped for that mile or so). As Bryan posted for his Waumbek hike on the same day, things looked too good to be true at the trailheads. There's a pretty large gradient of snow and down low it might seem as though snowshoes aren't needed.
There was a light coating of snow <2" at the beginning of the hike but within 45 minutes we switched to snowshoes in the soft, slushy snow. The upper rain-soaked crust began to freeze as we gained elevation and the temps dropped, making for some pretty clumsy conditions as the icy crust didn't support weight. When we reached the Bunnel Notch Trail jct it looked as though 1 or 2 hikers had been through on the previous day. There was definitely 2-3' up high with trekking poles getting plunged up to the handles a few times. We lost the trail upon first descending Cabot towards Bulge but we found it within 100-200 vertical feet and generally were able to follow it to the Horn. There's a handful of large blowndowns but nothing that would really keep you from following the trail. Snow was coming down pretty good by the time we reached the Horn and in some sections our tracks had been covered over with blown snow on our return. Met a few hikers from NY just below that Cabot summit so the trail should be decently packed out to Cabot now.
Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo.com
