Middle and South Carter, Jan 21st

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Sematary

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Jan 1, 2016
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Northeast Ct.
Went hiking with Sara, my oldest daughter (again) for this one. The plan was to do North Carter, Middle Carter and South Carter. South Carter was the actual goal as that was one I needed to take off of my list of 4000 footers in New Hampshire (only 5 to go right now. :) ).
So, it was in the mid 20's or so as we set off at 8:15 a.m. and event though I only had on my Underarmour Coldgear and my Gortex Jacket and a hat, I quickly found myself getting pretty warm and opened up the jacket and removed the hat. Gloves also came off.
There was plenty of snow on the entire hike which started at the Imp Trail and crossed around to come down the 19 Mile Brook Trail. We wore microspikes but honestly, those (at times) were more of a hindrance than a help. The snow was very warm and densely packed and stuck to our Microspikes, causing balls of snow to ball up under our feet which we had to frenquently knock off. When we reached the split to head over to North Carter, we were more than surprised that the trail had not been broken and with no snowshoes (as the trail everywhere else was not expected to need them - and did not), we chose not to break trail in 2 1/2 feet of snow over to the North Peak. If it had been my main objective, I certainly would have but since it was a side goal, I didn't feel it was worth the effort of slogging through all that wet snow for more than half a mile. From there, the trip to Middle and South Carter went relatively quickly and smoothly. At one point, stand above treeline, there was a dense ice-fog coming through that I found utterly exhilarating and enjoyable. It felt incredibly refreshing and while it obscured the views of the peaks around us, I didn't mind at all. It just felt so good to be up there. It was also WAY too warm for where we were. At no point did I ever feel the need to don my gloves. We stopped briefly at South Carter and took a picture at the Cairn and then moved on. We briefly toyed with the idea of going to Carter Dome but a blister on my heel and the time of day persuaded me to do otherwise and we headed down 19 Mile Brook Trail. While the snow on this side wasn't AS sticky and wet, it was still very moist and well packed for the post part but it didn't clump up under our microspikes as it had coming up Imp Trail.
 
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