A few friends joined me for what should have been a quick hike up Mt Hayes in Gorham via the Mahoosuc trail with its bonus section on the start to get from the trestle to the trailhead. It had rained last evening but the local forecasts were for sunny and up to 50 degrees. The bypass via the old RR track and Hogan road extension started out good but it gave signs of getting soft even in the morning. We got to the trailhead which finally has some warning signs for hikers about the hydro canal and a sign for AMC hikers with an arrow on it. The route out from the RR track to the trailhead is still poorly marked.
The trail up to Mascot pond was scratchy with lots of bare frozen ground under the softwoods, once in the hardwoods and heading over to the pond via the spur was well packed. When we came back to the main trail and started heading up, it soon became obvious that Spring conditions were going to be the norm. Many "kittens" had met their demise on the trail as it was frozen postholes. There was no visible snowshoe track with multiple post holes making up the route. The crust was not barebootable so I switched to MSRs. These were marginally better than barebooting but the crust was undermined in many spots. There are several large blowdowns across the route, they are large and would require more than a pack saw. As we headed up, the trail was even more badly undermined, even with snowshoes I was postholing. I ended up staying away from the main route and paralleling where I could. The weather was definitely not bright and sunny, there were a few small sunny patches in the north country and looking south down Pinkham Notch is looked like the areas south of the notch had more. The Northern Presidentials were in the clouds, over the course of our ascent they looked to be clearing but around lunch the cloud ceiling dropped down and they clouds had a pretty menacing look on the summits. It was quite windy, as we climbed the wind increased. We came out on the ledge and the views down the Carters and Wildcat and east out along the Androscoggin river valley were good but the presis were clouded in. We did the run from the ledges over to the Centennial trail junction. It was pretty raw so we didnt hang around long. As we headed down despite the lack of sun the surface degraded into weaker crust with even more undermining with a layer of slush on top. We made it down to the trailhead. The somewhat packed surface from the morning was now wet slush and after a boring walk along the power right of way and then down the snowmachine trail we came out to the trestle.
What should have been a short and easy hike turned in a lot longer hike then expected due to the snow conditions. Definitely a bummer to have spring conditions in February. I will be interested to see trip reports from the summits as given its holiday week, I expect a lot of folks got lured in by the forecast. Even the Obs forecast which usually is conservative, was somewhat optimistic of afternoon clearing. It sure looked to me like the summits were making their own weather. The forecast was for it cloud up again for the next front on Sunday but when I went out after the skies looked clear with plenty of stars. I hope no one got caught by the conditions up high. Definitely I got a bit more "conditioning" than expected. The best weekends in winter are usually from now to the solstice but hope things straighten out as I hate spring conditions.
The trail up to Mascot pond was scratchy with lots of bare frozen ground under the softwoods, once in the hardwoods and heading over to the pond via the spur was well packed. When we came back to the main trail and started heading up, it soon became obvious that Spring conditions were going to be the norm. Many "kittens" had met their demise on the trail as it was frozen postholes. There was no visible snowshoe track with multiple post holes making up the route. The crust was not barebootable so I switched to MSRs. These were marginally better than barebooting but the crust was undermined in many spots. There are several large blowdowns across the route, they are large and would require more than a pack saw. As we headed up, the trail was even more badly undermined, even with snowshoes I was postholing. I ended up staying away from the main route and paralleling where I could. The weather was definitely not bright and sunny, there were a few small sunny patches in the north country and looking south down Pinkham Notch is looked like the areas south of the notch had more. The Northern Presidentials were in the clouds, over the course of our ascent they looked to be clearing but around lunch the cloud ceiling dropped down and they clouds had a pretty menacing look on the summits. It was quite windy, as we climbed the wind increased. We came out on the ledge and the views down the Carters and Wildcat and east out along the Androscoggin river valley were good but the presis were clouded in. We did the run from the ledges over to the Centennial trail junction. It was pretty raw so we didnt hang around long. As we headed down despite the lack of sun the surface degraded into weaker crust with even more undermining with a layer of slush on top. We made it down to the trailhead. The somewhat packed surface from the morning was now wet slush and after a boring walk along the power right of way and then down the snowmachine trail we came out to the trestle.
What should have been a short and easy hike turned in a lot longer hike then expected due to the snow conditions. Definitely a bummer to have spring conditions in February. I will be interested to see trip reports from the summits as given its holiday week, I expect a lot of folks got lured in by the forecast. Even the Obs forecast which usually is conservative, was somewhat optimistic of afternoon clearing. It sure looked to me like the summits were making their own weather. The forecast was for it cloud up again for the next front on Sunday but when I went out after the skies looked clear with plenty of stars. I hope no one got caught by the conditions up high. Definitely I got a bit more "conditioning" than expected. The best weekends in winter are usually from now to the solstice but hope things straighten out as I hate spring conditions.
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