Spring Flooding - happening now

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peakbagger

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Looking at the various stream flow gauges, it looks like most of rivers are nearing or above flood stage. With the warm weather, the snow pack is melting quick. Still plenty left but this is going to make a dent. I can only hope folks have enough common sense to stay out of the woods.
 
Pemi @ Lincoln just over 12,000 cfps having topped out near 18,000 (+7'!) in the last 48 hours.

I made the decision to stay home and ride :) (if that makes you feel better ;))

Tim
 
Any reports of road damage or wash outs? Lot of the videos on Facebook showed some pretty intense river flow. Hopefully it is an "orderly" melt and we don't get a bunch of road damage to impact the season. I've seen a lot of footage of heavy road damage in parts of VT but didn't see anything from NH.
 
While driving around today I didnt see any signs of unusual record river flows. It usually takes a heavy rain event and this one wasnt that heavy. The ground is still frozen underneath but I expect this weeks forecast will help things dry out.
 
The Basin and walkways and bridge were all submerged. Video footage was crazy. It looked like it was reclaiming the land.

I was at Huntington Gorge in VT on the weekend. The flow was the highest I've ever seen Saturday.
 
I can only hope folks have enough common sense to stay out of the woods.
If you plan carefully, and avoid routes with stream crossings, you can still have a safe hike. I'm not a White Mountain expert but there must be some trails that have minimal or no water crossings.
 
Generally in spring run off conditions in the whites, there are all sort of drainages that are ephemeral, not necessarily marked on maps and only appear during spring run off/flooding conditions. The other sad fact is many of the trails become drainages due to general poor design and lack of waterbars. Hiking up a trail that is effectively a streambed gets the hikers feet wet and also compounds the damage to the trail as most folks will tend to skirt the water and chew up the sides. Yes there are some popular spring time trails that have been hardened with bridges to make them safe but the vast majority are not. Far better to either stick to known spring favorites like South Moat, Kearsage North and Welch Dickey for a couple of weeks or head out off trail to minimize the damage.
 
Mountains with potentially gnarly stream crossings:
Carrigain
Hancocks
Tripyramids (Pine Bend Brook Trail)
Wildcats and Carter (19 Mile Brook Trail)
Owlshead
Isolation (Rocky Branch Trail)
Tecumseh
Madison (Valley Way)
Monroe (Ammonusuc (sp?) Trail)
Tom-Field-Wiley
Bonds
Twins

What else?


Brian
 
Mountains with potentially gnarly stream crossings:
Carrigain
Hancocks
Tripyramids (Pine Bend Brook Trail)
Wildcats and Carter (19 Mile Brook Trail)
Owlshead
Isolation (Rocky Branch Trail)
Tecumseh
Madison (Valley Way)
Monroe (Ammonusuc (sp?) Trail)
Tom-Field-Wiley
Bonds
Twins

What else?


Brian

A girl I know was turned back climbing Jackson at Silver brook, ( feeds into Silver Cascade), I saw a picture, it was cooking!! The route up North Twin should be impossible right now.
 
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