Tom Rankin
Well-known member
I was rudely surprised to see that a horde of hikers had not gone and done Graham on the first day of Winter! 
The nerve! Only one person went to BLM, and even then, we could barely discern their tracks. Someone had written "Where was everybody?" in large letters across the sign-in page. Good question!
Anyway...
It was about 5F and the sky was VERY Blue. Paula picked me up and we started the hike around 8:30 from the Mill Brook Road side. We both donned micro-icers and off we went. For the first mile the trail was almost hard packed, with a few small patches of fluffy snow there and there. After we hit the ridge line we continued on in increasingly deep and drifted snow. When we got to the turn off, we both ditched the stabil-spikes and donned EVOs. I hope Leaf isn't reading this! (We did smooth most of the post holes out on the way down!)
From the junction, the trail had obviously not seen any activity for quite a while. It was all unbroken, and there were up to 2 feet of drifts here and there to plunge into when we least expected them. There was also the occasional icy/wet patch to navigate. Not to mention the huge amount of blowdowns and overhanging branches that this trail has because no one maintains it. But we persevered, taking turns breaking (cracking) trail. I was surprised how much powder there was up there. Some of it was crusted over, but the crust was weak enough that we were constantly breaking thru.
Eventually we slogged up to the summit, taking about 3 hours from the car. It was still sunny and clear, and we could see for miles and miles... We took shelter in the old building. Even w/o a roof it was nice to be out of the wind. After some grub and tea, we snapped a few pics and headed back.
The return trip was about 2 hours. We skipped the 'optional' trip to BLM, because we were more tired than we expected, and we had both, been there, done that, before.
Still a nice way to spend a day, and I finished my trip report before bhsf even went home for the day!
The nerve! Only one person went to BLM, and even then, we could barely discern their tracks. Someone had written "Where was everybody?" in large letters across the sign-in page. Good question! Anyway...
It was about 5F and the sky was VERY Blue. Paula picked me up and we started the hike around 8:30 from the Mill Brook Road side. We both donned micro-icers and off we went. For the first mile the trail was almost hard packed, with a few small patches of fluffy snow there and there. After we hit the ridge line we continued on in increasingly deep and drifted snow. When we got to the turn off, we both ditched the stabil-spikes and donned EVOs. I hope Leaf isn't reading this!
(We did smooth most of the post holes out on the way down!)From the junction, the trail had obviously not seen any activity for quite a while. It was all unbroken, and there were up to 2 feet of drifts here and there to plunge into when we least expected them.
There was also the occasional icy/wet patch to navigate. Not to mention the huge amount of blowdowns and overhanging branches that this trail has because no one maintains it. But we persevered, taking turns breaking (cracking) trail. I was surprised how much powder there was up there. Some of it was crusted over, but the crust was weak enough that we were constantly breaking thru. Eventually we slogged up to the summit, taking about 3 hours from the car. It was still sunny and clear, and we could see for miles and miles... We took shelter in the old building. Even w/o a roof it was nice to be out of the wind. After some grub and tea, we snapped a few pics and headed back.
The return trip was about 2 hours. We skipped the 'optional' trip to BLM, because we were more tired than we expected, and we had both, been there, done that, before.
Still a nice way to spend a day, and I finished my trip report before bhsf even went home for the day!
