onrhodes
New member
Met my friend Erik at 6:30 in Tilton. It was a balmy 12 degrees there. By the time we reached the parking lot off Mt Clinton road the temps had dropped to a sweet 2 degrees.
There were tons of people in the parking lot, presumably for the bird count. We kind of hustled to get out of there and onto the trail so that we would not get stuck behind such a large group.
Headed up Crawford path to start the day. About 2-3 inches of fluffy powder over a pretty well stamped out trail. Everything was great the whole way up. Ran into a few deeper drifts as the trees thinned out and we got closer to the open summit. The temps also plummeted as we came out into the open and had the first real wind of the day.
Erik and I took a couple of pics back towards Washington. His younger brother is one of the observers up there, so we waved to him and went on with our trip.
I can honestly say we did not follow the proper route to the top of Pierce. We just took the quickest way to the top (i.e. a straight line) avoiding the deeper drifts and also trying to shelter from the wind.
We paused to put on a few more layers as the temps were really brutal compared to in the treeline. Snapped a few quick pics and headed off towards Mizpah.
From the top of Pierce to most of the way down to Mizpah, we were breaking the trail. Some very deep drifts in a few spots. However the snow also made those typically steep descents easy as pie. We just slid down them on our feet and it was done.
Eventually a gentleman with snowshoes passed us going up and we had his trail to make the rest of our descent easier.
Stopped for a quick lunch in front of Mizpah, took some more pics. Temp according to the thermometer outside the main door was -4.
Now it was the tromp over to Jackson. This is normally quite an easy hike in the non-snow season. Not that it was bad today, I just felt really slow through this part today. I think it had a lot to do with how much we had already done and that breaking trail down from Pierce took a bit out of me.
However, we moved on. Took some spectacular photos from the open "field" (usually a bog) just below Jackson. Little icy on the way up the steep sections to the top. Snapped a few quick pics and took off down to Crawford Notch, skipping the trip to Webster.
The path down from Jackson was beautifully tramped in. We made awesome time. Did that last 3.5 miles in no time. Litteraly like walking down a nicely smoothed out walking path, not a rooty, rocky hiking trail.
All in all it was a great day. 5:20 for total hike time.
We did it without snowshoes or crampons. Only really wished for snowshoes for about a total of 30 minutes.
For the record out bird count consisted of 2 extremely FAT grey jays.
There were tons of people in the parking lot, presumably for the bird count. We kind of hustled to get out of there and onto the trail so that we would not get stuck behind such a large group.
Headed up Crawford path to start the day. About 2-3 inches of fluffy powder over a pretty well stamped out trail. Everything was great the whole way up. Ran into a few deeper drifts as the trees thinned out and we got closer to the open summit. The temps also plummeted as we came out into the open and had the first real wind of the day.
Erik and I took a couple of pics back towards Washington. His younger brother is one of the observers up there, so we waved to him and went on with our trip.
I can honestly say we did not follow the proper route to the top of Pierce. We just took the quickest way to the top (i.e. a straight line) avoiding the deeper drifts and also trying to shelter from the wind.
We paused to put on a few more layers as the temps were really brutal compared to in the treeline. Snapped a few quick pics and headed off towards Mizpah.
From the top of Pierce to most of the way down to Mizpah, we were breaking the trail. Some very deep drifts in a few spots. However the snow also made those typically steep descents easy as pie. We just slid down them on our feet and it was done.
Eventually a gentleman with snowshoes passed us going up and we had his trail to make the rest of our descent easier.
Stopped for a quick lunch in front of Mizpah, took some more pics. Temp according to the thermometer outside the main door was -4.
Now it was the tromp over to Jackson. This is normally quite an easy hike in the non-snow season. Not that it was bad today, I just felt really slow through this part today. I think it had a lot to do with how much we had already done and that breaking trail down from Pierce took a bit out of me.
However, we moved on. Took some spectacular photos from the open "field" (usually a bog) just below Jackson. Little icy on the way up the steep sections to the top. Snapped a few quick pics and took off down to Crawford Notch, skipping the trip to Webster.
The path down from Jackson was beautifully tramped in. We made awesome time. Did that last 3.5 miles in no time. Litteraly like walking down a nicely smoothed out walking path, not a rooty, rocky hiking trail.
All in all it was a great day. 5:20 for total hike time.
We did it without snowshoes or crampons. Only really wished for snowshoes for about a total of 30 minutes.
For the record out bird count consisted of 2 extremely FAT grey jays.
There were quite a few VFTT folks out and about on that path Saturday. Did you run into Sherpa John and Adamiata? They started from Jackson towards Pierce around 11:30.
