Bombadil
Active member
3-9-13
1 day solo pemi loop: flume, liberty, lincoln, lafayette, garfield, galehead, s twin, w bond, bond, bondcliff
Hit the trail at 3:40 am behind 2 others in our group and headed up Osseo. Although microspikes would be fine on lincoln woods I opted for snowshoes until crossing back over by black pond at the end of the day. Osseo had a good snowshoe track all the way up to Flume. Caught up to Jonathan (Blaze) and Kate by Liberty Springs and surprisingly Franconia Ridge had been broken out by 2 snowshoers which helped a ton. Jonathan and Kate let me know they were going to bail at this point and we continued on together until breaking out above treeline. Fierce E, NE winds knocked me around a bit in heading over Lincoln and Lafayette, I'd guess they were in the 30-50 mph range but temps were in the mid to upper 20s so it wasn't too bad. The ridge has excellent snow coverage right now, not at all bony like the presis and there's no ice either.
GRT was very lightly broken out and I eventually met 3 backpackers heading up Lafayette that had broken out GRT to near Galehead the day before and were helping pack out from Garfield to Lafayette so I was EXTREMELY grateful for their hard work, since I was solo it made my day so much easier.
Temps gradually increased and I got into some sticky snow as I approached Galehead Hut. That clearing felt like I was in an oven once the winds finally died down. I switched to a shortsleeve shirt at the hut for the duration of the hike and could have easily worn less but the branches were doing enough damage to my arms as it were. Frost Trail was well broken out as expected and the Twinway up to S Twin was well traveled. I'm glad I broke out S Twin to Guyot a few days ago as the only other person to venture through that crappy section was Jeff doing a CCW loop today as well. He helped fix up a few sections where I got off trail which helped but that area was definitely the worst segment of the loop with constant pushing through branches.
Guyot to W Bond Spur was well tracked. Ditto for the W Bond Spur. Ditto for Bond. Barebooters beat up from the Bondcliff Col up to Bond a little bit but not too badly. Bondcliff has a lot of bare ground popping up so it's probably a good idea to take off traction until getting over to the climb up Bond. Heading down Bondcliff there were a lot of branches to push out of your face which slowed the descent but the snowshoe track was decent. The Wilderness Trail was fairly lousy with lots of barebooters going over it in the warm temps which froze up awkwardly this afternoon. Across the bridge Lincoln Woods was well packed and great for running.
Despite a pretty windy start it was a great day. I only brought 3 L of water and the water by Garfield isn't flowing yet so I had to resort to melting snow with my body which slowed my progress a bit since I was parched in the sun later in the day. Got back to Lincoln Woods just after 7 pm so it was 15.5 for the loop with Galehead and W Bond, with those two spurs probably adding a solid hour. I was moderately pleased with this time since it was my 5th day in a row of hiking, racking up 23 peaks and counting this week.
Thanks Jonathan for giving me the nudge to do a single day winter loop, even though it didn't work out quite the way we planned.
Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com
1 day solo pemi loop: flume, liberty, lincoln, lafayette, garfield, galehead, s twin, w bond, bond, bondcliff
Hit the trail at 3:40 am behind 2 others in our group and headed up Osseo. Although microspikes would be fine on lincoln woods I opted for snowshoes until crossing back over by black pond at the end of the day. Osseo had a good snowshoe track all the way up to Flume. Caught up to Jonathan (Blaze) and Kate by Liberty Springs and surprisingly Franconia Ridge had been broken out by 2 snowshoers which helped a ton. Jonathan and Kate let me know they were going to bail at this point and we continued on together until breaking out above treeline. Fierce E, NE winds knocked me around a bit in heading over Lincoln and Lafayette, I'd guess they were in the 30-50 mph range but temps were in the mid to upper 20s so it wasn't too bad. The ridge has excellent snow coverage right now, not at all bony like the presis and there's no ice either.
GRT was very lightly broken out and I eventually met 3 backpackers heading up Lafayette that had broken out GRT to near Galehead the day before and were helping pack out from Garfield to Lafayette so I was EXTREMELY grateful for their hard work, since I was solo it made my day so much easier.
Temps gradually increased and I got into some sticky snow as I approached Galehead Hut. That clearing felt like I was in an oven once the winds finally died down. I switched to a shortsleeve shirt at the hut for the duration of the hike and could have easily worn less but the branches were doing enough damage to my arms as it were. Frost Trail was well broken out as expected and the Twinway up to S Twin was well traveled. I'm glad I broke out S Twin to Guyot a few days ago as the only other person to venture through that crappy section was Jeff doing a CCW loop today as well. He helped fix up a few sections where I got off trail which helped but that area was definitely the worst segment of the loop with constant pushing through branches.
Guyot to W Bond Spur was well tracked. Ditto for the W Bond Spur. Ditto for Bond. Barebooters beat up from the Bondcliff Col up to Bond a little bit but not too badly. Bondcliff has a lot of bare ground popping up so it's probably a good idea to take off traction until getting over to the climb up Bond. Heading down Bondcliff there were a lot of branches to push out of your face which slowed the descent but the snowshoe track was decent. The Wilderness Trail was fairly lousy with lots of barebooters going over it in the warm temps which froze up awkwardly this afternoon. Across the bridge Lincoln Woods was well packed and great for running.
Despite a pretty windy start it was a great day. I only brought 3 L of water and the water by Garfield isn't flowing yet so I had to resort to melting snow with my body which slowed my progress a bit since I was parched in the sun later in the day. Got back to Lincoln Woods just after 7 pm so it was 15.5 for the loop with Galehead and W Bond, with those two spurs probably adding a solid hour. I was moderately pleased with this time since it was my 5th day in a row of hiking, racking up 23 peaks and counting this week.
Thanks Jonathan for giving me the nudge to do a single day winter loop, even though it didn't work out quite the way we planned.
Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com
