East Sleeper & Whiteface, Sunday, Feb 25, 2007

[MTNRUNR]

Left home @ 2:32am and arrived @ Dunkin Donuts in West Ossipee just before they opened @ 5

Started from Ferncroft @ 6:18 and put 30" snowshoes on @ end of side road/drive. Also used old ski poles all day. Several cute little trail signs showing which way to go to the woods

It was a beautiful day, typical brilliant blue sky...Wow

I'd read various trip reports and wasn't sure just what was in store. Brought brand new Venon, crampons and 20' of rope...should be enough

The Blueberry Ledge Trail was well packed without many postholes. This changed as I got higher up which had a fair amount of postholes, but no problem. Also no problem with any blowdowns all day.

It was neat going across the small open fields with the nice white snow.

Upper Jct of Blueberry Ledge Cut-Off wasn't broken out.

I liked going across the small ridge just before starting up South Whiteface with the open woods and ground gently sloping off on each side.

When I got to the 1st small vertical piece of rock(about 5' high) I tried a couple times then was able to reach a small tree and pull myself up on my knees. To give you an idea if you were to do it, I'm 5' 6". There were a few more of these, nothing scary @ all just a little extra work and hands and knees stuff. Then there were the various open ledge areas affording really decent views

Nice open spot on the summit to. Continued down to jct with Kate Sleeper Trail. Buried Venon in the snow for now, won't be needing it!

KS trail was unbroken and 30" shoes worked well. Generally sinking in 6" to 12", not bad. Fair amount of Moose postholing. Trail was easy to follow.

Headed up the spur to East Sleeper, just wandering thru the woods. Got to where I thought the summit should be but didn't see anything. Checked GPS and was in the right area. After wandering around found the small sign on a tree I had walked right by earlier.

Broke the trail out a bit better on the way back. Headed up to North Whiteface, which is the actual high point(good thing I'd checked beforehand or I'd had thought I'd already done it Trail toward Passaconaway was Broken out.

Back @ jct KST I took snowshoes off and sunk into the snow! Not as well backed as it appeared! Put crampons on and headed up over and started down South Whiteface. Did posthole a fair amount! Ended up just using the rope once to help get down over a small drop. Made it a lot easier/safer for me!

Glad to get back into snowshoes for the trek back to the car!

Figured it was about 11.4 miles and I was out for 9 hours and 20 minutes...just a blazin

80 down and 20 to go! Hike on

 

[stu]

Nice T/R. This is a beautiful area. Being a little out of the way it's a hidden gem! I recently read a book, "Our Mountain Trips" by Ben & Jane English, which descibes this area in detail, circa 1900. It's interesting to relate to the same trails today. I highly recommend it.
One question, I was wondering if you could describe your rope technique. How were you able to self-belay? Thanks, Stu

 

[marchowes]

Very nice are the 80 that remain winter HH or just HH in general??

I did the same trek in January except I hit whiteface true summit before hitting the sleepers. Had the same experience with the E sleeper summit.. wandered around and eventually found the sign (after walking by it).

 

[MTNRUNR]

Hey Stu and Marc,

I put the rope around a tree with each side being the same length, as it was only a very small drop it didn't take much rope. Being alone I didn't want to chance jumping down.

Working on NEHH in Winter. Had 1st done NH 4K's in '75 and NE 4K's by '81, which completed the lists for me @ that time. Just got into the winter thing a few years ago. Nothing better than a cool sunny windless winter day with a packed out trail