Hale - Fire Wardens Trail Reconnaissance, Sat. 1-19-12

[Unregistered]

We investigated the Fire Warden's Trail up the back side of Hale today (Saturday). Plenty of parking at the end of Little River Road, just south of Twin Mountain. There were 8 cars in the "lot" when we arrived at 9am. At least 3 groups were skiing, and the rest either hiking or skiing. We went across the bridge, turned left, and followed the flat and obvious trail to the North Twin summer trail head. After 4 inches of fresh fluffy powder on Friday night, the trail was a bit loose, so we used snow shoes. Several other groups had gone before us, so the trail was packed out, but still soft. The North Twin Trail was more of the same - solid hard snow under 4" of soft semi-packed powder. The Fire Warden's Trail leaves from the established bushwhack (which avoids the first river crossing), about 100 yards after the obvious up-and-down section, which is the only climbing on the trip to this point, and really isn't much, maybe 20' vertical. The FWT is very well packed, and although the fresh powder was soft on the ascent, by the descent it was firmly packed, and we bare booted all the way back to the car with no trail damage whatsoever. The FWT is very easy to follow, very gradual, and runs through some very beautiful woods. In fact, the birch glades which start about 1/3 of the way up, and continue for about half the climb, are probably the nicest woods I've seen in the White Mountains (I've climbed all 48). There really wasn't much snow base in the glades - maybe 12" total, with a crust about 4" down which would support snowshoes. There were at least 3 hikers ahead of us on the trail, 4 behind us, and 4 skiers.

As a side note, the group of hikers behind us had planned to go up N. Twin, but the water crossing on the slippery log above the really nice, but really cold, and fast-flowing river was more than they were willing to attempt, so beware if you're heading out that way.