Haystack & Marcy, March 16

[BlackSpruce]

It was one those day when my friend Gary and I feel so lucky to be semi-retired oldies. From Loj parking to bridge over Phelps Brook snow is crunchy then once on other side of bridge nicely soft. On Sunday the Loj area received 8 inches of very wet snow and above 3200’ about 18 inches of powder. Luckily a handful of young climbers were way ahead of us breaking the Van Hovenburg Trail to Marcy. At the col between Little Marcy and Marcy we took our usual short-cut in order to save a bit of climbing and rejoined the Phelps Trail in five minutes. In short order we were standing at the bottom of the Blue Connector and could see that likely yesterday a group coming from the Garden had broken trail to Haystack. The broken tracks nicely by-pass Little Haystack to the right (trail towards Basin was not open). Up Haystack as on Marcy above tree-line the ground is mostly covered by crusty snow with ice patches here and there, Gary made it up and down both mountains easily with his MSR Denali but not having snowshoes as aggressive I donned my crampons. This year Marcy coated itself in such a way that climbing the section above tree line is much easier than usual.
In conclusion the best conditions of the winter for us to enjoy one more week!