Huntington Ravine, Central Gully - 4/22

[cbcbd]

Left Friday night in a mad hurry at 9:30pm to meet up with my girlfriend to head up to the Whites. At this point I really didn't know what we'd end up doing. Original plans were to go up to the Gunks, but the rain changed that so we travelled North and delayed seeing the rain a day!

Arrived to a massively crowded parking lot (Inferno that Sat) at Pinkham Notch at 3:30am. Went to bed in car Zzzzz...

Woke up reluctantly at 6:30, people already arriving with skis and heading up Tuckerman's. I'm considering my options... maybe go up Boot spur, summit, and go around to Lion's head... maybe go up Huntington, check out the condition of the gullies. I have a direct view of Huntington from the car and it looks pretty white, enticing, and filled in from down here... we'll check it out, why not.
We get ready slowly and start out at 7:50. We get on the Tuckerman train with hoardes of others there to enjoy the Son of Inferno pentathlon and the ravine skiing. It's turning out to be a nice and perfect day for ice-gully climbing - temp was in the 20s at the summit and it was moderatedly cloudy - just enough to prevent the sun from loosening anything above us and not turn the snow into complete mash potatoes.

At around 10-10:30 we get to the base of the Ravine and it's looking great!! We see a party of 3 who were ice climbing Odell's and two skiers (who later skied it and headed back up to the Alpine Garden) walking up South Gully . Center is looking pretty good and inviting, so we pick a good spot and get geared up. It's the two of us so I set up a shortrope and we head up.

Going up I get a good look at Pinnacle and other than a crack at the bottom it's looking pretty good - not perfect, but there is still plenty of blue ice up higher on it - climbable and protectable. We left the ice tools at home so that wasn't an option.

The climb was pretty straightforward, only twice using the axe like a dagger (next to ice bulge and near topout). Went around some cracks without any issue and topped out at around 12pm. Weather on the Alpine garden was great - probably in the 30s with some wind - at this point I was wearing my top base and just slapped on a fleece vest and was fine.

We walked on the Alpine Garden trail and met up with those South Gully skiers, who were now heading up to Ball Crag to do some skiing there and were hoping around on the rocks, trying to avoid the alpine plants.
We got to the headwall, located Right Gully and figured it'd be much faster to go down here than all the way down Lion's head. There was a nice bootpack going up Right Gully and the snow was semi soft to we just walked down it with no issues. Got to the bottom of the lunch rocks, stood around a bit enjoying the skiers coming down, and ate some snacks. The two skiers from South Gully showed up after coming down Right G and we all chatted for a bit, nice guys.
The number of skiers was dwindling so we called it a day and got on the train back down Tuckerman's.

It was a good day. There was still good snow up there even though there are more bare spots than usual at places. Right now I don't know how it is since it started raining last night. If the gullies got rain other than snow then this last rain might've done the gullies in, but who knows - no harm in going up there and checking stuff yourself and let us know

Sorry, no pictures I was rushed and 1 hour into the drive I let out a big expletive as I pictured my camera sitting on top of my desk back home. But I'm still making a folder for the pictures and putting this report in it

Doug

 

[giggy]

sweet - great gully ain't it. was that "crevasse (for lack of better term) " there about 2/3 they way up - or did that fill in?

sounds like right gully was in better shape for descent than last week. - the whole thing was slick mashed potatoes with limited boot path last sunday.

 

[cbcbd]

It was great to be on a nice alpine climb again My girl has been ice climbing, but this was her first time roped up on a snow climb like this, she rocked it!
I think I remember the one 2/3 of the way up, but the bigger "crevasse" that I saw and gave us more of an issue was a little under the ice bulge. I marked it in red on the attached picture. The right side of it, where I could see the bottom was about 3-4' wide and at least 4' deep.
I had Alexa (gf) wrap the rope around her plunged axe and I went to check it out, kicking away a lot of suspended snow to see if I could possibly reach over it to go over. The more snow I cleared the wider it got and just impossible for me to leap uphill to the other side. I just decided to go around it half on the rocks on the right and half on the snow. A little sketchy and I hate drytooling crampons on rock but hey, had to be done. Went up a bit and gave Alexa a boot-axe belay while she made it around the crack.

Yeah, the snow was good for us and many skiers from that day left a pretty nice boot ladder to go down Right Gully. Honestly, I wouldn't even have considered going down it weren't for your report I think going down Right and then Tuckerman's is much more straightforward and simpler than Lion's Head (all snow v mix of rocks and ice). But while I know the conditions made the snow good and safe on the gullies, the lack of sun did affect the skiing conditions on tux - lots of people falling and getting injured. To the left of the Lip there is a huge hole exposed with a waterfall - it's an amazing and beautiful sight, but you can also see a long crack that forms there and goes across the Lip and to the right.

And the observatory says:"We were expecting sleet and freezing rain, however, more snow fell and the summit received about 1.5 inches of snow, mixed with the sleet and freezing rain."
Gullies could be messy, but I think are still doable - but if you do it and break your leg don't come back and sue me... or else I'll break your other leg

 

[percious]

Very nice TR. Very informative.

-percious