hockeycrew
New member
I decided to post my other trip report from this weekend because it too was an adventure.
Erappi, Sknydppr and I decided to do Mt Jackson as a night hike on Friday night because we wanted to rest a day before the big Moosilauke hike. First of all, we left Boston two hours behind schedule. So we set up the trail around 11pm. I bottom parts of the trail were so well travelled that the snow was almost non-existant. Shortly into the hike we got warm and decided to strip off some layers. That was a mistake... at least on my part.
I really enjoy night hiking in the winter, the snow really lights up the trail and the solitude is fantastic. Negotiating blowdowns however can be tricky. We were crawling under and climbing over blowdowns every eight mile at least. A couple of them actually sprung back up after I shook the snow off them. Others requires going off trail to avoid them. Shortly after the junction of the two branches, the tracks we were following stopped. We would have to break trail the rest of the way. Now I admit this is where I should have put my snowpants back on. But I didn't because I was still warm. The snow was light and powdery. It was about a foot deep at the beginning and was reaching drifts of up to 6 feet at the top. However, there was no packed down base layer so I felt the snowshoes would have prevented our finding of the hidden rocks. Hands were used a lot to break up the mass in front of us, I never knew if something was a drift or a large rock.
We layered back up on our tops before reaching the big rocks near the summit, but my pants were already so snow and ice covered that I didn't think that it would be a good idea to melt it in between layers of pant. And anyways, I figured, the summit must just be around the corner. I'll admit, I almost called it several times, but we were going slowly and cautiously the whole way across the interesting boulders under the snow. We didn't stop at the summit, we pretty much touched it and turned right around.
The way back down was so much faster, a broken trail makes such a difference. The temperature had dropped and the snow crunched under our feet as we sang Christmas Carols. My gaiters and boots were ice incrusted, as well as the ends of the sleeves of my sweater. We were all impatient to get back. We got back to the car just before 5 am and were looking at the newly rising moon when we saw a brilliant red shooting star, it was worth seeing. And thats when I started feeling the cold from my pants having frozen patches. Then we wandered into the Highland Center to thaw out a little and definately got funny looks from the desk clerk when we told him our story.
Overall, it was an adventure. Definately not the smartest thing we've ever done, but other than the snowpants issue, I think we were prepared and evaluated the risks well. I think one slight stumbled would have made me call the whole thing off.
We didn't take any pictures because we thought it would be too dark for that.
Erappi, Sknydppr and I decided to do Mt Jackson as a night hike on Friday night because we wanted to rest a day before the big Moosilauke hike. First of all, we left Boston two hours behind schedule. So we set up the trail around 11pm. I bottom parts of the trail were so well travelled that the snow was almost non-existant. Shortly into the hike we got warm and decided to strip off some layers. That was a mistake... at least on my part.
I really enjoy night hiking in the winter, the snow really lights up the trail and the solitude is fantastic. Negotiating blowdowns however can be tricky. We were crawling under and climbing over blowdowns every eight mile at least. A couple of them actually sprung back up after I shook the snow off them. Others requires going off trail to avoid them. Shortly after the junction of the two branches, the tracks we were following stopped. We would have to break trail the rest of the way. Now I admit this is where I should have put my snowpants back on. But I didn't because I was still warm. The snow was light and powdery. It was about a foot deep at the beginning and was reaching drifts of up to 6 feet at the top. However, there was no packed down base layer so I felt the snowshoes would have prevented our finding of the hidden rocks. Hands were used a lot to break up the mass in front of us, I never knew if something was a drift or a large rock.
We layered back up on our tops before reaching the big rocks near the summit, but my pants were already so snow and ice covered that I didn't think that it would be a good idea to melt it in between layers of pant. And anyways, I figured, the summit must just be around the corner. I'll admit, I almost called it several times, but we were going slowly and cautiously the whole way across the interesting boulders under the snow. We didn't stop at the summit, we pretty much touched it and turned right around.
The way back down was so much faster, a broken trail makes such a difference. The temperature had dropped and the snow crunched under our feet as we sang Christmas Carols. My gaiters and boots were ice incrusted, as well as the ends of the sleeves of my sweater. We were all impatient to get back. We got back to the car just before 5 am and were looking at the newly rising moon when we saw a brilliant red shooting star, it was worth seeing. And thats when I started feeling the cold from my pants having frozen patches. Then we wandered into the Highland Center to thaw out a little and definately got funny looks from the desk clerk when we told him our story.
Overall, it was an adventure. Definately not the smartest thing we've ever done, but other than the snowpants issue, I think we were prepared and evaluated the risks well. I think one slight stumbled would have made me call the whole thing off.
We didn't take any pictures because we thought it would be too dark for that.
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