poison ivy
Well-known member
On Monday, Dec. 27 my good friend Poetree, who is up for a visit from her new home in S. Carolina, and I attempted to hike up Mt. Pierce. The overnight snowstorm and terrible roads in Massachusetts stretched the ride up to 5 ½ hours, rather than four. With the late start, we ended up turning back before reaching the summit. We decided to try again on New Year’s day instead.
So on Saturday, we headed back up to the Whites to give the trail another try. We arrived in the parking lot to find a guy waving us off because it was an absolute sheet of ice. Unfortunately, I was already far enough down the hill, that we couldn’t turn back. We decided to park and worry about getting the car out later. We tried to help push the gentleman who was already stuck out without any success… it was difficult to . He had been waiting for AAA for an hour. Unable to do anything to do anything else, we wished him well, geared up and hit the trail at 9 a.m.
While we needed snowshoes Monday to wade through the powder on the Crawford Path, this time we were walking on a firm crust of packed down snow. We stopped at several spots along Gibbs Brook to check out the small waterfalls. The warm temperatures (even the breeze felt warm to us) had melted some of the ice, so there was a lot more water flowing this time around. There were plenty of red squirrels running about (or else the same one following us, we weren’t sure.) Due to the warm temperatures, we were constantly pulling off layers -- almost everyone we met on the trail commented that they had overdressed, expecting it to be much colder than it actually was.
We quickly made it up to the Mizpah Cutoff junction and decided to head up the Crawford path to the summit. As we neared treeline, we realized that the summit was socked in and we wouldn’t be getting any views of the Presidentials. We put on some of our extra layers and headed above treeline. The winds were strong and apparently and knocked us around like we were playing a game of rugby. The final steps above treeline were covered with a slick coating of ice -- the only place on the trail that we found crampons were necessary.
After a quick stop at the summit cairn where a fellow hiker took a quick picture for us, we headed down the Appalachian Trail. Another hiker was just coming up and said the trail was not slick at all, so we took our crampons off and headed down to Mizpah Hut. There were some wonderful spots to glissade and I had a grand time sliding down much of the trail. We were greeted a few hungry gray jays at the hut who were angling for food from all of the hikers resting there.
Glad to be back out of the wind, we headed down Mizpah Cutoff back to the Crawford Path. With the warm temperatures, we found we had to be very careful to step on the main path or else we would posthole down to our knees. Other than an occasional misstep, the rest of the trip passed uneventfully and we arrived at our car at 2 p.m. under blue and sunny skies (I guess this time we started too early!) We found the gentleman with the stuck car had made it out and the ice had softened up enough that we didn’t have any trouble getting out of the parking lot ourselves.
Mt. Pierce was my 6th winter New Hampshire Four. It was Poetree’s first official winter peak and her 28th all-season New Hampshire Four. Pictures from our adventure are
here
- Ivy
So on Saturday, we headed back up to the Whites to give the trail another try. We arrived in the parking lot to find a guy waving us off because it was an absolute sheet of ice. Unfortunately, I was already far enough down the hill, that we couldn’t turn back. We decided to park and worry about getting the car out later. We tried to help push the gentleman who was already stuck out without any success… it was difficult to . He had been waiting for AAA for an hour. Unable to do anything to do anything else, we wished him well, geared up and hit the trail at 9 a.m.
While we needed snowshoes Monday to wade through the powder on the Crawford Path, this time we were walking on a firm crust of packed down snow. We stopped at several spots along Gibbs Brook to check out the small waterfalls. The warm temperatures (even the breeze felt warm to us) had melted some of the ice, so there was a lot more water flowing this time around. There were plenty of red squirrels running about (or else the same one following us, we weren’t sure.) Due to the warm temperatures, we were constantly pulling off layers -- almost everyone we met on the trail commented that they had overdressed, expecting it to be much colder than it actually was.
We quickly made it up to the Mizpah Cutoff junction and decided to head up the Crawford path to the summit. As we neared treeline, we realized that the summit was socked in and we wouldn’t be getting any views of the Presidentials. We put on some of our extra layers and headed above treeline. The winds were strong and apparently and knocked us around like we were playing a game of rugby. The final steps above treeline were covered with a slick coating of ice -- the only place on the trail that we found crampons were necessary.
After a quick stop at the summit cairn where a fellow hiker took a quick picture for us, we headed down the Appalachian Trail. Another hiker was just coming up and said the trail was not slick at all, so we took our crampons off and headed down to Mizpah Hut. There were some wonderful spots to glissade and I had a grand time sliding down much of the trail. We were greeted a few hungry gray jays at the hut who were angling for food from all of the hikers resting there.
Glad to be back out of the wind, we headed down Mizpah Cutoff back to the Crawford Path. With the warm temperatures, we found we had to be very careful to step on the main path or else we would posthole down to our knees. Other than an occasional misstep, the rest of the trip passed uneventfully and we arrived at our car at 2 p.m. under blue and sunny skies (I guess this time we started too early!) We found the gentleman with the stuck car had made it out and the ice had softened up enough that we didn’t have any trouble getting out of the parking lot ourselves.
Mt. Pierce was my 6th winter New Hampshire Four. It was Poetree’s first official winter peak and her 28th all-season New Hampshire Four. Pictures from our adventure are
here
- Ivy
