1SlowHiker
New member
Trails: Blueberry Ledge trail, Mt Whiteface, Rollins trail, Walden trail, Mt Passaconaway, East Loop, Dicey Mill.
Trail Conditions: No standing water or soft mud on any of the trails (all frozen). Very little evidence of snow, and what there was were just patches with no depth. No issues with river crossings
Blueberry Ledge trail: easily avoided patchy ice. No sign of any snow below 3000’ and only patches of snow up higher. Rockface at junction with Cuttoff has some slick ice but also easy to avoid. A light dusting of snow would hide most of this ice making it more difficult. First few difficult scrambles below the southern ledge were dry with no ice or water. The last hard scramble before the southern ledge was icey and forced me to put on traction. Only a few blow-downs not worth mentioning
Rollins trail: Lots of hard ice on trail. Going down the north side of Whiteface (~3750’) is a huge blow-down area with dozens of trees completely blocking the trail. After the col, going back up, the trail is dry with no real need for traction
Dicey Mill from Rollins to Walden: One icey area worth putting the spikes back on
Walden trail : Some icey spots that may be avoided, but I left on the spikes. Another large blowdown area (nothing like the one on Rollins though) in the process of being cleared. Thanks.
East loop : Good condition no problems, traction probably not needed
Dicey Mill trail down to trail head: good condition, traction not needed.
Special equipment: Bare booted up until the very last scramble which had ice on it. Then micro-spikes stayed on until bottom of col between peaks. Spikes came back on to do the small loop from Walden and East loop.
Comments/equipment: Even dry, the scrambles below the South ledges of Whiteface were difficult for me. Too much pack and body weight, too little upper body strength. I ended up tossing my pack up and scrambling up after it in two steps.
The blow-downs on the Northern side of Whiteface reminded me of the scene in “Band of Brothers” in the Argonne forest with bombs exploding the trees. No, it’s worse than that, maybe more like the jungle areas around Vietnam era 500 pound bomb craters. For me, this was a long hike, 1.5 hrs before sunrise to sunset, but other than the scrambles on Whiteface it was fairley easy.
Trail Conditions: No standing water or soft mud on any of the trails (all frozen). Very little evidence of snow, and what there was were just patches with no depth. No issues with river crossings
Blueberry Ledge trail: easily avoided patchy ice. No sign of any snow below 3000’ and only patches of snow up higher. Rockface at junction with Cuttoff has some slick ice but also easy to avoid. A light dusting of snow would hide most of this ice making it more difficult. First few difficult scrambles below the southern ledge were dry with no ice or water. The last hard scramble before the southern ledge was icey and forced me to put on traction. Only a few blow-downs not worth mentioning
Rollins trail: Lots of hard ice on trail. Going down the north side of Whiteface (~3750’) is a huge blow-down area with dozens of trees completely blocking the trail. After the col, going back up, the trail is dry with no real need for traction
Dicey Mill from Rollins to Walden: One icey area worth putting the spikes back on
Walden trail : Some icey spots that may be avoided, but I left on the spikes. Another large blowdown area (nothing like the one on Rollins though) in the process of being cleared. Thanks.
East loop : Good condition no problems, traction probably not needed
Dicey Mill trail down to trail head: good condition, traction not needed.
Special equipment: Bare booted up until the very last scramble which had ice on it. Then micro-spikes stayed on until bottom of col between peaks. Spikes came back on to do the small loop from Walden and East loop.
Comments/equipment: Even dry, the scrambles below the South ledges of Whiteface were difficult for me. Too much pack and body weight, too little upper body strength. I ended up tossing my pack up and scrambling up after it in two steps.
The blow-downs on the Northern side of Whiteface reminded me of the scene in “Band of Brothers” in the Argonne forest with bombs exploding the trees. No, it’s worse than that, maybe more like the jungle areas around Vietnam era 500 pound bomb craters. For me, this was a long hike, 1.5 hrs before sunrise to sunset, but other than the scrambles on Whiteface it was fairley easy.
