U
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Guest
From the beginning of the week I was planning to visit the Whites for a 4K hike. I decided on the Hancocks. The snow storm came on Tuesday 3/19 and I kept checking trails NH and other sites to see the conditions. Well Saturday came and we decided to hope that a non-forum hiker would have broken the trail. Well there were two older gentelmen who broke the trail on this Saturday and we followed them. They cut a good path up the Hancock Notch trail, but zigzagged along the Cedar Brook Trail. Then they missed the Hancock loop trail just after the gully and before the elevation gain. My hiking partner and I saw the yellow blaze initially to the left of their bushwack but because of inexperience, decided to keep following them. They bushwacked to the right of the arrow slide and that's when we ran into them. They were turning back because they ran into some think vegetation. My hiking partner and I went back to the yellow blaze and broke the trail up the North Hancock Trail. There was granular snow with very slippery ice beneath. My snowshoes were not sufficient for these conditions and I kept sliding backwards and decided to try some micro spikes for better traction. That didn't do the trick and it was tough going up to North Hancock. When we made it, we saw that the ridge trail was not broken out and decided it would be best to head down Hancock. On the way down one of the older gentlemen was butt sliding using a solar blanket making the trail even more slippery. At this point I ran into NHTramper (I recognized him from the posts and confirmed it when I saw his car in the parking lot). I must have fell a dozen times before I decided to butt slide myself. The hike out was tiring but much easier since someone broke Cedar Brook Trail correctly.
