"Old School" Winter 4K Routes

[sierra]

I think a lot of "modern" hikers have little idea how their accomplishments compare to the same trips years ago. In the mountains during the winter speed is everything. When I see people posting that they accomplished the SSW of the 48, while I do think its a cool feat, it really is quite easy compared to prior decades. You can do the 48 in present day and not own snowshoes all winter long. All you need to do is read NETC and follow the herds. On a nice winter day, I can summit Pierce and be back at the car in 4 hours RT. In 1982 that trip a was about 6 to 7 hrs. and that's an easy peak. It's an interesting discussion and there are a lot of tangents that would be fun to discuss. One of my inspirations when cutting my teeth was Guy Waterman ( read his books). I used to shoot the **** with him, when he maintained Franconia Ridge. Man he was a bad ass. I remember one thing about him that had me shaking my head, he climbed all the 4ks from each direction of a compass in the winter, chew on that for a minute.

 

[maineguy]

Of course in 1957 there were a LOT more shelters to use as base camps in winter.

 

[peakbagger]

Fast and light hiking seems to be far more popular. Heck some folks are trail running presi traverses in winter. I remember a local climbing guide that specialized in wInter Presi Traverses. It was a 3 day trip and one winter he had to cancel out on several due to the forecast being outside his hard and fast limits. Of course,his trips were intended to prep folks for bigger and "badder" trips around the world so he didnt mind challenging weather. The weather can still be major factor but forecasts are much better and recent trail and snow condition reports far better. I seem to remember the comment long ago pre cell phone that a key piece of safety equipment was a dime to use the payphone at the Cog if a crews got into trouble. The base station road my not be plowed but the payphone usually worked. Once Presby got involved, they were plowing the upper baseroad privately via Mt Clinton road for quite a while but the it was behind a locked gate.).

 

[skiguy]

Of course in 1957 there were a LOT more shelters to use as base camps in winter.

Great point. Having gone to School in NY State I actually cut my teeth on Winter Hiking and Climbing in The ADK which to this day has many more shelters. Yes we used them and glad they were there. Not Always having to set up a Tent was a welcome thing.

 

[skiguy]

Fast and light hiking seems to be far more popular. Heck some folks are trail running presi traverses in winter. I remember a local climbing guide that specialized in wInter Presi Traverses. It was a 3 day trip and one winter he had to cancel out on several de to being outside his hard and fast limits. Of course,his trips were intended to prep folks for bigger and "badder" trips around the world he didnt mind challenging weather. The weather can still be major factor but forecasts are much better and recent trail and snow condition reports far better. I seem to remember the comment long ago pre cell phone that a key piece of safety equipment was a dime to use the payphone at the Cog if a crews got into trouble. The base station road my not be plowed but the payphone usually worked. Once Presby got involved, they were plowing the upper baseroad privately via Mt Clinton road for quite a while but the it was behind a locked gate.).

The pay phone at Lowe’s Store was rather handy also.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

But this is a new option correct? I'm looking at this more from a historic perspective than a "best way".

Historically, the old North Twin was at the end of Little River Road which is now "closed". I don't think the Beaver Brook option is particularly new, but I'm saying that it is viable given the current landowner temperature. And it's a little bit shorter than Haystack Road (which could generally be skied all winter, so that's another option.)

Tim

 

[peakbagger]

When I first did North Twin in winter we went straight across the bridge and did not turn left along the river, we went up what is now a driveway and popped out on the FS road with linger road walk. The hike along the brook on the old trail bed seems to be subsequent change when the new house was built.

 

[rocket21]

The other factor is weather, when I moved u in 1987 winter reliably started earlier and ended later. Sure there were a few odd years where barebooting the summits could be done until January but it was more likely that by Dec 21, folks were breaking trails.

I don't know that to be the case. There have been many mild winters, late starts, early finishes, early starts, late finishes, etc. over the years. Based upon historic accounts, it was not uncommon to have New Hampshire ski areas operating on small snowmaking slopes early season due to lack of natural snowfall. There is good reason that some of the earliest adopters of snowmaking in the country were in the White Mountains - natural snow was not reliable enough.

 

[DayTrip]

I don't know that to be the case. There have been many mild winters, late starts, early finishes, early starts, late finishes, etc. over the years. Based upon historic accounts, it was not uncommon to have New Hampshire ski areas operating on small snowmaking slopes early season due to lack of natural snowfall. There is good reason that some of the earliest adopters of snowmaking in the country were in the White Mountains - natural snow was not reliable enough.

I don't know about that. Based on my admittedly purely anecdotal observations from years of downhill skiing from 1986 to present, back in the 80's and 90's it was almost an automatic that most ski areas were open with a legitimate amount of terrain by Thanksgiving. I skiied Sunday River and Wildcat often and it wasn't unusual to have 10-20 trails open for use by then. Christmas vacation week used to be a prime ski vacation. Now they rarely have any snow at all.

It's definitely up and down like you said, good years and bad, but the overall trend in my opinion is shorter Winters and less snow. I think the extensive snowmaking efforts at resorts has been a recent development in response to this trend. The ones that didn't do it, who were able to survive in the past on natural snow, are no longer with us.

 

[DayTrip]

Fast and light hiking seems to be far more popular. Heck some folks are trail running presi traverses in winter. I remember a local climbing guide that specialized in wInter Presi Traverses. It was a 3 day trip and one winter he had to cancel out on several due to the forecast being outside his hard and fast limits. Of course,his trips were intended to prep folks for bigger and "badder" trips around the world so he didnt mind challenging weather. The weather can still be major factor but forecasts are much better and recent trail and snow condition reports far better. I seem to remember the comment long ago pre cell phone that a key piece of safety equipment was a dime to use the payphone at the Cog if a crews got into trouble. The base station road my not be plowed but the payphone usually worked. Once Presby got involved, they were plowing the upper baseroad privately via Mt Clinton road for quite a while but the it was behind a locked gate.).

Fast and light is definitely the rage, which I guess is fine now that trails are almost always packed and there are tons of people out there. The pack size I see on most people wouldn't fit my puffy jacket and a water bottle. I feel like a dinosaur walking around with a huge pack nowadays.

 

[DayTrip]

I think a lot of "modern" hikers have little idea how their accomplishments compare to the same trips years ago.

This is so true. So many people now confuse day hiking with being some kind of mountaineering bad ass. I distinctly remember being on the summit of Flume several years ago during Calendar Winter. It was an unusual sunny gorgeous day with temps in the low 40's (or maybe high 30's - it was NICE for late DEC is all I remember). It was packed with people "working the list". I hung out at the summit for about an hour and at one point a group sat next to me plotting out 4ks they could hit while the weather was good and trail conditions were easy. To me that misses the point so much. I was already souring on "lists" at this point and this definitely got me well on the way to thinking the lists aren't much of an accomplishment depending on how you measure it. The degree of variation from person to person for the "same" accomplishment can be pretty wide.

It's different for everyone and everyone's story is different. It's hard to evaluate the "accomplishment" without some context from the people who are doing it and why they are doing it. The one that immediately comes to mind is the recent story someone shared here awhile back about a woman who started the list with her son, then he died and she pushed through and finished the list in honor of him. That is a list full of checkmarks I can appreciate 100%. It has nothing to do with the trails.

On an objective basis, just looking at the individual mountains - the mileage, the vertical , the terrain, the ease of trail access - most peakbagging lists in New Hampshire are not exactly a challenge. And I say that as an overweight guy in his 50's who doesn't exactly go running up and down these peaks. I think the personal growth or reflection or whatever you want to call it is the real source of accomplishment, not the checkmarks on a piece of paper. Its a means to end I guess. It can be a great accomplishment for many, but not because of the technical aspect of it. I think a lot of people try to make it into something it isn't.

 

[DayTrip]

Back in the 70’s base camping was pretty much our de facto style of Winter Peakbagging. Although doing The Presi and Mahoosuc Ranges was better played as a through traverse. Then there was Katahdin with many regulations including a team of a minimum of four, an EMT, and your own provided backup team. The air of self reliance was ever present as Mountain Rescue, Fish and Game, and volunteer SAR was minimum. Also as stated above you were pretty much planning on breaking trail on the way in and more than likely on the way out if it snowed while you were out there. We made a few multi day trips around a week to 10 days I believe around 1978 where we had made food caches in sortie type style efforts. This would be the exception to base camping and would facilitate a more through style. What I miss now is the seclusion that these efforts provided. Glad to have done it when we did as something tells me it’s not coming back.

It seems like the clear consensus I'm picking up in this thread is that "back in the day" base camp summits of peaks with some good old fashioned trail breaking was the common method of working the list. So I guess in keeping with that spirit I'll have to put together a trip or two like that. That will be a pretty radical change to my "get up at 2am, drive 4 hours, climb something, drive home 4 hours" model, which I think is exactly what I was looking for. I guess what we need now is snow....

 

[dug]

As we drift (pun intended) into a snowfall discussion, I haven't been able to find a good example for the Whites, specifically. Instead, by looking at Burlington VT, Portland ME, Albany NY and Boston MA avg per year (broken down by decade) since 1900:

Portland: 73.5, 65, 70.8, 71.6, 65, 74, 80.6, 75, 58.5, 59.1, 66.7, 78.2 (Snowiest in the 60's, least in the 80's)
Burlington: 59.3, 69.5, 62.1, 61.3, 59.6, 75, 79, 92.2, 71.6, 88.4, 91.9, 82.7 (Snowiest in the 70's, least in the 1900's)
Albany: 49.8, 43.7, 43.7, 43.2, 55.9, 59.7, 67.1, 69.4, 62, 60.3, 60.6, 58 (Snowiest in the 70's, least in the 30's)
Boston: 41, 42.7, 36, 36.9, 43.3, 37.3, 50.2, 41, 35.4, 48.2, 46.8, 54.9 (Snowiest in the 2010's, least in the 80's)

 

[peakbagger]

Speaking of basecamping, the vast majority of folks doing 4 ks did it as a group. Especially with breaking trail and that included basecamping. The odds of a successful summit usually went up as the number of folks increased. Sure some folks soled like Guy Waterman but most did it as a group. The two times I did Isolation in the winter I was in a group of four, while the one time I got skunked was with one other person. It all came down to being able to swap off breaking trail.

 

[TCD]

I know in the Adirondacks, things are definitely easier now than in the 1980's. Many herd paths have been adopted, and are now marked and have at least a little maintenance. Routes to all the peaks are well trodden in both summer and winter, and easy to follow. Even as recently as the mid 80s, when we did our first Adirondack 46 round, there was considerable route finding, and very skinny paths that often had not been trod in a while.

Separately, regarding the snow amounts, thanks dug for that info. That might be worthy of its own discussion.

 

[OldEric]

I completed my NH winter 4K's (46 at the time) in 1972. All on wooden snowshoes (quite some time until Sherpas appeared). No "spikes" of course. On the rare occasion (thaw/freeze) you might need them we used full fledged crampons. One practice that was somewhat common then was to to a recon trip in the fall to "flag" the route you were going to try in winter.

 

[skiguy]

Yikes…I hope that was figurative and not literal.

 

[maineguy]

It's literal. Additionally, hikers used to leave flagging tape as they progressed up the mountain so that they could find their way back. This was done mostly on trailless NE 100 peaks I believe. Gene Daniel used to call this the "Hansel and Gretel method" and threatened to dissolve the list (NE 100) if it didn't stop.

 

[DayTrip]

It's literal. Additionally, hikers used to leave flagging tape as they progressed up the mountain so that they could find their way back. This was done mostly on trailless NE 100 peaks I believe. Gene Daniel used to call this the "Hansel and Gretel method" and threatened to dissolve the list (NE 100) if it didn't stop.

Isn't that pretty much the same as putting wands on a route above tree line? I don't see the problem with this provided you clean up your flagging as you retrace your steps. I take it most people did not do that? Did they literally flag the entire route from car to summit or was it just in tough areas, i.e. like the flagging at tree line on Lion's Head or Boott Spur?

 

[TEO]

Isn't that pretty much the same as putting wands on a route above tree line? I don't see the problem with this provided you clean up your flagging as you retrace your steps. I take it most people did not do that? Did they literally flag the entire route from car to summit or was it just in tough areas, i.e. like the flagging at tree line on Lion's Head or Boott Spur?

A) Flagging below treeline here in the Northeast is unnecessary.

B) It invariably gets left behind.

C) It can lead to the formation of herd paths much more quickly.

D) It's littering

Speaking of wanding, a number of years ago I found a half dozen or so wands—tomato stakes with surveyor's tape—on the trail between Noonmark and Round while on a spring hike.