NH_Mtn_Hiker
New member
Hamtero, Suebiscuit and I met at the East Pond Trail parking area at 8:00. At about 8:15 we headed out up the East Pond Trail towards the first brook crossing with our snowshoes and crampons strapped to our packs. At the crossing there is a sign indicating that the trail crosses Pine Brook here. The sign is necessary because there is a well worn herd path up the left side of the brook leading to several back country campsites...and the base of the Osceola Slide.
We proceded up the herdpath, which ended in the middle of Pine Brook where it appeared someone had fallen through the ice into about 18" of water. Evidently, whoever went through the ice went back out the same way they came in. We cautiously crossed the brook and continued our bushwhack up the other side crossing the brook and it's tributaties several more times. At one point we consulted the altimeter and map to determine whether a brook coming in from the right was a tributary or not.
We reached the "debris wall" just after 9:00, just beyond it, the base of the slide comes in on the right. To my surprise the slide had a brook running down the center of it which hadn't been there last summer. When Dugan and I hiked this last summer some of the ledges were wet, but the bulk of the slide was dry. The three of us crossed the slide and bushwhacked a few hundred feet up the left side until the slide widened some and we were able to move onto the slide and continue barebooting up along side the brook.
The Slide is about 1.5-2.0 miles long, it's width varies from 50-200 feet, and it makes several turns along it's way towards the summit of Mt. Osceola. The conditions on the lower part of the slide were snow over ice, rocks, and blowdowns with the slope averaging about 7 degrees. In some places we had to knock the snow off the blowdowns so we could avoid falling between them. Except for a short icy section, which we donned our crampons for, we barebooted from the trailhead to about half-way up the slide where the larger ledges begin.
When we arrived at the ledges it became apparent that this was going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. The slide had gone from mostly snow to mostly ice and in some places the sides of the slide were steeper than the ledges, so bushwhacking around the difficult ledges wasn't going to be easy.
The ledges were mostly 6-40 feet high with slopes of about 30-60 degrees. Between the ledges the slope was only about 10 degrees, which gave us a much needed rest before tackling the next ledge. The ice in most places was fairly soft and provided our crampons and ice axes with a good bite, there were a couple of places where we ran into the dreaded "tempered ice". The first spot like this I came to was near the top of a 40' climb. My axe just bounced off the ice and my crampons had very little bite. To say I was scared would be...ummm, correct. Panic started to overtake me, realizing what it was and that this was no place for it, I pushed the panic aside and took another step...then another. A few minutes later I was on the flats above the ledge, and much relieved. The rest of the climb up the slide went a little easier. From the turn above the ledges it's a straight shot to the top of the slide at about 25 degrees with mostly packed snow and moderate ice with some bare rock in places.
Across the top of the slide is a snow drift about 30 feet wide and 12+ feet deep. The snow drift is large enough to consume the trees at the top of the slide...and any unweary hikers that ventured into it. There were spruce traps under the spruce traps. After falling into one such trap I remember looking over at Suebiscuit's knees...and her and Hamtero were both chest deep in snow. I looked down under my snowshoes and there was nothing but a dark void beneath them. After getting out of that mess, Hamtero, the human snow plow, opened up a path for us towards the summit. After a while I took over the lead and after about 45 minutes of bushwhacking we reached the Mt. Osceola Trail about 500 feet west of the summit.
The hike from the parking lot to the top of Mt. Osceola took 4 hrs. 45 mins. We took a short break at the summit of Mt. Osceola admiring the fantastic views of the clouds at close range, that was about all we could see. Then we moved on towards East Peak. There were several blowdowns between the peaks as well as some areas of windblown snow and snow drifts, all of which made following the trail a little difficult at times...but we managed. The steep section a few hundred feet above the chimney made for some fun snowshoe sking and provided us with a few laughs. Heli-turns proved to be too difficult so we just bounced off the trees. The chimney by-pass was easy enough and when we finally reached the East Peak we were thankful that the up-hills were done for the day.
After leaving East Peak we proceded towards the ridgetop area where the trail makes a sharp right turn then descends steeply towards the Greeley Ponds Trail. At this point we debated whether to go out by way of the trails, (the wimpy route), or bushwhack down the west side of the ridge into Pine Brook Ravine then out along the brook to the base of the slide where we could pick up our tracks from that morning and follow them out, (the non-wimpy route). We decided on the "non-wimpy" route and Suebiscuit started down through the thick trees towards Pine Brook. The slope here is very steep, about 25 degrees, and the upper half is very thick with medium sized trees and blowdowns. There was about 4-6 inches of powder over a icy crust which made traversing the slope nearly impossible. We half-slid half-walked down the steep slope swapping the lead a few times until we reached the Pine Brook.
We arrived at the brook much further upstream than I had desired. The sides of the ravine were much steeper this far upstream and there were tons of blowdowns to work around. We rock hopped downstream, bushwhacking along the brook where we could. As we got further downstream we were able to bushwhack more and more. At one point while rock hopping in the brook, I stepped down about 18" off of a rock onto the ice, Suebiscuit stepped down to my left, and Hamtero was about 10' behind us. As I stood there on the ice I said to Sue, "That ice in front of us looks a little thin." I had no more gotten the words out of my mouth when the ice beneath my feet gave way and I dropped into knee deep water. As my right snowshoe hit the bottom my left was caught on the edge of the unbroken ice. This threw me off balance. In order to keep from falling sideways into the water and to get my feet out as fast as possible I threw myself forward onto the unbroken ice in front of me. This would either allow me to pull my feet out of the water fairly quickly or...I was going to get very wet. As I hit the ice I attempted to spread my weight out across it as much as possible...The ice held and I lifted my feet out of the water. I then pulled myself along on the ice onto some rocks before attempting to stand up. When I stood up I realized a little water had gotten past my gaitor and shell pants and into my right boot. While this was going on Suebiscuit had also gone through the ice and gotten water in one of her boots.
Since it was about 25 degrees out this wasn't a serious problem as long as we kept moving and remained uninjured. Shortly after this we proceded up onto the ridge between the slide and the brook. The terrain up here was smoother and much more open, allowing us to move quicker with less chance of getting hurt on a rock or blowdown than next to the brook. About an hour after the water incident we reached the junction of the slide and the brook. Here we found our earlier tracks and followed them back to the East Pond Trail. On the way out on the trail we passed three other hikers with an excited dog. They were the only people we saw all day. After the hike we went to Truant's in North Woodstock for a well deserved post-hike dinner.
My pics are here.
We proceded up the herdpath, which ended in the middle of Pine Brook where it appeared someone had fallen through the ice into about 18" of water. Evidently, whoever went through the ice went back out the same way they came in. We cautiously crossed the brook and continued our bushwhack up the other side crossing the brook and it's tributaties several more times. At one point we consulted the altimeter and map to determine whether a brook coming in from the right was a tributary or not.
We reached the "debris wall" just after 9:00, just beyond it, the base of the slide comes in on the right. To my surprise the slide had a brook running down the center of it which hadn't been there last summer. When Dugan and I hiked this last summer some of the ledges were wet, but the bulk of the slide was dry. The three of us crossed the slide and bushwhacked a few hundred feet up the left side until the slide widened some and we were able to move onto the slide and continue barebooting up along side the brook.
The Slide is about 1.5-2.0 miles long, it's width varies from 50-200 feet, and it makes several turns along it's way towards the summit of Mt. Osceola. The conditions on the lower part of the slide were snow over ice, rocks, and blowdowns with the slope averaging about 7 degrees. In some places we had to knock the snow off the blowdowns so we could avoid falling between them. Except for a short icy section, which we donned our crampons for, we barebooted from the trailhead to about half-way up the slide where the larger ledges begin.
When we arrived at the ledges it became apparent that this was going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. The slide had gone from mostly snow to mostly ice and in some places the sides of the slide were steeper than the ledges, so bushwhacking around the difficult ledges wasn't going to be easy.
The ledges were mostly 6-40 feet high with slopes of about 30-60 degrees. Between the ledges the slope was only about 10 degrees, which gave us a much needed rest before tackling the next ledge. The ice in most places was fairly soft and provided our crampons and ice axes with a good bite, there were a couple of places where we ran into the dreaded "tempered ice". The first spot like this I came to was near the top of a 40' climb. My axe just bounced off the ice and my crampons had very little bite. To say I was scared would be...ummm, correct. Panic started to overtake me, realizing what it was and that this was no place for it, I pushed the panic aside and took another step...then another. A few minutes later I was on the flats above the ledge, and much relieved. The rest of the climb up the slide went a little easier. From the turn above the ledges it's a straight shot to the top of the slide at about 25 degrees with mostly packed snow and moderate ice with some bare rock in places.
Across the top of the slide is a snow drift about 30 feet wide and 12+ feet deep. The snow drift is large enough to consume the trees at the top of the slide...and any unweary hikers that ventured into it. There were spruce traps under the spruce traps. After falling into one such trap I remember looking over at Suebiscuit's knees...and her and Hamtero were both chest deep in snow. I looked down under my snowshoes and there was nothing but a dark void beneath them. After getting out of that mess, Hamtero, the human snow plow, opened up a path for us towards the summit. After a while I took over the lead and after about 45 minutes of bushwhacking we reached the Mt. Osceola Trail about 500 feet west of the summit.
The hike from the parking lot to the top of Mt. Osceola took 4 hrs. 45 mins. We took a short break at the summit of Mt. Osceola admiring the fantastic views of the clouds at close range, that was about all we could see. Then we moved on towards East Peak. There were several blowdowns between the peaks as well as some areas of windblown snow and snow drifts, all of which made following the trail a little difficult at times...but we managed. The steep section a few hundred feet above the chimney made for some fun snowshoe sking and provided us with a few laughs. Heli-turns proved to be too difficult so we just bounced off the trees. The chimney by-pass was easy enough and when we finally reached the East Peak we were thankful that the up-hills were done for the day.
After leaving East Peak we proceded towards the ridgetop area where the trail makes a sharp right turn then descends steeply towards the Greeley Ponds Trail. At this point we debated whether to go out by way of the trails, (the wimpy route), or bushwhack down the west side of the ridge into Pine Brook Ravine then out along the brook to the base of the slide where we could pick up our tracks from that morning and follow them out, (the non-wimpy route). We decided on the "non-wimpy" route and Suebiscuit started down through the thick trees towards Pine Brook. The slope here is very steep, about 25 degrees, and the upper half is very thick with medium sized trees and blowdowns. There was about 4-6 inches of powder over a icy crust which made traversing the slope nearly impossible. We half-slid half-walked down the steep slope swapping the lead a few times until we reached the Pine Brook.
We arrived at the brook much further upstream than I had desired. The sides of the ravine were much steeper this far upstream and there were tons of blowdowns to work around. We rock hopped downstream, bushwhacking along the brook where we could. As we got further downstream we were able to bushwhack more and more. At one point while rock hopping in the brook, I stepped down about 18" off of a rock onto the ice, Suebiscuit stepped down to my left, and Hamtero was about 10' behind us. As I stood there on the ice I said to Sue, "That ice in front of us looks a little thin." I had no more gotten the words out of my mouth when the ice beneath my feet gave way and I dropped into knee deep water. As my right snowshoe hit the bottom my left was caught on the edge of the unbroken ice. This threw me off balance. In order to keep from falling sideways into the water and to get my feet out as fast as possible I threw myself forward onto the unbroken ice in front of me. This would either allow me to pull my feet out of the water fairly quickly or...I was going to get very wet. As I hit the ice I attempted to spread my weight out across it as much as possible...The ice held and I lifted my feet out of the water. I then pulled myself along on the ice onto some rocks before attempting to stand up. When I stood up I realized a little water had gotten past my gaitor and shell pants and into my right boot. While this was going on Suebiscuit had also gone through the ice and gotten water in one of her boots.
Since it was about 25 degrees out this wasn't a serious problem as long as we kept moving and remained uninjured. Shortly after this we proceded up onto the ridge between the slide and the brook. The terrain up here was smoother and much more open, allowing us to move quicker with less chance of getting hurt on a rock or blowdown than next to the brook. About an hour after the water incident we reached the junction of the slide and the brook. Here we found our earlier tracks and followed them back to the East Pond Trail. On the way out on the trail we passed three other hikers with an excited dog. They were the only people we saw all day. After the hike we went to Truant's in North Woodstock for a well deserved post-hike dinner.
My pics are here.
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