bryan
New member
date: 2/26/12
trails: west mountain ski trail, timberline ski trail, sugarloaf side trail, appalachian trail, spaulding side trail
conditions: parked below the west mountain lift by the golf course. had no issues using the ski trails. some people talk about checking in with ski patrol at the summit, but with the summit lift closed, presumably due to winds, there was no one up there today. ski trails mostly groomed, but upper timberline was not and was somewhat windblown and crusty. hard snow, ice and bare rock around the summit area. in order to escape the wind i dropped more directly down off the back side of the peak and missed the proper entry into the side trail. after a short bushwack i picked it up (corrected on the return) and started working through the new snow filling the trail. there was clearly still a solid base underneath, but on average over a foot of new or blown snow in the trail with many deeper drifted sections. depth increased along the a.t. and in particular on the ascent of spaulding with lots of knee deep snow and a couple waist deep wallows. filled in deep on the spaulding side trail as well. route is now broken out, but far from packed down and drifting will likely fill some sections right back in.
equipment: wore snowshoes the whole hike. went with msr extension tails once on the a.t.
comments: nice, but challenging day. early hopes of getting all the way to abraham were put aside due to trail conditions and high winds in the open. i had a tough time just getting to the sugarloaf summit proper in the morning and was being blown around on the ski trails even before the open summit. despite the wind and cold it was a stunningly beautiful day with far reaching views all the way to washington and i'm pretty sure i could pick out kathadin in the distance as well. nice to get back to these peaks after a number of years. great to be out.
bryan
[email protected]
trails: west mountain ski trail, timberline ski trail, sugarloaf side trail, appalachian trail, spaulding side trail
conditions: parked below the west mountain lift by the golf course. had no issues using the ski trails. some people talk about checking in with ski patrol at the summit, but with the summit lift closed, presumably due to winds, there was no one up there today. ski trails mostly groomed, but upper timberline was not and was somewhat windblown and crusty. hard snow, ice and bare rock around the summit area. in order to escape the wind i dropped more directly down off the back side of the peak and missed the proper entry into the side trail. after a short bushwack i picked it up (corrected on the return) and started working through the new snow filling the trail. there was clearly still a solid base underneath, but on average over a foot of new or blown snow in the trail with many deeper drifted sections. depth increased along the a.t. and in particular on the ascent of spaulding with lots of knee deep snow and a couple waist deep wallows. filled in deep on the spaulding side trail as well. route is now broken out, but far from packed down and drifting will likely fill some sections right back in.
equipment: wore snowshoes the whole hike. went with msr extension tails once on the a.t.
comments: nice, but challenging day. early hopes of getting all the way to abraham were put aside due to trail conditions and high winds in the open. i had a tough time just getting to the sugarloaf summit proper in the morning and was being blown around on the ski trails even before the open summit. despite the wind and cold it was a stunningly beautiful day with far reaching views all the way to washington and i'm pretty sure i could pick out kathadin in the distance as well. nice to get back to these peaks after a number of years. great to be out.
bryan
[email protected]
