bryan
New member
date: 12/13/11
trails: snowmobile trail, haystack road, north twin trail, north twin spur, twinway, bondcliff trail, west bond spur, lincoln woods trail
conditions: parked at the end of little river road and hiked in from there on the snowmobile trail and haystack road. 2-4 inches of snow that had been previously tracked. north twin trail had seen some light travel and we followed one set of tracks in increasingly deep snow up to north twin. 8-10 inches up high on north twin and roughly the same though much more tracked out heading to south twin. the snow coverage continued on the twinway though was quite bony descending south twin. some deeper drifts around guyot then probably 6 inches on average over the bonds though from the bond/bondcliff col to bondcliff there little snow or ice. the scramble on bondcliff was mostly free of snow and depths diminished from there with some ice mixed in. a fair amount of mud, wet and bareground lower. light snow and ice coverage once on the old wilderness trail section slowly giving way to clear ground and once on lincoln woods trail there was little or none to speak of.
crossing of the little river was interesting. best for us was on rocks just up river of large downed tree using tree as a railing. the black brook crossings on bondcliff trail were not a problem.
equipment: used microspikes for most of the day. they came off briefly between bond and bondcliff and then off for good once the snow/ice petered out on lower bondcliff trail. a couple sections where snowshoes would be good, but probably not enough to justify carrying them at this point.
comments: great traverse. perfect blue skies this morning gave way to interesting and continually lowering clouds for the remainder of the hike. winds were pretty friendly or non-existent up high. pretty tiring slogging through the snow at times. for the most part there wasn't quite enough coverage for snowshoes, but often enough snow to make booting it difficult. we had hoped to get over and back to zealand as well, but scrapped the idea given the somewhat slow conditions. hadn't done this traverse since my first time on these peaks years ago. a nice alternative to the zealand-bonds route. thanks to cynthia for a nice day.
bryan
[email protected]
trails: snowmobile trail, haystack road, north twin trail, north twin spur, twinway, bondcliff trail, west bond spur, lincoln woods trail
conditions: parked at the end of little river road and hiked in from there on the snowmobile trail and haystack road. 2-4 inches of snow that had been previously tracked. north twin trail had seen some light travel and we followed one set of tracks in increasingly deep snow up to north twin. 8-10 inches up high on north twin and roughly the same though much more tracked out heading to south twin. the snow coverage continued on the twinway though was quite bony descending south twin. some deeper drifts around guyot then probably 6 inches on average over the bonds though from the bond/bondcliff col to bondcliff there little snow or ice. the scramble on bondcliff was mostly free of snow and depths diminished from there with some ice mixed in. a fair amount of mud, wet and bareground lower. light snow and ice coverage once on the old wilderness trail section slowly giving way to clear ground and once on lincoln woods trail there was little or none to speak of.
crossing of the little river was interesting. best for us was on rocks just up river of large downed tree using tree as a railing. the black brook crossings on bondcliff trail were not a problem.
equipment: used microspikes for most of the day. they came off briefly between bond and bondcliff and then off for good once the snow/ice petered out on lower bondcliff trail. a couple sections where snowshoes would be good, but probably not enough to justify carrying them at this point.
comments: great traverse. perfect blue skies this morning gave way to interesting and continually lowering clouds for the remainder of the hike. winds were pretty friendly or non-existent up high. pretty tiring slogging through the snow at times. for the most part there wasn't quite enough coverage for snowshoes, but often enough snow to make booting it difficult. we had hoped to get over and back to zealand as well, but scrapped the idea given the somewhat slow conditions. hadn't done this traverse since my first time on these peaks years ago. a nice alternative to the zealand-bonds route. thanks to cynthia for a nice day.
bryan
[email protected]
