Bob finishes his winter 4’s—again March 15, 2009
Posted by Jenny in White Mountains, hiking.Tags: 4000 Footers, AMC, Mt. Eisenhower, White Mountains, winter hiking
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Victorious Bob on Mt. Eisenhower
On January 5, 2008, Bob and I reached the summit of Mt. Monroe. Hurray!—or so we said to ourselves at the time. That was the 48th and final 4000 footer that we had climbed in winter, which is strictly defined by the AMC Four Thousand Footer Committee as the period between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It wasn’t until last fall that we got around to sending in the paperwork in which you list each climb with the date and a few comments.
But we got back a regretful response saying that Bob’s climb of Eisenhower, which had occurred on December 21, 1997, did not qualify, since the solstice did not occur until 3:07 p.m. that day, and we had completed our hike by then. Well, at least it’s nice to know that these things are taken seriously! (I had already climbed Eisenhower in winter back in the pre-Bob era of my life.)
So all through this winter, I kept saying to Bob, “Hey, maybe we ought to go climb Eisenhower,” and then either the weather would be bad, or he would want to going XC skiing instead, or something…we planned it for President’s Day weekend, but he was recovering from a bad cold and I was getting the first twinges and sneezes that showed that the cold was soon to be mine.
So it all came down to this weekend. The weather had to be decent…and it was! We went up the Crawford Path past Mt. Pierce, and on to Eisenhower. A beautiful sunny day, temps probably in the upper teens up on the ridge, winds in the 40 mph range. We used face protection when heading into the wind, but much of the time we enjoyed the reflected warmth off the bright sunny snow. Above treeline the conditions were a combination of thin snow and ice, and crampons were the weapon of choice. Back into the realm of the mountain gods!
Looking toward Mt. Washington from Eisenhower
I reach the summit of a non-mountain February 28, 2009
Posted by Jenny in White Mountains, hiking.Tags: Falling Waters trail, Franconia Ridge, Little Haystack, White Mountains, winter hiking
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I was hiding from the north wind behind the rock in the foreground. Lincoln is in the background.
(The pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.)
I climbed a non-mountain today, Little Haystack on Franconia Ridge, elev. 4760′. When I arrived around noon, it was windy enough that I had trouble keeping my balance during the gusts, though I could see that it could be done with a little persistence—a group of three guys were making their way along the ridge toward Lincoln (elev. 5089′). But I’ve already done all of the winter NH 4000 footers, so I wasn’t motivated enough to go any further. (Little Haystack is considered a shoulder of Lincoln rather than a mountain in itself, because there is only a 100′ drop between them.)
We’re getting now to the point in winter when the sun starts shining very powerfully on all that white and blue terrain, so that it looks frigid but feels warm at the same time, somehow. I had a beautiful climb up the Falling Waters trail. It was well packed down by snowshoers who had probably gone up on Wednesday (the last good hiking day we had). I carried my snowshoes and my crampons but ended up only using my microspikes, which are great for going up steep stretches of packed-down snow.
All of the waterfalls along the trail were hidden under a lot of snow, but every now and then you could see gaps in the thick cushion of white where the water underneath showed through.
This waterfall had a porthole where you could see the water behind the snow
I took another picture that got fogged somehow at the top, but I still like it, looking up at the morning sun through a grove of spruce.
A frozen waterfall that flows in from one of the tributary streams
Near the end of my hike, I found some rocks that had perfect pillows of soft, fresh white snow on top of them. I was reminded of that thing that happens in snowfall, which children notice but we start to take for granted after a while, when each object has its own snow cap on it that seems carefully tailored to fit the shape of the object.
Plump snow pillows
New! Improved! With scanned images! February 26, 2009
Posted by Jenny in White Mountains, bushwhacking, hiking.Tags: 4000 Footers, Mt. Garfield, winter hiking
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Bob on Mt. Garfield, March 15, 1995
I know everyone visiting my blog has been scratching his or her head and wondering, “When is Jenny going to get a scanner?” Well, it has finally happened. Don’t get your hopes up too much, though—I’ve never been much of a photographer, and many exciting and wonderful adventures went unrecorded. But I’ll be updating some of my old posts with a few pix!
This photo commemorates the fun and totally unnecessary bushwhack that Bob and I did up to Garfield, a mountain that has a perfectly good trail on it. Note the plastic boots, gaiters, and Hawaiian shorts. (By the way, you would hardly guess it from the photo, but the snow was really deep on the way up. We went up a tributary of the North Branch of the Gale River and hit the Garfield Ridge Trail around 4000′.)
