Peaks of Sun

It is the beginning of the end of skiing on the northeast's highest peak. May is Mt. Washington's sunniest month. In May you might get seven days without any fog. Even during this brightest month, better than half the days have measurable precipitation. Over the past six days the fog has been unrelenting. That's one-hundred percent humidity, one-hundred percent of the time, and getting wetter. Half-a-foot of rain has fallen and the skiing in Tuckerman has fallen apart; runouts are without snow, runs are crevassed and undermined with moving water, huge chunks of hanging ice break free and cartwheel down the headwall.

Phil is driving us up the hill today. Some people call this slacking. So be it. We are trying to sort out  a puzzling weather situation, its meaning concealed in the morning Obs forecast for "peaks of sun". Not until George at the Auto Road tollhouse sent us off with a promise of sunny skies ahead did we get it. By 3500', we were on a sunny peak rising above a cloud-filled valley.

top of Airplane looking toward the Northern Peaks

Airplane and Mt. Clay

For years we've enjoyed the Great Gulf headwall for reliable, late-season skiing, but it's been only since the early '90s that its signature run has been called Airplane. Gully #3 was renamed one October night in 1990 when a Texas pilot slammed his Cessna into the Clay-Mt.Washington col, littering the gully with debris. Airplane Gully drops in from the Appalachian Trail alongside Spacewalk, Turkey Chute, Pipeline, Hallway, and Activator.

A long traverse away, another Airplane Gully runs into Oakes Gulf below Mt. Monroe where 2 Santa Clauses and their pilot met their end in a 1969 crash en route to a Vermont shopping center gig.  There's an exhibit of local mountain artifacts that moves informally through the A.M.C. high-country huts that features a six-foot propeller rumored to come from one wreck or the other.

Mid-day, back at the road, auto-borne pilgrims were showing up in droves to worship the glowing orb still hidden from the valley. We'd already skied a couple thousand vertical feet of perfect corn in Airplane. We rubbed elbows with the prolific authors of the popular back-country skiing blog "TFT": icelandic (this season-fifty days and 1/4 million vertical feet), jshefftz (who skied a sketchy Hallway that day), sfmornay, lftgly, castlerock (from Mad River), and more. There were quite a few local guys with real names whom we actually know.

buried powerline by Jacob's Ladder. summer photo

The Gulfside Trail and the underground power line lead back to car. After the summit generator was destroyed in a 2003 fire, the state appropriated $2.5 million to trench and backfill 3.5 miles of power and fiber optic cable down the west side to the base of the mountain.



                           
    photo by Bill Hemmel and AerialphotoNH.com

Phil on the power  line. call DIG-SAFE

  

Easements were negotiated with the Cog and by Fall, 2007, White Mt. Communications Co. of Randolph had finished up work burying the cable and there was a new travel surface for skiers, hikers and a few intrepid MTB riders. Can't say I miss the din of the old summit power plant in consort with train whistles, cars, motorcycles, and thousands of summer visitors. Backpackers will miss warming up under the the power plant exhaust vents.
video of the project

                                                    

Alpine Garden and the Wildcat range

After a forty minute hike and tailgate snack we found a slightly different scene at the East Snowfield. Over there the buzz resembled a private beach club. There were little kids everywhere playing on the shore. Moms chatted, restlessly watching their youngsters climb around the rocks. Played-out dogs cooled themselves in tidal pools of snow while Dads led their sons out through the shoals to deeper, smoother waters. They'd quickly slip beyond the horizon, still within the protective confines of the reef that is the Alpine Garden. Taking it all in, it was hard to find a place for my pack. There was stuff strewn all over the place, left high on the rocks by the ebbing tide: coolers, lawn chairs, cast-off clothing, tote bags, and water bottles.

Skier climbing against the tide. Top of the East

We took a quick dip and called it a day. A really good day.

link to video: Phil in Airplane

Skiing Down East

May 8, 1983, the Red Sox had the best record in the American League and Jim Rice was on a pace to hit 39 home runs. It was about that time I'd arranged to meet my brother-in-law at the Glen House for a day of skiing. Most Vermonters will travel east to ski Mt. Washington in April. Scott makes the trip every May.

 

Scott, far right. Tuckerman headwall. May 1981

                                                    Anne Getchell photo

A beautiful girl driving a Jaguar dropped him off, we rode the back of a pick-up to 5-Mile where we got a tow to 6-Mile from a bull-dozer working the cragway drift. We had a blast in the Great Gulf that day, having no idea the Sox would take a slide in June that made the Great Gulf look like a bunny hill. They finished the season next to last in the AL East.



Twenty-eight years later, May 8, 2011, the Red Sox are clawing their way out of the cellar. 6:30, Sunday morning, Scott answered my wake-up call in a Bartlett motel and met me at the Glen forty-five minutes later. He was eastbound to a job on Monhegan Island and along with his tools, he had a pile of World Cup race skis under a tarp in the back of his 1-ton. The skis were barter in a lumber deal he'd just made with Body Miller's uncle over in Franconia. Scott is a building-mover and has accumulated an impressive inventory of salvaged lumber and pedigree skis. He wore his customary steel-toed workboots, chore jacket, cotton hoodie and rigged his pack for a day on the mountain: skis, boots, a pocket full of raisens, and a little water would do.

Scott, summit cone. Mt. Washington 2011

At dawn the summit temperature was 30, north winds, and clear. Low pressure was moving up the coast and the NWS was calling for increasing clouds and showers by afternoon. By 8:30 we dropped our ride at Cutoff and began our hike under a little patch of blue. There were black clouds high over the Androscoggin Valley dropping shafts of rain not quite reaching the ground.

Nelson Guildersleeve's essay, "Mt. Washington Skiing in 1967 - The Year of All Winter and No Spring"  describes Great Gulf as "a magnificent and infrequently skied area." A federal wilderness area, the Great Gulf is still magnificant, and it has become very popular. The ski runs, formerly known as gullies 1 through 4, now have clever, figurative names: Turkey Chute, Spacewalk, Airplane, and Pipeline. If the weather cleared, we'd head there. Beyond there and ignored for years are two more runs, Hallway and Activator.

When we checked in at the base, the road manager shared a story about a hiker rescued from hypothermia on the mountain two days prior. Once down, the fellow disappeared without explanation. Now the authorities were trying to reckon with an abandoned tent found yesterday on the Cow Pasture tundra. When we got there, the mystery tent was still flapping in the breeze, filled with snow. If not the hypothermic guy's tent, might it belong to someone else in trouble?

An invesigation of the 7-mile Field scuttled a plan for those early turns, so we ambled on above Cow Pasture by the Great Gulf. The GG headwall was showing a boot ladder in Airplane Gully and some old turns on lower Activator, Pipeline, and Hallway, but no skiers today. The day's weather outlook would eventually put the kaibosh on going over there.

Skiing the East Fields

The "Easties" are the most reliable snowfields on the summit cone, the upshot of a snow-transport system powered by prevailing northwest winds. It's the same dynamic that loads the Tuckerman Ravine headwall, transfroming that cliff face into something many consider the ultimte run on the mountain, if not the entire Appalachian chain. Unlike the Tuck headwall, the East Fields are friendly-steep at about 30 degrees for 650 vertical feet.




Sugar-coated danishtla which
rolled down the East Field.

There are quite a few faux-Eskimo words for snow that have achieved mythical status. The irreverent lexicon goes something like this: tla (regular snow), pactla (packed snow), buftla (groomed snow)...ad infinitum. Today the East had a mix of shmutsiktlana, a Yiddish-Inuit poly-synthesis for dirty snow, and suctla, pockets of fresh, grab'n go snow. 

Scott obligingly put in the boot ladder which more than paid for his ride half-way up the mountain. Our  falline descents from the top rung of the climb ended midway along the Alpine Garden. We had the place to ourselves for the entire day.

The Alpine garden is a mile-high plateau and a small portion of what was an extensive mezozoic era tableland called the Presidential Upland. By mid-June, it is thirty acres of colorful tundra covered in thick carpets of tiny alpine flowers. Tarry here, you might find a cranberry snack (they're best after a good freeze), amethyst crystals, or the first maritime fossil to prove the Presidential Upland was once the mudflat of an ancient inland sea.   

boot toes, East Field, Alpine Garden, Wildcat, Maine

Swinging down the falline, lane changing left and left again leads to the Northeast Snowfield. This line will funnel into a long tongue of snow that pokes through parallel lobes of rock scraps. It pitches gently and narrows as it reaches for the rim of Huntington Ravine, never quite getting there. It's a good connection to the bottom of the Seven Mile Snowfield. We exited this way, walked 500' to the base of 7 Mile Field, climbed it, skied it, and climbed it again to Cow pasture for the road down.
 
Five-o-clock, we were walking pavement. The morning's virga hanging over the Andro Valley was long gone, and the outline of Saddleback, Sugarloaf, and Abraham was low on the horizon. We were just done skid-shuffling a few hundred feet of snow through the cutoff, cheating the dreaded posthole, when around a corner and 200' east of the path was an ancient wall. It was crusty with lichen, plainly laid up a long time ago. Was it evidence of another abandoned struggle with the weather? We were likely near the old bridal path used by Dr. Ball in 1855 when he became hopelessly lost, spending two nights out under his umbrella in an October snowstorm. I'll get back to the wall this summer. Ten more minutes, we picked up our ride; happy, tired, not a storm in sight.

slate-colored junco. Happy Mother's Day Mom.

Once, Twice, Thrice, Chutes

Saturday May 7, 2011
Opening Day, Auto Road

Here’s a quote from the Obs forecast today: “Springtime showers and thunderstorms [sic] with the possibility of small hail and gusty winds.”

It’s 6 AM. and the angel on my shoulder is saying, “Paul, you might want to stay out of high, exposed places today.”  From my other shoulder, the little cloven hoofed guy with the trident takes over.
“Eh Bucko, if you don’t like the weather forecast, look out the window.”
I look outside. Not a cloud in the sky. The day is not in plain sight but I’m imagining brilliant snow and crisp shadows. The image suggests the smell of sunscreen. Now, I’d prefer the funk of a long-dead fish to the smell of that stuff, so I’ll just put on a Gilligan hat and cover up with zinc oxide.

A web-cam view of Mt. Washington confirmed the all-clear so I called Phil, loaded the Outback, and picked him up. We planned to drive to Winter Cutoff, hike it, then recon the ski terrain along 6 mile grade. We’d be well positioned to go higher if fair weather prevailed. At 8:30 we hid the car at the Ess turn just above Winter Cut-Off parking lot, which is the end of the line for tourists driving up today. The hike up Cut-Off was in sneakers with AT gear on our backs.


Around 1952, the Air Force was testing jet engines on the summit and employed upward of forty men there. They built Winter Cut-Off as a shortcut for wintertime access. (F.A. Burt–The Story of Mount Washington). The Cut-Off was a concession to impassable snowdrifts on the 5 mile grade. The rough, graded way runs through krumholtz and tundra from the Auto Road 4 ½ mile mark to the 6th milepost. It is mostly exposed to northwest winds, but catches enough snow for good skiing if timed right. See  "Skiing the Cutoff"  in April, 2007.

Lee Vincent tells about how equipment-operator Phil Labbe was avalanched while traveling the Cut-Off in his crawler near a place they called the Sugar Bowl. He and his passengers shoveled out the machine, turned around, and headed back down. (Vincent-Ten Years on the Rockpile) A battered, retired version of one such taxi is on display in North Conway’s Weather Discovery Center parking lot. For more on Phil Labbe, follow this link to an old Popular Mechanics article, “Taxi Up Misery Mountain”.

We moved quickly along 6 mile grade, wandering off toward the Great Gulf from time to time for pictures and to check out some drainages that might be holding snow.

My Magellan GPS held waypoints for a few snowy traces that I’d gleaned from Google Earth historical imagery. I liked the idea of exploring something low angle and close-by Winter Cut-Off, something less exposed than the higher stuff pictured above. For me, the foreground held convenient possibilities.

Near Hairpin we studied a strip of snow directly below us that disappeared into the Gulf. We knew the classic spots above us were skiable, but weather was closing in, beginning to look just like the forecast. In the 1940s, refuge shelters were placed above treeline every half-mile along the road for storm-bound summit personnel who often had to travel on foot. None are left today. We called retreat, turned around, and headed back.

We stuck to the main road and gave up our sneakers for ski boots at Cragway turn. As if on cue, "Pinkham’s Window" opened; sunshine streamed in, the Northern Peaks came out, and it looked like turning back might have been a mistake. No matter, we skied all possible variations of the 1000' snowfield that is Cragway drift. I won't say we were the first to ski this place, but this terrain is otherwise noteworthy. I reviewed Nick Howe's detailed account of the legendary Dr. Benjamin Ball, "The Man Who Collected Views" (Not Without Peril-2000). Dr. Ball's name is immortalized in a prominent outcropping just below the summit called Ball Crag. With little besides the clothes on his back and an umbrella, the doctor survived three days lost on the mountain in an October snowstorm. By Howe's reckoning, he hunkered down under his umbrella for two nights, right here above Cragway turn on Chandler Ridge. Somewhere under our skis may be an abandoned windbreak of rocks, a discarded snuff tin, or a penknife left behind.



Clearing snow from Cragway is usually a turning point for the road crew during spring opening. For years, road employees hand-shoveled their way through 30' deep of drifted in time for the traditional July 4th arrival of tourists. These days, the drift is pushed away by a Bombardier 250, a big Quebec-built snowcat with a blade as wide as the road itself. By the time we got there, the crew had finished carving the drift all the way down to the entrenched road.








Next we ambled down the five mile grade and dropped into two little chutes I’d been eyeing all winter from the Stage Office in the GGT Lodge.








That finished, we were out of snow. Phil signed off on our vertical and turns as adequate, so we called it a day. Rich was parked across the road in a stage working his way through a book of crossword puzzles when we passed through his road block. Said our good-byes, thank-yous, and came out the bottom around 2:30.



...a few more of Phil's turns

Google Earth Archive Images:
Five Mile Chutes
Hairpin Chutes

G.O.S. and Tin Can Alley

April 30, 2011

Happy Birthday Phil
Glad we could make this trip into G.O.S. today! We arrived early enough to get off-street parking. A passing shower moved in, Phil hiked on ahead, I ducked back in the car and drove back to N. Conway for a Scenic Vista tryst with Anne who handed off my forgotten climbing skins.

9:45 -back on the trail. Sunnier aspects of the middle portion ski trail have lost snow to the Ellis. Tried an active bypass, climber's left just above the 2nd wet stream crossing. Followed this high-relief skin track, stuck to the monorail, until it rejoined the ski trail. May have been suitable, were it not for melt out and lots of hobblebush.

hobblebush

High-tailed it up the south gully just behind Phil. Maybe 2 dozen people in there and reportedly, 1 bear. South and North gully best, Central has a bit of a choke in it, snowfields look sweet, short.


After our runs up high, we chose a little tour over a remarkable trail, which must remain nameless.








The way out: A ski trail to a hiking trail on a mixed surface with mixed nuts, and plenty of walking in ski boots for one day, thank-you.

G.O.S 4-19-11

GOS Tuesday April 19 with Phil  and Ian. These fellows may have eighty years experience of big mountain, back country skiin between them. Summit reported 5" snow previous 48 hrs. Left the base late morning in bright sun, fair weather clouds, middle clouds moving in south and west.

Climbed/skied 1st gully lookers left. Some debate on what to call it. #1? Climbing in baselayers and sweatbands to the ridge. There were foot-deep drifts of fresh, just there, and breezy. Lower down, shallow runnels from either rain or sloughing had trapped a little of the white as well. Covered up, quick takeoff. A hundred feet in, cornucopious!

On the steep, every turn touched off a shallow cascade of silver crumble racing downhill. The crumbly, light as it was, was just sublime. It is firnspiegel, german for snow mirror, the thin layer of clear ice that forms with freezing temps above the surface but penetrating solar radiation that melts the snow beneath the ice. The ice acts like greenhouse glass. When it reflects the sun like a crystal it's called glacial fire. <Mountaineering, Freedom of the Hills, "Cycle of Snow", ed. Ronald English> That stuff reminds me of sea foam, or what my father-in-law called meerschaum. To the french, it may be suggestive of a "palmier", a flakey, puff pastry sprinkled with sugar.

One and done as the sun clouded over around 2 PM. Ski trail was full run but for one bridge crossing. One more warm day, you may clicking out halfa dozen times.

Doggone Skiing Again

My only daughter,  Moose Pond

Pleasant Mountain

Acadia. She's in her golden years, still athletic, but starting to get a little lumpy. No way she'll let me off easy if I drive away without her this afternoon. We're going skiing.

We set out. I'm climbing straight up on alpine touring gear; she's focusing on unseen stimuli with an enviable single-mindedness. After a little exercise-induced chunder, she explores the flotsam and jetsam that litters lift-served ski trails in the spring. She roots through the grainy substrate for emergent snow blooms: rototilled beer cans, empty Acquafinas, ski pole baskets, chapsticks, and candy wrappers. She chews on a stiff mitten, passes up a fresh, tubular turd (that's my girl) for a roll in a stain of bright red machine lubricant.

She’s keen on the cars streaming over the Rte. 302 causeway that crosses Moose Pond. They’re a thousand feet below us, a mile and a quarter away. At this distance, they are scaled down to about the size of chipmunks. Scratch that itch later.

She soaks herself in the cool snow, unimpressed by the slurry of fungus, algae, phytopathogenic bacteria, and diesel residue that is the unintended spring crop when men farm the snow.

When we reach the top, it's in her nature to accept the inevitable 180 degree turn of events. It has been, so far, an idyllic doggie outing, but what she doesn't know is she's about to get a snow sports lesson. Her webbed feet, swim fins in summer, snowshoes in winter, and squatty conformation seem well suited to downhill pursuit. Her strong front end pulls her into the corners, and her fat rump will leave a little schmear at the bottom of every turn. We can live with that.

We follow the area's trademark run, friendly and steep as a cow's face, wide with snow. All the better for admiring our signature from the base parking lot. She's trotting fast on my tail thru a few long turns, but I can tell it's a strain keeping up. I decide to shorten up and increase the cadence. Her normal gait right down the hill will be ok if I keep it slow. Too fast and she'll be in a downhill gallop, ears flying, an eighty-pound, blackrabbit, out of control.

With the setting sun, our narrowing shaft of illuminated terrain is moving. My turns deviate repeatedly from a shadow sideline to a more abrupt border, skier’s right. It's a three-foot drop of misjudgement into highlights of sun in ruddy detritus: scattered pine cones, wintergreen, and blueberry bushes. Wouldn't she like that?

We stop only to look back at our tracks. It's easy to see a pattern on the dirty snow. Hmm...turn shape changes as amplitude decreases, frequency the same. Our signature mark is dollarsigndollarsigndollarsign...or is it some resolute strand of spaghetti crossed with ramen noodles?

We're done and heading home. She's in the back seat with her head propped up on the headrest, looking out the rear window of the Outback, out toward the mountain. I doubt she's compiling a balance sheet on the trip: worth the climb? opportunity cost? missed dinner! why can’t he keep up?

Good girl. Who do you love?

April 9, 2011 G.O.S.

Spring skiing arrived almost overnight on Mt. Washington this year. I had a weekend work schedule and there's been considerable avalanche danger, so I hadn't climbed until this weekend. To make a point: April 2nd GGT had packed powder on a 2-3' base along its entire trail system. Up above, spindrift was peeling off Nelson Craig and the snow-coach couldn't get through the drifts at the horn. Snowfall and snowpack is way ahead of last year, but just average. Up high, there's snow in all the right places, except on the west side. Compared to last season, the west side is barren.

I invited Doug along for an Alpine tour into G.O.S., our 2nd outing together. Doug tested his new gear back in early February on the Sherburne Trail. He's on a pair of Solomon Shogun 100mm skis with a 30% rise with a pair of Solomon AT boots clicked into Marker Tour f12s.

Had a simple plan. Weather was sunny and warm. Avi rating was low on all aspects except for colder, north facing steeps. There was still soft slab from a 3-inch storm and blow-in from earlier in the week. Parking at Pinkham would be overflow, streetside. The plan was be early enough to park and get in a run before it got too soft. The freeze-thaw cycle was only in its second day, so sunny aspects might be like cement.

Conditions up high were consistent. 3-4" of wet, unconsolidated mank, beginning to corn up, and well bonded to a hard layer. First turn, Doug stubbed his toe on some treetops and went over the handlebars. He recovered quickly and hit his stride mid-way down. Deep blue sky, wall to wall snow on the ski trail, all gullies chock-a-block fulla snow. Leisurely pace in, out by 2:30.


That same day, these gentlemen passed us on the approach and were later caught on camera by Time for Tuckerman forum member Steve Snowrider. That's ok fellas. We can't keep up with you guys anyway and enjoyed chatting with your wives. Catch you some other time.