Webster Cliff: not a ski trip

icy trails, December, 2011

This hike wasn't my idea. It was Tom Ryan. He's the guy who hiked all of the 4000'ers just shy of twice in one winter  with his miniature German Schnauszer. His book about that winter is called Following Atticus. It got me going. Did a lot of this type of thing in college until I got wrapped up with ski business, married, had kids, borrowed money.

The Appalachian Mountain Club's Four Thousand Footer Club was formed in 1957 to introduce hikers to some of the less well-known sections of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I still have my dad's 1960 AMC guidebook and right up front there's a list of of the 46 highest (now 48) to check off. A sub-clique of hikers grew out of the original 4000'ers, hikers who keep the winter list.

Dad's first two out of the 48 were Mt. Oceola  and its East Peak.
They were my first too. I was eight. The last peak Dad checked off was Isolation in 1971. We made that trip together right after my high school graduation.

During college I left the Whites for a summer job with the Baxter State Park trail crew working around Mt. Katahdin. Dad and I naturally did Baxter Peak together, his native state's highest. After that we didn't hit the trails together until the summer my mom died. Those hikes were therapeutic, away from the heavily traveled 4000'ers, and shorter. He was 69.  Instead of a list, he now has a hornbeam hiking staff with a name and date of each hike carved into the ironwood. He's ninety-two and still uses his hiking staff on his daily walks around his Florida neighborhood.

My journal lists numerous wintery ascents, usually on skis, but none quite measure up to the A.M.C. winter-club standards. Either the earth's tilt wasn't quite right, or a hill's prominent feature was its powder snow, not its elevation. Well short of completing the winter list, the last qualifying hike was with my college outing club. It was Mount Hale and I spent a long night on the summit in a too-small tent freezing my ass off.

This winter we're having a snow drought in the Whites, a double whammy in an already depressed economy that depends on winter tourism. At Great Glen Trails/Mt. Washington, where I'm a weekend tourguide, my snow coach sits up on blocks beside route 16, a disgraced, roadside billboard. On the lower mountain, there's a scant inch of snow on the nordic trails. Fighting off cabin fever, I'm cleaning up the blog and I try to take care of the to-do lists my wife leaves around.

My winter list: PB+J, two liters of water, chocolate, an orange, extra mitts, balaclava, snowshoes, Microspikes, headlamp, insulating layer, trip plan, and cell phone.

Ten AM start with an inch of snow underfoot at the Webster Cliff trailhead in Crawford Notch. When I timed out around 4000', there were  occassional 12" drifts and a consistent 6" of wet snow on the trail. A couple of guys and I yo yo'd for the lead most of the way up until I hit my turn-around time. They continued on to Mt. Jackson. Sure wish I'd gotten there. Such a lovely summit.

Weather was warm with a start temp of 28, finishing up around 3:30 at 37. Early sun given to lowry skies toward mid-day. I photographed ice and a murder of acrobatic ravens. The Microspikes got the mvp award for the day, with my EMS System III parka a distant 2nd. Without the parka, I might have survived a good soaking from the snow-melt dropping off the evergreens, but this trip would have been a catastrophe without traction underfoot.

The springtails were out like it was March. Across the notch, ice climbers were peppered against the Willey icefield, and there were F-15s making fast passes somewhere above us in the clouds. Something for everyone!

winter up high