Mount Washington, NH 5/29/2010

J.Spin

New member
The Mount Washington Auto Road was finally open for business by the weekend of May 22nd – 23rd, but since E was out of town, Memorial Day weekend was our first opportunity for a ski trip. As always, weather was an important determinant in whether or not we would try to take the boys up the mountain, but as the weekend grew closer, the good forecasts continued to hold. None of the days looked like a total washout, but Saturday looked like the best bet since the NWS point forecast indicated the chance for gusts as high as 100 MPH in the higher elevations of the Presidential Range on Sunday, and Monday had higher potential for precipitation. On Friday evening we put ice packs in the freezer, charged batteries, and planned to make a final check on the forecast in the morning.

Saturday morning’s forecast still looked decent; there was a chance of precipitation in the afternoon, but winds were expected to be low with comfortable temperatures. I reserved a campsite for Saturday night, and we spent most of the morning getting things together for the trip and taking care of other stuff around the house. We finally headed out in the late morning under mostly cloudy skies, but no signs of precipitation.

Once we’d reached the base of the Mount Washington Auto Road, we stopped in at the Great Glen Lodge to hit the restrooms and check on the summit weather. We were excited to see that the summit weather board indicated winds of just 4 to 12 MPH and a temperature of 50 F. Even better though, was being able to look up toward the higher elevations to the west to see blue skies. Last year’s trip featured 50 MPH winds and fog, conditions that were more amenable to playing in the strong gusts on the deck of the observatory than skiing with the boys. From our views along Routes 2 and 16, the snow up high looked less plentiful than we’ve often seen at this time of year. The level of the snowpack was potentially due to at least a couple of factors. Although there were some nice snowy storms in April and May, too many of the midwinter storms skirted off to the south of Northern New England this season, and more recently we’d seen warm, or even hot, dry weather with lots of sun. One never really knows quite what the snow situation is going to be until they get up on the mountain though, and based on the Mt. Washington web cam images, we knew there was going to be plenty of terrain to ski.

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The fair weather made for an enjoyable drive up the Auto Road, and the views were stupendous as usual. We stopped in just briefly at the summit, and got an overview of the various eastern snowfields on the drive back down the road. We could see that there were plenty of options, and continued our drive down to the parking area below Ball Crag where we’d based ourselves before.

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Consistent with the faster depletion of the snow this season, although potentially due to seasonal variability as well, the snowfield that we’d skied with the boys in May of 2008 was absent. But, based on the boy’s enthusiasm, along with their improved endurance and ski abilities, we were looking to hit some different snowfields this season anyway. The plan was to head up the Nelson Crag Trail for a bit as we’d done on our last ski trip to the area, and then traverse generally southward below Ball Crag to search out some snowfields that would work well for everyone.

Our equipment setup from our last Mount Washington ski trip had worked well, so we used a similar configuration with just a couple of changes. I carried the big SLR in my photo/ski pack, which is also set up well to carry multiple pairs of skis, so I carried mine as well as the boy’s. E and I simply hiked in our Telemark boots, but since the boys would be skiing in alpine ski boots, they wore their hiking boots to make their traveling much easier, and along with her skis, E carried their ski boots in her pack. The boys had their poles for hiking, and a new addition this time was that they carried their water, food, clothing, and helmets in/on their packs.

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We hiked roughly two tenths of a mile up the Nelson Crag trail before breaking off and contouring southward. The boys were very mobile in their hiking boots and light packs, and they moved along at a great pace. Compared to our last ski outing on Mount Washington, Ty was much more comfortable traveling through the alpine setting; he was well ahead of the rest of the group and opted for a much higher traverse. I knew that we would eventually run into the main portion of the east snowfield if we didn’t run into any other snowfields first, but there turned out to be earlier options. Ty was the first to spot some of the bigger snowfields below us along the Upper portion of the Huntington Ravine Trail, and we planned to work our way toward those after seeing what we found ahead of us. After only about a tenth of a mile of traversing, we hit a small snowfield, and the group, which had become a bit scattered during the traverse, got back together to start the descent.

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That first snowfield was moderately steep, perhaps in the 30 degree range or so. Since it was steep and rather short, the boys decided to wait until one of the bigger snowfields to start skiing. They opted to simply do some sliding on the snow. E and I mentioned that it was likely to be easier to ski than slide since they would have edges to control their descent, but they were having fun. E and I skied the snowfield, and then we all traversed over to a much larger snowfield off to the north. When we’d arrived at the initial snowfield, there had been a couple of people skiing laps on the edge of the larger snowfield below, but by the time we got there they were gone, and we had the whole thing to ourselves. In fact, they were the only people we’d seen on any of the snowfields in that area. We were surprised by the lack of people since it was Memorial Day weekend, but perhaps everyone had already done their skiing the previous weekend. The weather continued to feature interludes of sunny and cloudy periods, and although we’d seen what looked like thicker clouds and showers off to the Green Mountains in the west, no precipitation materialized in our area.

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Ty and Dylan were the first to ski the larger snowfield, and it was fun to watch Dylan follow Ty through the terrain. The snowfield wasn’t quite as steep as the first one, and it was a fun experience for the boys to have the whole face to themselves with the ability to decide what route they wanted to take. The boys stopped about 2/3 of the way through the descent to wait for us, then E joined them, and I skied all the way to the bottom to get some pictures from below.

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From the bottom of that snowfield we traversed north and slightly upward to another snowfield section that was connected to the first. At that point we were on the long collection of snowfields that sits above Huntington Ravine. The next section of snow didn’t provide quite as much vertical drop, but it didn’t seem like it had seen any skier traffic in quite a while, so it was extremely smooth. I made a boot ladder that was spaced well for the boys, and we hiked up to the top of that section. The boys had been happy with their earlier turns, and were most excited to play on the rocks and stairs of the Huntington Ravine Trail, so they switched back to their hiking boots and played around while E and I did a bit more skiing. Those turns were a lot of fun, and E got the time she’d been looking for that let her practice and dial in some smoother Telemark turns.

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I hadn’t really been following the recent freeze thaw cycles up on Mt. Washington prior to our outing, but looking back at the Mount Washington summit weather archive, it says that the lows for the two nights before our trip were only down to 35 F, and the nights prior to that were even warmer. Apparently, once the corn is formed, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the temperatures go below freezing nightly or not in terms of maintaining quality conditions for spring skiing. We never encountered sticky, rotten, or mushy snow, just good corn with a peel away layer on the surface. I’m sure it would have been much less enjoyable for the boys if the snow had been difficult, but thinking back, I can’t recall any really tough snow in our Mount Washington outings at this time of year. Perhaps the snowpack is dense enough by this point in the season that freezing cycles aren’t as critical.

It was only a few minutes of hiking to get back to the car from there, and it really had been an efficient outing; for all the skiing we’d done, it had only required about ¾ of a mile worth of total travel. Although I’m sure Dylan was a bit tired, both boys were still bounding around on the final leg back to the car, so the distance had clearly been good for them. Just as we were about finished changing clothes and packing the gear back into the car, one of the Auto Road vans came by and let us know that he was the last one heading down. It was just about 6:00 P.M. by that point. We didn’t dawdle on the way down so that we wouldn’t hold up the final van, but there were plenty of people still out of their cars below us as we passed by, and even a pair of hikers just below our parking area that seemed to be making their final descent via the road.

After an enjoyable Auto Road descent with more fun views, we headed over to Shelburne, NH and checked in at White Birches Camping Park. We’d reserved a grassy site, and they’ve got some nice ones right on the edge of an evergreen forested area that contains access to the Shelburne Basin Trails. The evening’s burgers were some of the best in a while, and there were no complaints from me when Ty couldn’t quite polish his off burger or sausage.

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In the morning, we had some breakfast and broke camp, then the boys went off with E for a while to go swimming and play on the campground’s equipment while I worked on repacking the gear. The weather was still nice, so we decided to take a circuitous route home and see some sights. We headed back to Gorham, then north along the Androscoggin through Berlin, past Umbagog Lake, and up to Lake Aziscohos. North of Berlin, we were certainly in the land of lakes, loons and logs; houses seemed just as likely to have a loaded logging truck in their yard as anything else. Between the abundance of big rivers, dams, and lakes, it’s quite a water paradise. We saw several groups of flat water and whitewater boats, and lots of fly fishing taking place. At Aziscohos we were getting close to the Saddleback/Sugarloaf zone, although we didn’t head quite that far into Maine.

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After lunch at the picnic area on the south shore of Aziscohos, we headed west through Dixville Notch and got to take in its impressive craggy views. We also stopped in to check out The Balsams Resort Hotel and The Balsams Wilderness Ski Area, which we’d never visited before. The ski area isn’t huge, offering just over 1,000 feet of vertical, but from everything I’ve heard, it’s very much the type of ski area we enjoy. Akin to some of our favorite local ski areas like Lost Trail Powder Mountain in Montana and Bolton Valley in Vermont, it’s got low skier traffic, low speed lifts to keep it that way, and decent snowfall. Wilderness doesn’t quite get the 300+ inches of annual snowfall that Bolton and Lost Trail do, but knowing the snow trends for northernmost New Hampshire, I suspect they do decently on snow preservation like Saddleback and Sugarloaf. Based on an article I found by David Shedd on easternslopes.com, it sounds like minimal skier traffic helps out in maintaining the powder and general snow quality as well. The 1,000 feet of vertical at Wilderness is said to be nicely sustained, with no runouts, and that was definitely the impression we had when we drove to the bottom of the lifts and looked around. E and I have been thinking it would be nice to do a ski trip coupling Wilderness, Saddleback, and Sugarloaf together. Of the three areas, we’ve only been to Sugarloaf, and only in the spring. It’s usually hard to leave Northern Vermont’s snow during the middle of the ski season, but a good time to go east would be when one of those storm cycles comes through that focuses on Northern New Hampshire and Western Maine.

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We got back into Vermont in the far northeast part of the Kingdom, and took the northerly route to I-91 along the Canadian border past Wallace Pond. It’s not a huge body of water, and it was fun pointing out to the boys that the houses just a couple hundred yards away on the other side of it were actually in Canada. We also passed Great Averill Pond, Norton Pond, and finally Seymour Lake, where we stopped for a few minutes. We went through Derby, but didn’t quite get up to Derby Line to show the boys how the library/opera house is split by the international border. At some point we will have to get them up there. Once on I-91, we were pretty quickly back in our own neck of the woods, and I’d say one of the more surprising things that we discovered was how close Balsams Wilderness Ski Area is to our location. Being so far north in New Hampshire, and mentioned so infrequently, it seemed to be on another planet. But, barring horrible road conditions, it should only be two to three hours from Waterbury. After our visit to the area, it has certainly moved up higher on my hit list.

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Below I’ve added a web cam image of the east side of Mt. Washington from last weekend, showing the various areas of snow that were present at the time. The longest runs up near the summit still seemed to be off the main east snowfield that we didn’t visit. We haven’t had any of the hot temperatures that we had the week before our visit, and things have been much more seasonable, so there should still be some decent easy access skiing up there at this point.

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J.Spin
 
JSpin":3u3tldr1 said:
Apparently, once the corn is formed, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the temperatures go below freezing nightly or not in terms of maintaining quality conditions for spring skiing. We never encountered sticky, rotten, or mushy snow, just good corn with a peel away layer on the surface. ... It was just about 6:00 P.M. by that point.
This is somewhat surprising. Not necessarily that the snow was good after a night at 35 degrees, but that it was good so late in the day. From the temperatures and east exposure I would have wanted to be skiing maybe 9AM to noon, expecting the snow to become progressively heavier after that.

As always, impressive what those kids are doing. Patrick and Morgane should have been along for this one. :stir:

I'm curious when JSpin thinks Ty will be comfortable on something like Airplane. I looked up Adam's records and for him it looked like the age 8 season in terms of terrain. But of course Adam's runs of that nature were all inbounds at Mammoth, Squaw, Baldy and Taos except for Hole in the Wall in March 1993. And even for HITW there wasn't much hiking; Ty seems ready for that part now. I guess my question is more this: Overall Ty's ski skills now are at least what Adam's were a year older. But does he need some mileage on steeper in-bounds terrain before skiing on Mt. Washington where consequences are greater?
 
Tony Crocker":2emrgeqe said:
As always, impressive what those kids are doing. Patrick and Morgane should have been along for this one. :stir:

Gee, never saw that one coming. :roll: Tony, other folks have other family priorities that sometimes conflict with skiing objectives. Let it alone, it's getting old.
 
Tony Crocker":vgc4hmsm said:
JSpin":vgc4hmsm said:
Apparently, once the corn is formed, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the temperatures go below freezing nightly or not in terms of maintaining quality conditions for spring skiing. We never encountered sticky, rotten, or mushy snow, just good corn with a peel away layer on the surface. ... It was just about 6:00 P.M. by that point.
This is somewhat surprising. Not necessarily that the snow was good after a night at 35 degrees, but that it was good so late in the day. From the temperatures and east exposure I would have wanted to be skiing maybe 9AM to noon, expecting the snow to become progressively heavier after that.
If you're comparing to western areas, specifically Mammoth, you're forgetting to take both latitude and elevation into account. The intensity of the sun is at least 75% greater at Mammoth than in NH.
 
Tony Crocker":2emqgaw2 said:
I'm curious when JSpin thinks Ty will be comfortable on something like Airplane.
Airplane is in a total different league. I had written a reply to Lucky's thread which got loss in cyberspace, I should know better than to start a long reply from work. :roll: I'll reply at one point.
 
Patrick":2abx1hmk said:
Airplane is in a total different league.
How does Airplane compare to Left Gully? The latter is similar to Mammoth's Avalanche Chutes, which Adam skied first in that age 8 season. But of course he worked his way up to that gradually.
 
Tony Crocker":12lbo9ys said:
This is somewhat surprising. Not necessarily that the snow was good after a night at 35 degrees, but that it was good so late in the day. From the temperatures and east exposure I would have wanted to be skiing maybe 9AM to noon, expecting the snow to become progressively heavier after that.

our spring skiing stays good all day in the direct sun no matter how warm the temps get up high on mt washington. april of 2007 the mountain didn't get below freezing day and night for almost a month and the skiing stayed perfect on all aspects and at all elevations. it's just how it is here and i've never skied as consistently good supportive all day corn anywhere else.

my last ski day this year was a solo day off of mt monroe on may 24th and the temps stayed warm all night and hit 80 degrees during the day. even with hardly any previous skier compaction, the corn was absolutely stellar 2-3 inches of perfect peel away all day. when craig and i skied off of little superior last late april we encountered barely ready corn up high to stellar in the middle to worst nightmare conditions on the lower 3rd at 930am b4 heading over to the bird. we had had a good solid overnight refreeze and earlier east facing cardiff was great, but short lived so we moved on to little sup. having to move like we did for ok corn to mush just doesn't happen here even after no freeze. everything was smooth and untracked which was nice tho, at least. craig thought the skiing was great. i thought it was just ok. after i explained to him what i was used to back home, he blamed it on a more favorable maritime snowpack that we have here vs an intermountain snowpack that he has there. i have however skied incredible supportive corn in the snake creek area in january during a high n dry mid winter spell out there that lasted for a couple of weeks.

we may have some wild winter weather that goes from zero to hero and back, but the spring corn skiing doesn't get much better.

rog
 
Tony Crocker":3sd0xd30 said:
I'm curious when JSpin thinks Ty will be comfortable on something like Airplane. I looked up Adam's records and for him it looked like the age 8 season in terms of terrain. But of course Adam's runs of that nature were all inbounds at Mammoth, Squaw, Baldy and Taos except for Hole in the Wall in March 1993. And even for HITW there wasn't much hiking; Ty seems ready for that part now. I guess my question is more this: Overall Ty's ski skills now are at least what Adam's were a year older. But does he need some mileage on steeper in-bounds terrain before skiing on Mt. Washington where consequences are greater?
There are a few interesting things to think about here with regard to the questions in Tony’s post: Airplane Gully in particular, the ability to ski steep slopes, and the consequences of places like Mt. Washington. I think they are all addressed in the text below, but as I was writing up the response, it also got me thinking about where Ty and Dylan are at in terms of steeper skiing and their general progress in skiing over the past season, so some of that is summarized in the text as well.

E and I haven’t skied Airplane Gully, but we’ve skied most of the gullies in Tuckerman Ravine, and based on the detailed slope angles and descriptions provided in David Goodman’s NH/ME book, it sounds like Left Gully is similar to, or slightly steeper than Airplane. Since I think E is pretty objective and observant about Ty’s skiing, I asked her if she thought that Ty could ski Left Gully, and she felt that he could. I tend to agree, since it doesn’t really take a ton of skill to “ski” steep slopes; most advanced skiers that can manage a jump turn (or some modern equivalent) should be able to handle steep slopes in reasonably good snow. I’d say that there is substantially more skill required to ski some of these steep slopes efficiently, with loads of finesse, at high speeds, or under difficult snow conditions. Beyond that though, assuming one isn’t actually in a no fall zone, it’s basically just a mental issue in terms of skiing these slopes, and once one makes a couple of turns and realizes that it’s no big deal, that tends to disappear.

So as far as the “comfortable” part goes, that’s also an interesting nuance, and one that is a little harder to define. Ty has opted out of steep stuff at Bolton in the past; one that always comes to mind was in Devil’s Playground at Bolton on December 31st, 2007. I’m sure that pitch in the last picture from the day rolls over to somewhere in excess of 30 degrees, and it’s rather tight. Ty definitely felt that it was beyond his abilities, so I had to help him through it. Another case I can think of was on January 6th, 2008, where I showed Ty one of those steep, narrow elevator shafts that drops off from Upper Crossover. That shot was even steeper and narrower than the one in Devil’s Playground, and Ty definitely felt it was too steep for him. Those are probably the best direct examples I can recall in terms of Ty’s interactions with terrain that he felt was too steep for him; examples obvious enough that I actually commented on them in the day’s text. But of course those outings were a couple of seasons ago, he was still only four, and as I looked back at one of those reports that had a video, I realize that he wasn’t even fully over to parallel skiing or using poles yet. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve even been back to visit those places in the past couple of seasons for any sort of comparison, in part because we’re usually focused on powder skiing and we’ve been busy exploring other areas of the resort, but also due to the fact that we probably wouldn’t have visited those areas with Dylan.

Thinking and writing about this now has me curious though; we’ll have to try visiting these spots and other steep terrain more often in the future. Throughout this season Dylan has shown that he could handle some fairly steep, moguled terrain, such the steepest pitches on Spillway, Superstar, Chin Clip, and even Upper Smuggler’s. The fact that Dylan wasn’t even fazed by these pitches makes me think that he can handle much more, such as steeper, tighter chutes. Actually, one example of such terrain that I can recall from this season was on February 27th. We dropped into the Villager Trees off Cobrass, and took one of the direct routes that descend through steep, tight chutes. The steepest pitch is not very long (~50 feet of vertical), but Dylan really skied it well, so well that we joked about how he skied it better than Mom did. Dylan also did a great job when we skied the entirety of Nosedive this April; the top there was steep and bumpy, and Dylan handled it with such authority that Ty commented how it was his best bump skiing ever. I can recall another good example of Dylan’s progress this season. There is a steep, fairly tight pitch at the very top entrance of the glades between Twice as Nice and Showtime, which is difficult enough that Bolton has placed some type of advanced or expert signage marking the area. Somehow, Dylan really enjoys this tough entry, enough that he will take it by himself even when the rest of us are opting to head down the trail instead. On one occasion this season, Dylan was heading off alone to drop into this shot, and a little girl near us, probably a bit older than Dylan, was very concerned about what was going to happen. She quickly got E’s attention to warn her about where Dylan was going, but E told her, “Don’t worry, he does that all the time.” I guess we hadn’t thought about it too much up to that point, but that was another instance when we suddenly realized where Dylan was in terms of his progress in skiing steep terrain.

The advancements that Dylan has made have been great, and should allow us to spend more time in steeper terrain in the future, but Ty has still accomplished a lot this year and advanced his steep skiing. Along with Dylan, he’s skied the steep mogul pitches that I mentioned above, and done a great job. We haven’t yet focused on many of the steeper terrain options at Stowe (like the top section of Goat or Starr, or various inbounds chutes) with Ty since we’re sometimes limited by the composition of the program groups, but he’s really ripped up some of Stowe’s steep terrain when he’s encountered it with good conditions. I’ve also noticed some things this season in our everyday skiing at Bolton Valley. We often ski with Stephen and his kids, and Helena, Stephen’s youngest, is just getting to the point where she’s skiing some of the steeper groomed pitches at Bolton. When we’re with Helena, we have to think about pitches and conditions a bit when it comes to difficult Headwalls like those on Spell Binder and Upper Tattle Tale. Those are both pretty steep, with Upper Tattle Tale being marked as a double diamond presumably because of the pitch, and I realized that Ty (and in fact Dylan as well) doesn’t even blink when he comes to those pitches now. It’s not something I’d thought about during the season, since I was usually focused on Helena’s efforts, but I’m realizing it now. Another episode that I can recall was from February 27th, when Ty blasted full tilt right down the steep, bumpy pitch of Cougar, and pumped his fist at the end like he’d just won a race. I can remember back when he used to really pause and think about that pitch. Perhaps the most telling examples of Ty dealing with steeps this season was March 28th at Stowe when we skied Liftline in horrid conditions. Normally I wouldn’t expect to be anywhere near Liftline on a day like that, or even out on the slopes for that matter, but since we were out for our school program, and we had a student that wanted to ski Midway, we wound up needing to ski Liftline. Getting through the sometimes porcelain snow in that top steep shot of Liftline (which I bet is in the range of 30 degrees) was daunting enough that Luke, who’s a decent skier and a year older than Ty, actually froze up at one point and I had to start climbing up to help him before he managed to work it out. While I’d say Ty probably despised the conditions as much as me, he really wasn’t thrown by the combination of steep pitch and icy snow. I was pretty impressed by that. So in a way, I guess it was good that a situation came together to get us out in conditions that we would normally write off, because it really let me see how Ty handled the situation.

So even though I think that Ty can probably handle the terrain of Airplane Gully at this point, it will probably be a while before we would ever bring him there. This speaks to the “consequences” part of the post. The problem with something like Airplane Gully is manifold, in that 1) even the easiest access from the Auto Road still requires a lot of hiking, 2) access is of the screwy backward type where you ski down into it and then have to hike back out, 3) you have no way to assess the snow/ice/rock/undermining conditions before skiing the slope, and 4) once at the bottom you are trapped (barring some long hike through the Great Gulf) and have no way out in the event of an emergency. The longer the descent and/or the access route (if there even is one) from the bottom of one of these setups, the more potentially hazardous they are. Getting a loaded litter down a steep slope and out through a steep hiking trail is already incredibly difficult, but trying to get one up the same slope is ridiculous, and presumably air evacuation is the only viable option. The incident on the west side this April was just another example of what happens on Mt. Washington, and what can be required to get someone to safety when things go wrong. That episode apparently took place in the Ammonoosuc Ravine, and I’m not exactly sure where they were in the ravine, but I’ve hiked there multiple times and the access is actually relatively quick from Marshfield Station below. Even with that access, it apparently wasn’t easy enough that they could use it to get the injured skier out. I’m certainly not opposed to ski options where one has to hike back out, I ski off the back side of Bolton in that sort of setup, but in the case of the slopes I typically ski off the back of Bolton, one can always ski out to Waterbury Reservoir below and reach a road in a worst case scenario. When it comes to young kids, with lower glycogen stores, fat stores, and stamina in general, I think it’s very important to not let them get down into something if there is any chance that they might not have the necessary reserves to get out. In my experience, hiking up these steep slopes, beyond requiring more physical exertion than the descent, is far more mentally taxing than simply skiing them. When one is in, or having to make, the boot ladder, the opportunities to simply relax are not there compared to when you are happily sitting on your skis with edges. This is why people will sometimes use ice axes and crampons on these slopes, even if the snow is not outrageously dangerous. I can honestly say that there have been times that I wished I’d had an axe or other support that would allow me to secure myself better or rest on the ascent, but I’ve never felt the need for anything like that on the ski descent. So personally, I think the ascent is a much bigger deal than the descent. Even for something like the main part of the East Snowfields on Mt Washington, where there is very close access from the Auto Road directly above, I would rather come in from below with the boys. That was in fact one potential route we were going to use on the trip reported in this thread if we hadn’t found any other suitable skiing options on our traverse. I’m definitely a fan of putting business before pleasure when possible in terms of backcountry skiing. So, even without the boys, in the case of the main part of the East Snowfields, I’d certainly consider traversing a few tenths of a mile to get in from the bottom over going with the top down setup.

To me, Airplane Gully and similar top down options in the Great Gulf or other remote spots in the Presidential Range have generally seemed like novel options for folks that were really into steep skiing, and were looking to do something different or get some privacy away from the people in the more popular areas. There are plenty of equivalent, yet more practical options in Tuckerman Ravine and the Gulf of Slides that we’d visit with the boys before doing something like Airplane Gully. But even before those areas, there are lots of lift served pitches in the 30 to 40 degree range right at Stowe and Bolton, and even steeper shots accessible with a bit of hiking above the lifts that should keep the boys occupied without the need for heading over to the Presidential Range, Adirondacks, Chic Chocs etc. The boys aren’t going to be skiing 45 degree descents for 2,000’ vertical feet here at the local resorts, but from what I observed with E’s first trip to Tuckerman Ravine, she was certainly well prepared for the skiing, and she hadn’t even spent much time focusing on the steepest in bounds skiing options at the local areas up to that point. In E’s case, we just spent a little time on Stein’s Run at Sugarbush making sure her jump turns were in order, and the following day we skied a big run from the summit of Mt. Washington, down into the ravine via Right Gully, and onto the Sherburne Ski Trail. She did a great job, and she agrees that just like I mentioned above, ascending the steep pitches was far more challenging than skiing them.

I’ll end with some final thoughts about the boy’s skiing on steep terrain. E and I enjoy steep skiing, but it’s not really the focus for us that it seems to be for some people, especially when compared to powder. Presumably that’s why places like Bolton and Lost Trail (and potentially Wilderness as discussed in the trip report) that have good snow and low skier volume are some of our favorites, even if they don’t have the obvious “in your face” steeps that some mountains do. Even at Lost Trial and Bolton though, we’ve found that there’s plenty of steep terrain around once you get to know the mountains well. As I mentioned above, with our focus on powder, Ty probably hasn’t spent as much time on steep terrain as if we were focused on that, and I bet having Dylan in tow over the past several years reduced it some as well. It got me thinking about the way the boy’s ages have played into their ski progression. I’m sure that Ty has spent less time on steeper pitches due to Dylan’s presence, and that may have prevented him from progressing as fast as he might have in that area, but at the same time I think that Dylan has been dragged ahead and pushed by Ty’s presence, as well as the simple fact that he is the youngest member of the family. As the least experiences skier in the family, he is constantly being pushed to do as much as he can, since if we think he can handle something difficult that we want to ski, we’ll give it a shot. With those factors in mind, I actually think that Dylan has skied a lot more steep terrain than Ty had skied by this age. Ty has also had opportunities away from Dylan due to skiing with other adults in school program, or skiing with one of us after Dylan was done for the day, but I don’t think Ty was skiing all the steep stuff that Dylan has been doing recently when he was Dylan’s age two years ago. Looking back at where Ty was at the end of the ‘07’-08 season, it seems like he was advanced enough to handle a lot of the steep terrain, but we just weren’t skiing it like we are now. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens with the ski progression in both boys next season; it’s getting to the point that it feels like even with Dylan around, almost any of the terrain in bounds is going to be on the table.

-J
 
well $hit J, took me 2 full pbr pounders to get through that novel! :mrgreen: great read, even if a bit wordy, but that's what beer(S) for.

looked like a great family outing. i lapped those same ball crag snowfields on may 17th with a completely blank canvas. what a nice spot to lap and not see another soul. the east snowfields were hacked to $hit that day, funny how you don't have to go too far for the goods where others don't really think to go. god was the corn good!

as far as airplane goes, the only thing that makes that line and the gg more gnar is for the reasons that J stated, remote, tough to get help. if you want the real steeps, the great gulf isn't the place to go. pipeline is fairly steep and commiting due to the ice flow down low which can be a mandatory air which was 8-10 feet when i last skied it on free heel gear years ago. upon landing, you must hold yer line cuz it's near vertical high rock walls on both sides and speed gets picked up very rapidly.

for real steeps, the tuckerman area is the place to go as even right gully is steeper for much of it's length than airplane with left gully MUCH steeper up top and everything from chute through sluice all being WAY steeper than airplane the whole way. airplane is closer to upper hillmans and looking down is very mellow in comparison to many lines on the rock pile that fall away from view. you can look down airplane easily the whole way. no rollover. nice long run though and really nice to ski in untracked powder in winter, or spring.

airplane made easy, scroll a few pics down. 6-12 inches of untracked once in and for over 1200 vert. stable steepish maritime pow. where is everyone? i mean this is april!

http://www.famousinternetskiers.com/tri ... age-april/

as J also says about steeps, steeps are easy, especially in untracked perfect snow. easier than flatter terrain that lacks gravity assist.

nice cool late spring here.

rog
 
JSpin":3tlf0he5 said:
E and I enjoy steep skiing, but it’s not really the focus for us that it seems to be for some people, especially when compared to powder.
This goes along way toward explaining the divergent development paths of Ty and Dylan vs. Adam at similar ages. In the early 1990's my own success in powder was limited and erratic, so no surprise Adam saw little of it. He had a 9-inch day in Telluride in the age 7 season, did OK. The next seasons of more than 10K of powder were not until ages 12 and 14. By that time Adam's overall ski skills were so good that he adjusted immediately and most outside observers would assume he had been skiing powder for a long time.
Craig Morris at Fernie 3/29/1999":3tlf0he5 said:
Cedar Ridge was also very fine and here 14 year old Adam from Los Angeles lays down some powder turns that most Northern adults would envy.
p990329_2.jpg


Thus this comment does not surprise me at all:
JSpin":3tlf0he5 said:
Since I think E is pretty objective and observant about Ty’s skiing, I asked her if she thought that Ty could ski Left Gully, and she felt that he could.
The foundation of skills these kids have are so strong I have little doubt they will translate quickly to the steeps. The Liftline example JSpin mentioned is probably an example of an eastern slope in hard snow that would require at least the same edge control as on a 40+ degree slope in the West or on Mt. Washington.

I also get the issues with Airplane:
JSpin":3tlf0he5 said:
access is of the screwy backward type where you ski down into it and then have to hike back out, ...once at the bottom you are trapped ... and have no way out in the event of an emergency.
This is one reason a lot more people get in trouble hiking the Grand Canyon than on typical mountain (climb up first) hikes.
 
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