riverc0il
New member
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What is better than one bluebird day on Mount Washington? How about two straight bluebird days on Mount Washington?!
Met up with JimG and Sledhaulingmedic at Pinkham at 8am. Great to meet and ski with you Jim! It was a pleasure and I look forward to a repeat sometime soon. Sled, a pleasure as always my man! The sky was completely blue bird with temperatures on the rise. We discussed what to leave behind. Essentially, the more we left behind the smarter our decisions were as almost no extra layers besides base were truly needed though Sled and I doned the wind shells for the descent. Picked up the TUX shirt with the Alta logo on it at Pinkham, neat!
The warm spell this week had melted more snow than expected on the GoS trail. Consistant snow good enough for skinning was not had until nearly the first cache. However, Sled and I opted to give skins a shot with varying degrees of success from about the 3/4 point of the ski trail. Jim had no desire to step over grass and rocks in between the snow patches :lol: and continued booting up to the second cache under the gullies. Not much snow on the ski trail at all! It will likely be unskinable from before the first cache after this weekend, so essentially this may have been my final skin for the season. It was enjoyable despite the variety in the snow pack.
I don't know the names of the gullies, but we took the first one after the first aid cache which was the most filled in. A nice boot ladder had already been kicked in lookers right which we used to ascend. The climb was pleasant given the warm temps, sunny skies, and easy boot ladder. Upon reaching the top of the snow pack, a half dozen tele skiers were hiking over from Boott Spur and they dropped in with us. Views from the top were great with some clouds in the distance to the south and west.
We dropped into some immediate perfect corn, sah-weet!!! However, things quickly changed to an awkward mashed potato. However got first tracks at 8-9am likely got perfect corn top to bottom, but we settled for sloppy seconds. Occasional 20 inch diameter snow balls would make things interesting, nearly sending me flying when I skied into one. Overall, it was a fantastic run and ended way to quickly! We all decided one run would be more than enough for the day and headed out picking up some cached gear at the cache.
Skiing down the GoS Ski Trail was survival skiing at its best. Cover quickly went from suck to blow after the lower cache at which point more sensable skiers opted to walk. I would not be deterred. :shock: :lol: I managed to stay standing and not fall down despite my snow to grass to snow combos, so essentially it was a smashing success reducing the amount of hiking by a few hundred feet. Eventually, I called it quits when it wasn't worth walking the skis between the 3 foot wide patches of snow.
Great day, great skiing, great company, great weather... fabulous day on my first trip to the Gulf of Slides and my second weekend in a row with hot bluebird weather on the Rock Pile. Pinch me.
/ What is better than one bluebird day on Mount Washington? How about two straight bluebird days on Mount Washington?!
Met up with JimG and Sledhaulingmedic at Pinkham at 8am. Great to meet and ski with you Jim! It was a pleasure and I look forward to a repeat sometime soon. Sled, a pleasure as always my man! The sky was completely blue bird with temperatures on the rise. We discussed what to leave behind. Essentially, the more we left behind the smarter our decisions were as almost no extra layers besides base were truly needed though Sled and I doned the wind shells for the descent. Picked up the TUX shirt with the Alta logo on it at Pinkham, neat!
The warm spell this week had melted more snow than expected on the GoS trail. Consistant snow good enough for skinning was not had until nearly the first cache. However, Sled and I opted to give skins a shot with varying degrees of success from about the 3/4 point of the ski trail. Jim had no desire to step over grass and rocks in between the snow patches :lol: and continued booting up to the second cache under the gullies. Not much snow on the ski trail at all! It will likely be unskinable from before the first cache after this weekend, so essentially this may have been my final skin for the season. It was enjoyable despite the variety in the snow pack.
I don't know the names of the gullies, but we took the first one after the first aid cache which was the most filled in. A nice boot ladder had already been kicked in lookers right which we used to ascend. The climb was pleasant given the warm temps, sunny skies, and easy boot ladder. Upon reaching the top of the snow pack, a half dozen tele skiers were hiking over from Boott Spur and they dropped in with us. Views from the top were great with some clouds in the distance to the south and west.
We dropped into some immediate perfect corn, sah-weet!!! However, things quickly changed to an awkward mashed potato. However got first tracks at 8-9am likely got perfect corn top to bottom, but we settled for sloppy seconds. Occasional 20 inch diameter snow balls would make things interesting, nearly sending me flying when I skied into one. Overall, it was a fantastic run and ended way to quickly! We all decided one run would be more than enough for the day and headed out picking up some cached gear at the cache.
Skiing down the GoS Ski Trail was survival skiing at its best. Cover quickly went from suck to blow after the lower cache at which point more sensable skiers opted to walk. I would not be deterred. :shock: :lol: I managed to stay standing and not fall down despite my snow to grass to snow combos, so essentially it was a smashing success reducing the amount of hiking by a few hundred feet. Eventually, I called it quits when it wasn't worth walking the skis between the 3 foot wide patches of snow.
Great day, great skiing, great company, great weather... fabulous day on my first trip to the Gulf of Slides and my second weekend in a row with hot bluebird weather on the Rock Pile. Pinch me.
:lol: Here's to nailing GoS when the trail is covered top to bottom!