Saturday, March 29, I skinned up the Cog in single digit Farenheit temperatures with 30MPH winds lowering the windchill index well below zero.
Skies were partly sunny in the valleys, with the summits in the clouds.
Snow conditions were about 4"-6" new powder around the Cog Railway base station, increasing to a depth of about 1 foot around the Waumbek Tank, with drifts of 1-2 feet from there up to Jacobs Ladder.
Sunday, March 30, I skinned via yesterday's uptrack past the Waumbek Tank
to Jacobs Ladder, strapped on the boot crampons to hike the next thousand vertical feet,
switched back to skis with skins for the few hundred feet up to Clay Col and the junction of Gulfside & Westside trails,
back into boot crampons to hike the icy Westside Trail to the first snow above the north fork of the Ammonoosuc River,
then skied down across the summit cone, to the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail below Lakes of the Clouds Hut, then hiked in boot crampons across the icy snow to Monroe Brook.
It was loaded up with huge hard slabs in some aspects, and scoured down to the old hard surfaces right next to the new slabs. Is that an old crown line at the top of the gully?
I skied down the trees on skiers right, where I was able to link turns in a foot or two of powder all the way down, and avoided the avalanche danger.
One skier had thrown caution to the wind, and skied down Monroe Brook before I arrived. Here are his tracks:
Skies were partly sunny in the valleys, with the summits in the clouds.
Snow conditions were about 4"-6" new powder around the Cog Railway base station, increasing to a depth of about 1 foot around the Waumbek Tank, with drifts of 1-2 feet from there up to Jacobs Ladder.
Sunday, March 30, I skinned via yesterday's uptrack past the Waumbek Tank
to Jacobs Ladder, strapped on the boot crampons to hike the next thousand vertical feet,
switched back to skis with skins for the few hundred feet up to Clay Col and the junction of Gulfside & Westside trails,
back into boot crampons to hike the icy Westside Trail to the first snow above the north fork of the Ammonoosuc River,
It was loaded up with huge hard slabs in some aspects, and scoured down to the old hard surfaces right next to the new slabs. Is that an old crown line at the top of the gully?
I skied down the trees on skiers right, where I was able to link turns in a foot or two of powder all the way down, and avoided the avalanche danger.
One skier had thrown caution to the wind, and skied down Monroe Brook before I arrived. Here are his tracks:
