| Summary | |
| Owner | Matthew Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2009-03-16 22:33:52 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Matthew Gilbertson, Eric Gilbertson, Phillip Kreycik, Rachel DeLucas, Shivin Misra, Pascal Raux
Author: Matthew Gilbertson This year we decided to spice it up a little bit. Two years of hauling 50lbs of overnight gear above treeline in winter, sleeping snow shelters, and playing hockey on a frozen alpine lake below Mt Washington were starting to feel a little cliche. We needed to do add an element of uniqueness to this year's expedition. How about seeing sunrise and sunset from the top of Mt Washington, climbing Mt Monroe, and sledding at 20mph onto the lake? Now that would make it more interesting... We started up the Ammonoosuc Ravine trail early Saturday morning. As soon as we got out of the car we began to appreciate our winter hiking equipment like crampons and ice axes which seemed a little strange to be carrying around in snowless Boston. Spring was coming to Massachusetts soon, but winter still had a firm grip on the White Mountains of New Hampshire. With four feet of packed icy snow crunching beneath our crampons we rapidly covered the 2.3 miles to Lake of the Clouds hut by 1:30pm. We were anxious to investigate the ice conditions so see if we would be able to make use of our hockey skates and sticks. Unfortunately the combination of heavy rime ice and the daily melt/thaw over the past few weeks had rendered much of the surface of the lake too rough for skating. Make no doubt, the ice was certainly thick enough; we suspect from the large bulge in the center of the lake that the entire 4ft depth of water was actually frozen solid. But there were only a couple of 10ft^2 skatable patches. Snow shelter building would be our priority now. "Skating" could wait until tomorrow. We soon found the awesomest place for a snow shelter: a steep, corniced hill on the south side of the little lake. It overlooked the Bretton Woods valley 3500ft below. No telling how deep the snowdrift was. It had probably built up against a hill over four months of relentless blowing and drifting snow. The steep hill not only would give us a good view, it would also allow us to dig straight in and easily throw the snow down, instead of digging down into a snow pile and having to throw the snow up. With gravity on our side we began digging at various locations on the snow slope, prospecting like gold miners for the least icy area to dig a snow cave. Eventually Eric's, Phillip's, and my prospects won out. Pascal discovered a good location 100ft away to excavate his own abode. It was tough digging because there were a thick few layers of dense ice sandwiched between the soft layers of snow. We would chisel-chisel-chisel for about 5 minutes before needing a break. In the end the floor size of the snow shelters was limited by the square footage of ice we could pulverize. In the meantime Rachel excavated the kitchen. It was getting near sunset and Phillip and Pascal were pumped to see sunset from the top of Mt Washington. The weather had been perfectly clear all day, with winds less than 30mph and temps in the teens. Downright balmy for a winter day in the Whites. So they started up the 1.2 "line of sight" miles to the summit while the rest of us cooked some snow and some dinner. As the orange alpenglow turned to red and faded from the landscape, we could barely see the outlines of Phillip and Pascal near the top. We hoped they would make it down safely. Me, Eric, Shivin, and Rachel decided we would save our energy for sunrise. That way, if we made it up there late, it would be lighter, instead of darker. The margin for error was a little higher for a sunrise summit rather than a sunset summit. Accordingly we set our alarms for 5am and retired in style into our snowy dwellings at the late hour of 8pm. We could peer down into the valley and see the twinkling lights of the Mt Washington Hotel below a bright Venus and fading twilight. The wind howled across the face of our snow slope and reminded us to seal the entrance with our packs to keep the warm air in. Eric and I slept in one of the more luxurious snow shelters. Shivin and I had dug the entrance about 10 feet in, then dug up a few feet, and then dug over to make the sleeping platform. In this way the wind would not have a straight shot into the sleeping area, and since we were elevated above the entrance the warm air would rise and stay inside. We dug the ceiling to only about 8 inches thick to minimize the danger associated with a cave in. But from an engineering perspective, I believe the multiple layers of solid ice enhanced the integrity of the stucture enough that we had nothing to worry about. As five-year MITOC Winter School veterans, Eric and I had learned a lot about the theory of snow shelter building to optimize our structures for warmth, comfort, and ergonomics. The 10ft tunnel served as a "living room" and a sheltered area to suit up in the middle of the night in case you had to step outside. BEEP BEEP BEEP! The alarm went off at 5am. It was showtime. Wait, not yet, we need to make sure the weather is good. The past two years we had woken up for a sunrise summit attempt only to be disappointed by blinding white out (I guess you'd say "blackout") and had to retire disappointedly back to our cave, like Punxatawney Phil who had just seen his shadow on Feb 2nd. I spent a full ten minutes suiting up. I didn't want to get frosbite by sticking my nose outside the snow shelter if the temp happened to be below zero. I nervously crawled to the entrance and stuck my head out. I could see the summit! I turned to Eric and said "Houston we are go for lift off." He knew that it was time to get our game faces on. It was my duty to rouse the troops. I went around to Shivin's, Phillip's, and Pascal's homes and triumphantly announced the conditions. Phillip and Pascal were tired from last night's sunset summit and opted to sleep in. For me, Eric, Shivin, and Rachel, it was time to step up to the plate and get ready to bat. We hoped the mountain wouldn't throw us any curves. It was 6:15am by the time we rolled out of base camp, and we knew it would be tough to hit the summit by the 7am sunrise (as predicted by my GPS). The weather was clear enough and the trail straightforward enough that we decided to split up. Eric and I would try to race to the top to catch sunrise at the summit, while Shivin and Rachel would catch it during the ascent and eventually meet us at the top. Eric and I took off. As we climbed over the icy boulders the eastern horizon quickly changed from black, to blue, to yellow, to orange, and the firery red sun was approaching fast. We raced upward, faster and faster, and burst onto the summit plateau at 6:48am we snapped a couple pictures and soon a bright red dot caught our eye. The ice-caked summit buildings and snowy signposts were bathed in orange as the sun peeked over the distant eastern hills, 60 miles away in Maine. We could see probably 80 miles in every direction. We were the first witnesses to the new day in all of New Hampshire. The sun actually rose 10 minutes earlier than the GPS predicted, probably because it didn't take into account Mt Washington's 6288ft of elevation. We snapped picture after picture and posed for a few webcam shots. I called my parents back home and Amanda in Maryland who captured us on the 7:15am shot. Rachel and Shivin marched in around 7:30 and triumphantly tagged the summit signpost. Shivin had been planning a shirts-off summit photo since yesterday evening and spiced it up with an outrageous Halloween mask that he planned to wear on the top of every 4000 footer in New Hampshire. By 8:15am we had soaked up enough rays and absorbed enough spectacular scenery that it was time to head back to camp. There, we made good use of the sleds that Shivin and I had hauled all the way up. It turned out that the area was perfect for sledding; the area around the lake was a giant bowl that would prevent us from sledding too far. The lake itself provided an awesome 100ft runout. We probably reached 20mph on some of the icy slopes and had a couple of spectacular bail-outs. Phillip decided to up the ante and hiked with the Torpedo sled up a few hundred feet to the top of the hill. A new sport had been born: Alpine Sled Touring. As Phillip gracefully sledded down he began to pick up some speed. The icy slope was fast today. We saw him getting closer and closer to a curious snow feature that from hundreds of feet away looked a little troublesome. "That kind of looks like a drop-off" I remember thinking to myself. Phillip picked up even more speed and approached the "feature". For all of us distant spectators, we voiced a collective "uh-oh" as Phillip gained 5ft of air. That feature was indeed a drop off. Frozen in my mind is the image of Phillip flying like a bird through the air, with his shadow 5 ft beneath him and his sled flying independently in another direction. Bang! He hit the snow hard and tumbled over three times before coming to rest. This can't be good, I thought. But the violent impact with the snow hadn't made him forget that his sled--his ride down the mountain--was now rocketing away down the hill. He jumped up and sprinted after it, tackling it before it went too far. He proceeded to ride the rest of the way towards us. He was very fortunate that he hadn't gotten hurt worse than he had. With a sore neck he shrugged it off and we continued sledding at a more subdued speed. We needed to vindicate hauling our hockey gear all the way up the mountain, so Eric and I suited up for some 1-on-2 action with Phillip in his boots. I believe that Phillip's boot skating was actually faster than the our hockey skates, because the boot could easily slide over rough icy surfaces. A few surprised hikers happened to walk by, and I can only imagine what was going through their minds. With the 11am sun beating down upon us and all of our goals met: sleeping in snow shelters, seeing sunrise and sunset on Mt Washington, playing hockey, Alpine Sled Touring, and having an awesome time, we were ready to head down the mountain. The weather had been spectacular. The only clouds we saw were a couple of impressive lenticular clouds high over Wildcat, that were worth a picture of their own. The wind had been cooperative and the temperature tropical for a winter's day in the Whites. After some extreme glissading with 50 lb packs on the way down, and some extreme sledding by Shivin, we got to the cars by 1:30. We patted ourselves on the backs for a good trip. Stay tuned for next year's expedition. Who knows what awesome new activities there will be! |