| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2005-10-28 00:38:29 UTC-0400 |
| Description | So I decided to celebrate finishing a big project lab and my birthday by going snowboarding. I enlisted Patrick Lam on this mission. This was to be a mission to do whatever it took to go snowboarding. The plan was to climb Mt. Washington so that we ski some 100 ft snow field on the summit. Chris Glazner thought we were crazy.
Fortunately, our friends in the weather department decided to assist us in this mission. Several feet of snow later, we revised the plan. We arrived at Killington on Wednesday at around 3pm, and the snowboarder skinned up and the skier snowshoed up (how about role reversals). If it is was January we'd consider the conditions great, it was totally unbelievable for October. The snow at the base was 2+ ft deep, and 3-4 ft deep at elevation...heavy powder. We skinned up to the north ridge triple and about half of east fall. There were a few water bars to make things interesting. The staff said that Killington was opening on Saturday. Thursday...Mt Washington. Except the other skiers tell us that the autoroad is covered with trees, which are being cleared. So we decide to ski the Sherbourne trail. The lower half of the the Tuckerman Ravine trail had a lot of stream crossings. The upper half was easily skinnable. We get up to hermit lake and drop by the caretakers cabin. It is totally unbelievable for October. It looks like January. We couldn't even wonder around Hermit Lake without putting our snowshoes or skis back on. After confirming that the avalanche forecast are ridiculous, we decide to ski back down the Sherbourne trail. The depth and quality of snow was excellent. However, there were a bunch of open water bars to make the ride challenging. Near the bottom we saw an incredible mixture of seasons: the trees still had their leaves, but there was 1.5 foot of snow on the ground and trees!!!! Next stop: Wildcat. The employees informed us that if we came back tomorrow, we wouldn't have to hike to the summit (they're opening on Friday). Oddly enough, even though WIldcat is lower in elevation and just across the street, it had much more snow than Pinkham notch. We skinned/hiked up the groomer tracks (dodging the groomers), and rode down Starr Line. This was a pretty wild trail. We have no clue if this is normally this way, or if it is was just early season conditions. |