| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2004-11-16 12:17:02 UTC-0500 |
| Description | Sometimes the White Mountains don't really look like mountains. You know how it is: someone from one of those places where they have "real" mountains calls our bumps up in New Hampshire "hills"" and you try to defend them. "But we have terrible weather," you say, as if that should entice someone to play in our hills. Well, I'm happy to report that mid-November allows a brief window of opportunity for those of the northeastern persuasion to pretend that our mountains are mountainous. The views from the Carter-Moriah range this weekend included vistas that would make Ansel Adams smile. This is the time when only the peaks are covered in snow, resulting in that pleasing, classic alpine scene of snow capped mountains. Soon all will be white, and the White Mountains will, once again, appear to be but hills.
Manuel Balderas and me (Justin "pronounced with an 'ustin'" Fitzpatrick) left a totally socked-in Boston around 6:30am on Saturday. It didn't look good. Progress was slow, and the plows hadn't exactly done their job yet on this early-season snow storm. Still, our outlook was bright with hopes of clear skies and Mana on the radio. Sure enough, the edge of the storm was hovering just north of the New Hampshire Border. As happens so often, we missed the exit for 95, so opted for the Meredeth diagonal method. The skies were bluebird and the prospects were good when we pulled into our planned trip end-point in Pinkham notch. We quickly threw on some more clothing (it's sometimes cold in them hills), let our stomaches grumble a bit, wondering what Dunkin Donuts had put in those breakfast sandwiches, and headed for the road. Our faith in the kindness of strangers was not shaken, as our upward-pointing thumbs quickly netted a kind soul in a beautiful pickup, on his way to Sunday River for some early season skiing, who gladly gave us a lift up to Gorham, the start of our hike. Now this is one of the things you forget when living in Boston: in some parts of the world, people don't pretend that strangers don't exist. People don't avoid eye contact or hide behind their newspapers. So, as we began wandering the sidestreets of Gorham looking for a trail, we were somewhat surprised, but mostly gratified, to have an older couple come out of their house to help us, having seen, perhaps, our looks of helplessness. See if that happens next time your car breaks down in Boston. You probably wouldn't call the Carter-Moriah trail "well-marked", but some wandering around in the woods eventually found us heading upward toward Mt. Surprise. There was a thick layer of fallen leaves on the ground and I remarked that I felt silly carrying crampons in such beautiful, ice-less weather. Mt. Surprise gave us our first incredible view of the white-capped Presidentials, and we happily sped along her ledges toward higher goals. My cramponial comments proved premature when we approached Mt. Moriah and found the need to surmount a series of icy cascades. Though not yet impassible to the bare-booted, we eventually cramponed up, after a few too many unplanned meetings of ground and arse, and made good progress. The views continued. 4:30pm found the sun sinking behind the mountains and us at the Imp campsite, where we discovered that MSR tent poles are somewhat longer than usual, or perhaps the tent fabric itself shrinks, in 20 degree temperatures. We have a theory, I assure you, how metal poles can EXPAND in the cold, rather than contract. If you're interested, drop me an email. Some grunting eventually provided us with a shelter from the wind, which was picking up after a totally calm day. We then set about dealing with the biggest obstacle faced by winter short-day hikers: what to do with all that time between dark and sleep? Cooking, getting water, a full Jane Fonda stretch and workout session, and lots of futsing, eventually saw us asleep and the temperature dropping. The next morning we headed out to the Carters around 7:40am, slightly later than planned. After a leasurely flat section, the trail reared up toward the summit of North Carter. We adjusted layers and bare-booted until we reached an impassible 30 foot low andlge waterfall of ice. Here began the real meat of the trip: tool-free ice bouldering. We gleefully strapped on spiky things and Manuel took the first ascent. The first problem was sent with little trouble, being thick and well-established. I gave him the traditional ice-bouldering spot by backing away about 30 feet to avoid having his crampons embedded in my head, should he fail to hold on. The problem quickly saw a second ascent, and we were all warmed up. Several other problems were flashed before we finally reached a harder line. We grade it perhaps an IB3. It included a high step onto a thin stance with good finger jams in a diagonal, shallow crack, followed by a traverse on verglass-encrusted 65 degree ice about 10 feet off the deck, then a topout onto easier ground. Manuel was still in front, so took the first ascent. I followed at distance. The route can probably only take a few ascents (due to the thin ice and our poor execution), and was markedly different by the time I was on it, having lost a lot of ice. After edging out on the traverse and backing off, I finally pulled off resting the front points of my left foot on a thin ice ridge and topped out. The Carter ridge was a wintery place, with a few inches of base snow and ice and a good wind blowing. Views of the Presis were many and Mt. Washington kept getting closer. By the time we finished the traverse and dropped into Zeta Pass, we opted for a descent to 19-mile brook instead of the planned trip over the Wildcat range. In retrospect, we probably would have come out about an hour after dark (around 5:30pm), but we decided for beers and an early return to Boston instead. |