| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-01-21 21:45:36 UTC-0500 |
| Description |
Mt. Moosilauke via Gorge Brook Sunday 01.21.07 Jon Hanselman, Jake Osterberg, Aaron Yahr, Monika Schleier-Smith, Mike Kokko It was -1F outside Camelot when we left around 7am so we took the long way to Moosilauke which just so happened to pass by Dunkin' Donuts. After a little food and a brief nalgene unfreezing session we piled back into the cars and continued on to the trailhead. When we got there we found -- contrary to some Saturday night reconnaissance work -- that Ravine Rd. wasn't plowed past the gate at NH 118. We had enough difficulty just pulling up to the gate, so we left the cars there and hoofed-it up the road to the actual trailhead. The hike in past the Dartmouth lodge yielded great views of the frosted summit but also exposed us to some nasty wind. What does it mean when you need facemasks just to get to the trail? Luckily the wind died after we started up the Gorge Bk. trail and we made good time up to the switchbacks. A recent snowfall (~6") made this the most wintery place most of us had been yet this year. Two other parties passed us (heading down) and confirmed our suspicions that the howling sound we heard meant that it was a little blustery up top. We stopped a short ways below treeline to grab some food and gear up, then pushed on up to the summit. Surprisingly the winds weren't quite as bad as we expected; I'm guessing they were 30-40mph sustained and Jake figures that the ambient temperature was around 0F. None of the cameras wanted to stay awake long enough to record our summiting, but I promise that we were there!! It was about 1:30 when we hit the top, so we descended via Gorge Bk. rather than breaking trail into the wind over to the Carriage Rd. The hike down went pretty quickly and we stopped near the base to cook up some tea / cocoa / cup-o-soup. Then, armed with five cheap Wal*Mart saucers that had just survived a trek to the top of Moosilauke, we amused ourselves for a while sledding down a little hill by the Dartmouth cabins. Monika was even kind enough to demonstrate the proper technique for self-arresting while on a sled... It was starting to get dark as we finished sledding so we packed-up and trekked about a mile down the road back to the cars. From there we hit up the Tilt'n Diner for a tasty meal and drove back into snowlessness. - Mike |