Hockey at Lakes of the Clouds + report

Summary
OwnerMITOC Gallery Administrator
Creation Date2007-03-04 17:46:53 UTC-0500
Description

    Second Annual Hockey at Lakes of the Clouds Expedition

    Participants: Matthew Gilbertson, Eric Gilbertson, Mike Scharfstein, Mike Kokko, Christie Wilcox, Jason Katz-Brown, Woody Whoburg, Darren Verploegen, Polly Anikeeva

    Hours above treeline: 21


    Average visibility on the second day: 150ft (55 paces)


    Snow caves: 4


    Skatability of the ice: 1 (out of 10)


    Weather: 5F with 40-50mph winds

    Authors: Eric and Matthew Gilbertson

    Nine brave MIT students decided on March 3-4 to attempt one of the most hard-core hockey games imaginable - a game above treeline at

    Lakes of the Clouds on the side of Mount Washington. Five veterans of last year's expedition, Mike S, Eric, Matthew, Darren, and

    Christie, were returning for a rematch.

    The trip began Saturday morning from Boston with two cars (one graciously borrowed from Mike Whitson) and six participants riding up. We

    made it to the Ammanoosuc trailhead around 10am, stopping only at Bretton Woods to buy a pair of over-priced ski goggles after I realized

    I'd left mine in Boston.
    As we were suiting up in the parking lot another hiker noticed our unique apparel and asked, "hey, were you the crazy guys playing hockey

    at Eagle Lakes a few weeks ago?"
    Indeed we were (at least Matthew and I), and we felt pretty famous because he said he'd seen pictures of the game taken by some other

    hikers that day.

    At about that point we realized that there were only five pairs of snowshoes among the six of us, and the snow happened to be about five

    feet deep. Instead of having one person slog through in bare boots we decided to split up one pair of snow shoes between two people (Mike

    K and Matthew), and if that didn't work improvise something along the way.

    We started up the trail and it was surprisingly well-packed. I guess a couple parties got a more-alpine start than us and compressed the

    snow. Despite this, Matthew and Mike were still having trouble with one foot sinking in and one not, probably because of all the extra

    weight everyone was carrying with skates and hockey sticks.

    Being resourceful MIT mechanical engineers, Matthew and Mike strapped snow

    shovels to their feet with rope and sticks. This sounds like a brilliant idea, since the shovel is wide to distribute the weight and

    sharp to dig into the snow, but the shovels fell off after only a few minutes. Some day we'll develop a perfect strapping system and make

    millions on snow-shovels for those who forget their snow-shoes.

    By around 2pm we finally poked our noses above treeline, and were greeted with a clear view up to Washington. A couple rangers were just

    descending from Lakes of the Clouds, and after questioning us about our plans advised us not to camp or pee on the lake, but otherwise to

    have fun. It turns out Matthew and I had actually met one of them at Zealand Hut when we were hiking the NH section of the Appalachian

    Trail last January, and she was confident we could handle this trip.

    We reached Lake of the Clouds just as the visibility plummeted to almost zero. It was time to build some shelters--fast. We relied on our sense of direction to guide us to the area of the lake that had a gigantic snow drift last year. But it was such a severe white-out that we were nearly blind. In such extreme conditions, you don't have any depth perception; all you can see is white in all directions and there's no features, not even a shadow, to focus on. We reached the expected snowdrift area and stopped to look around. "Where is it?" Matthew said. We couldn't find it. "Wait, what's this...oh my gosh..." It turns out there was a 20 ft tall, nearly vertical wall of snow right in front of us. We couldn't even see it until we were a mere foot away. It was like a frozen tsuanmi of snow silently towering over us in the blizzard. We had found our shelter for the night.


    Our plan was to sleep in warm, cozy snow caves instead of cold tents, so we dropped our packs and started digging. Mike S, Mike K,

    Matthew, and I each took a shovel and worked on a two- to three-man cave. We were planning for Woody, Darren, and Polly to meet up with

    us later and thought we'd surprise them with an already-excavated shelter (also the digging kept one more person warm without doing

    jumping jacks).

    I soon started helping Matthew on the cave we would sleep in, and I have to admit it was the best. We dug about 5 feet straight back,

    then 5 feet up, then 8 feet to the side to give a warm loft sheltered from snow blowing in at the entrance. As we learned in Winter School, this design would keep the warm air in and prevent us from being buried by drifting snow. Everyone finished by about

    dusk, conveniently just in time for the other group to show up.
    Some of the people digging had gotten pretty wet with sweat, so as a compromise between hard-coreness and safety we decided to cook

    dinner inside the emergency shelter ("the dungeon") under the Lakes of the Clouds Hut. We had some gourmet pasta with fresh-chopped

    vegetables and even ice cream and pumpkin pie for dessert.

    Around 8pm when we started heading back to the caves to sleep the skies cleared up and we had an amazing view of the lunar eclipse. We went to sleep like Hobbits in our spectacular colony of snow shelters, three of which were connected by tunnels to permit communication and food distribution.

    We had an amazing sleep. Outside in the blizzard, the temp was near 5F, with howling 50mph winds and flesh-stinging snow that painfully reminded you of any exposed skin. Inside the snow shelters, however, it was like a warm tropical oasis. For Eric and me, we were totally oblivious to the storm. It was 30F inside our shelter with no wind, no sound, and not even a single stray snowflake flying in. It was ten times cozier than any bed I've ever slept in.

    We went to bed early because we had all decided our trip wouldn't be complete without seeing sunrise on washington the next

    morning, and that meant getting up super early. The task was left to me and Matthew to crawl out of our cave at 4am the next morning to

    assess the conditions, and if favorable wake everyone else up.

    This was the same plan we had had on last year's expedition, and we were sure that this time the weather would be awesome. We woke up at 4 and were immediately hopeful. You could actually see a little bit in the depths of our tranquil abode without a flashlight, and we assumed that this meant the moon was out. Plus, it was still perfectly quiet inside, so we guessed that the wind couldn't be too bad. WRONG! Just like last year, when we crawled out it was a total white-out, and the visibility was as bad as physically possible. It was like swimming in a pool of milk and expecting to see the bottom. Needless

    to say we crawled right back inside and let our compadres keep sleeping.

    By 7am it was still white-out, so we decided to do what we had hiked so far to do - play hockey! Matthew, I, and Jason laced up first and

    assessed the ice. Unfortunately it had snowed most of the night (it was still snowing), and most of the lake was drifted over. I feebly

    attempted to shovel it off but the wind was so strong that it drifted right back over. The only place with usable ice was about a 10ft by

    30ft area that was sheltered on the leeward side of a big boulder. It wasn't big enough for a full game, but we still played some good

    one-on-one and two-on-one games (mostly me, Matthew, Christie, and Mike S). I think the hardest part about the games was that the ice was

    nowhere near horizontal. I think because the winds are constantly roaring up there the ice forms when the water is choppy and stays

    uneven. Or else the shallow pond froze solid and as it expanded it formed uneven pressure ridges. It was still white-out while we were playing so we had to be careful not to lose the puck out of sight on the ice.

    After having our fill of above-treeline hockey we packed everything up and decided to have some fun on Lake of the Clouds Hut. Somehow a

    huge snowdrift had formed on the leeward side, and the roof of the Hut blended with the snowdrift so well that it appeared to be no more than another part of the ground. We actually climbed up to the roof and sledded down several times.
    Since it was still white-out, we finally gave up all hope of summiting washington and decided to head back down to civilization.

    As we

    were departing we met another party that had apparently gotten lost on the way up and luckily found us. One member said she felt safer

    descending with us, while her colleagues went on to summit Monroe (not the greatest idea in those conditions). With all the fresh snow we

    all sledded, boot-skied, or butt-glissaded the whole way back to the trailhead.

    We left the Ammonoosuc Trailhead not with a feeling of defeat, but with a sense of awe. We built some incredible snowcaves, experienced some spectacular weather, and played one of the most hard-core hockey games in MITOC history. Come join us next year for the 3rd annual Lake of the Clouds Hockey Expedition!