| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-03-05 21:27:37 UTC-0500 |
| Description |
Moosilauke via Beaver Brook Trail... in 3 feet of snow 03-03-2007 Yeuhi Abe, Ana Jaklenec, Daniel Vlasic Report (by Yeuhi): Why would anyone attempt to climb Moosilauke, in 3 feet of unbroken snow, on a day where the forecast bodes badly for good summit viewing? I think for us the answer lies somewhere between ignorance and a need for redemption. Ignorance because I don't think we fully appreciated the difficulty of that much snow and redemption because we had failed the same hike 3 weeks earlier and we really wanted it this time. Strangley, despite the less than ideal conditions, we weren't the only ones with our sights set on the summit that day. When we arrived at the trail head around 9am, two guys were already gearing up. Everyone left around the same time, but since they had arrived first, we decided to give them the dubious honor of breaking trail. They must have been in great shape because they were out of sight by the time we stopped to de-layer. We didn't catch them again till much later in the day, when we briefly took over the trail breaking. Their speed was especially impressive given the topology of the beaver brook trail. Whereas most hikes involve some sort of gentle approach before the serious ascent, beaver brook trail is unique in that it skips straight to the steep. You climb 2100 feet in the first 1.5 miles. This requires some slightly altered logistical thinking. You have to consider that the descent will be significantly fast than the ascent. This is especially true in deep snow when you can glissade down at a fairly good pace. In our previous attempt 3 weeks earier, i had failed to take the speed difference into account. This, combined with some strange cloud formations over Franconia and a scary weather forecast, caused me to decide on aborting much sooner than we actually should have. The day turned out to be clear and beautiful but we were back at the car a little after lunch time, wishing we had stayed the course. To my defense, the clouds were really weird. They came in quickly from behind franconia ridge about around 10am and rose up very high, like those large cumulonimbus you might see at the interface of a storm, but not quite as dark. At a certain point they just stopped moving and disipated, but we had already lost too much ground to turn around (or atleast that was the majority opinion at the time). I'm far from an expert at reading the sky, but seeing clouds that tall, form that quickly gave me pause. In the future, if I see that, I will probably wait around another 30 minutes, just to feel it out before aborting. On this day the sky started out clear and blue but became overcast over the course of the morning. The clouds where low and not that dark, so I wasn't too worried, especially since this fit well with forecast of sporadic showers. My only real concern was the possibility of freezing rain since it was hovering around freezing most of the day. As it turned out, we got a little snow, wind and fog around the summit, but other than that, the weather was fairly tame. The biggest challenge of the day was keeping morale up. When you've been pushing your self to the limit physically and finally get up above the trees enough to glance at the summit and your first reaction is "gee, that still looks far away", its hard not to get discouraged. But then you have to realize that the hardest 2/3 of the ascent is behind you. It's much flatter from here and it only looks far because there are no trees. At least that's what we told ourselves as we marched onward. It was around this point that we caught up with the two guys in front of us. They looked pretty exhausted and they were ready to give us a go at the lead. We probably went about a quarter mile before they passed us. About a half mile from the summit we found them resting. We took the lead again and stumbled through 3 feet of snow drift until we hit the treeline. At that point we layered up and the two guys passed us a second time. Above the treeline, it started to snow. We were embedded in the low clouds which, combined with the snow, made visibility a little less than the distance between cairns. Luckily, Moosilauke has extremely well marked paths, with lines of stones delineating the edges of the trail. We quickly summited, turned around, and headed for the trees. The hike down was mostly uneventful. It was the usual game of trying to make good progress while the adreniline is still pumping and then fantasizing about warm cars, greasy dinners, and steaming baths to motivate you the rest of the way. By this point we all had atleast one body part that was giving us pain and the sun wasn't going to hold out much longer, so we pressed on. When we reached the steep section, we attempted to glissade on our butts, but the snow was too deep to get any real speed. Daniel and I would smooth out a path and then Ana would get a little glide. This continued until we hit the bottom. The hike was definitely a challenge for everyone involved. It was only 7.6 miles round trip, but it took nearly 8 hours, with very little wasted time. As Daniel put it, "it was cold and it didn't end". Ana felt this was her toughest winter hike yet despite having climbed Mt. Washington the previous weekend. It just goes to show that conditions make all the difference. Still, I don't think we would have made it without the enormous effort put forth by the guys in front of us who were breaking the trail most of the way. Thanks guys! |