Driving at a steady 75 miles an hour, encumbered by the Thule and ski rack (and not our normal ~95), we managed to get up to N. Conway and get through EMS with even more winter gear, most notably the ice axes, which came in handy later.
Having made it, at night to Hermit lake shelters uneventfully (besides Vlad dumping his skis and boots trailside about halfway due to encumbrance) we settled in for some well deserved rest.
to make a long story short, we had one day of decent conditions (Wednesday), with high avalanche danger which kept us on the little headwall and the sherby. Air however, was fresh (not like PNW, but some of the best in NE), spirits were high and the food was incredible. Thursday found us with awaking from subzero sleeping conditions to a 0 degree day and absolutley 0 avalanche danger, as everything had turned to solid ice from Wednesday's rain. Such is fate. We skiid the lower snowfields anyways, as well as an insane variation of The Sluice, unfortunatley, without crampons, reaching the lip of the ravine was next to impossible, as it was, we were chopping out footholds on the way up. As it was, we survived to tell the tale, and I made my flight to Poland the next day. We plan or returning early april to revisit in friendlier conditions.
you don't get lichens like this in CT:
nor mountains like these (the view from my perchnewly dubbed, hootenanny's hotspot, before our
descent of the solid ice of Tuck's, march 12, 0 F):
No comments:
Post a Comment