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Winter
Open Hut Solo Traverse
The
Hike:
"Setting off by lantern-light, witnessing the birth of a new day
as one climbs to meet the sun, this is a wonderful experience." -
Gaston Rebuffat
I was dropped
off at 9:30 pm February 28 at Great Glen, where I tried to contain my
excitement and save energy by walking as slowly as I could to Carter Notch
Hut. I carried only a small pack with a down jacket and a few snacks,
as I only planned only staying at the hut for 40 minutes or so before
departing. Arriving at the Hut, I had an enjoyable conversation with hutman
Mike Jones before he retired, who also offered me some cocoa to start
my journey. Alone in the hut for about 20 minutes before midnight, I tried
to concentrate on all the positive factors that I felt would shape my
trip. The sky was wonderfully clear, the temperature agreeable, and there
had been no recent snowfall. The high winds that had buffeted the Presidentials
with near 100 mile an hour wind gusts for much of Saturday were forecast
to finally subside."Light and variable" never sounded sweeter.
Only occasional soft gusts were drifting through Carter Notch as I left
the front door at 12 midnight, the setting moon casting Wildcat's long
shadow across the frozen lake.
The climb up the Lion's Head was my first concern. Not having recently
been up the trail, I was a little nervous about not bringing an axe for
the steep sections of the winter route. As it was, some of the sections
were beginning to melt out from the recent sunny weather, it turned out
to be fairly easy to just stow my ski poles and use the many exposed trees
and roots to clamber through the two steepest sections. It was a bit disappointing
to see the light of the half moon disappear behind the range as I approached
treeline, as it certainly would have been a welcome companion on this
night traverse.
Crossing the Lion's Head , I removed my crampons for the rock hop over
to the Alpine Garden Trail junction, which skirts the lip of the ravine
rather closely before joining the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. Lacking an axe,
I was careful to kick out deep steps in the steep, hard snow patches and
cross this area with extra caution, as the runout below led directly to
an icy, treeless lip in several places. A large, firm snowfield above
this junction had buried the cairns for a few hundred feet upslope, resulting
in a bit of hunting to find the Tuckeman Crossover junction. The day before
I had made a list of the compass bearings for all the legs of the Presidential
Range (as well as the above treeline section on the approach to Lafayette),
but never found it necessary to use them, as quite a few cairns were visible,
as well as crampon tracks and fragments of raised "snow mushrooms"
with distinct snowshoe shapes. I was relieved that the temperature and
wind combination was what I expected, and wore just a thin silk shirt
and an "Epic" fabric windshirt and windpants for the entire
Presidential Range, although I did have to use a facemask and shell gloves.
A crystalline glaze of frost coated every surface, which erupted in shimmering
rainbow sparks under my headlight as I walked. Although beautiful, this
made it difficult to distinguish between rock, snow, and large sections
of steel grey boilerplate ice. My screwboots were becoming a bit skittish
on the extremely hard ice, so I switched over to crampons for the well
cairned, wind blasted Tuckerman Crossover. As I gained the height-of-land,
I noticed a faint glow in the direction of Lake of the Clouds Hut - a
trio of tents in the the lee of the hut provided a welcome, if illicit,
beacon. The trail around Mount Monroe included yet more exciting steep
snowfields, and I passed the Monroe Loop junction, and on to the Eisenhower
Trail junction without any route finding difficulty. Deep snow cover,
low temperatures, and/or high winds would have made this part of the journey
very difficult at night.
The dawn finally began to arrive as I crested over the summit of Mount
Eisenhower, and I put my headlight away at last as I neared the Webster
Cliff Trail Junction. I stripped down to my base layer for the smooth
run to Crawford Notch down a well packed trail. Arriving at the notch,
I retrieved my cache in the woods at Crawford Depot. I swapped my socks
and pile gloves, grabbed some trail food and a burrito, and hit the well
packed Avalon Trail just as the sun had begun to warm to forest air. Leaving
the height of land near the Willey Range Trail junction, the trails takes
a brushy, twisty, but pleasantly gradual course to a beautiful birch forest,
just before ending at the Zealand Trail. At Zealand Hut, I found "The
Tinman" busily hustling about the Hut cleaning up in the wake of
many visitors, so I just asked for some water and was on my way.
The trail surface was beginning to soften slightly as I crossed paths
with skiers of all ages scampering down from the view at Zeacliff to don
their skis for the trip out. I am becoming more confident now that I will
be near or over the summit of Lafayette before nightfall, although my
legs are beginning to fade a bit on the steep uphill sections. I am suffering
minor bouts of CMS at this point; what I refer to as Cranky Marathoner
Syndrome: symptoms include becoming acutely aware of the amount
of energy it takes to do the simplest of tasks, and becoming intolerant
of anything even slightly wasteful of energy, such as dropping a glove
in the snow - which occurs, unfortunately, at the same time that I am
becoming a bit more klutzy with fine motor skills from the sustained effort.
The usual stiff wind greeted me at Guyot, where I donned snowshoes for
the rest of the trip. The section of the Twinway over to South Twin passed
by without much to note, but then I arrived at the summit and was forced
to come face to face with....Garfield. I am always in awe of the presence
that Garfield has when viewed from South Twin, and today was no exception
... it looked really far away, steep, and very large. The seemingly endless,
"meaningless" ups and downs of the Garfield Ridge Trail to Garfield
were yet to come, and then 2000 feet more of lightly used trail to Lafayette.
"Only two summits to go" was the only optimistic way for me
to view it at this point.
Climbing up the steep pitches up Garfield, I became impatient with my
current snowshoes, which despite being very light, have a huge Western
style toe and smallish crampon which are not well suited to this kind
of terrain. Oh, how I would savor reaching Lafayette for the easy cruise
down the Old Bridle Path, and all with daylight! Passing the summit area
of Garfield, I braced myself for the psychological impact of yet more
steep roller coaster terrain between me and the second to last climb of
the day. I tried to concentrate on maintaining a decent pace, knowing
that I could recover a bit on the descent to Lafayette Place, and also
lighten my load at my spotted car for the final steep trail to Lonesome.
The short downhill to Garfield Pond was welcome, but short lived as the
roller coaster nature of this ridge resumed it's torture on my legs. Thankfully,
the smell of the finish line was becoming stronger, and I made every effort
to crank up the last steep pitches to Lafayette. Making treeline below
the Skookumchuck Trail junction, I was elated to at last be able to stow
my snowshoes for the final steep climb through the broken ridgeline and
on to the final summit of the long day.
Cruising down the Old Bridle Path I encountered a lone backpacker making
his way towards the summit of Lafayette, as a filthy grey sky attempted
to douse the brilliant orange glow of the setting sun. I was ecstatic
that the trip had gone so well! Making the highway in a bit over an hour,
I unloaded most of the contents of my pack, packing only a few warm things
for the walk back down. I had forgotten how steep the Lonesome Lake Trail
was, and my legs were now protesting very loudly on the steep and frozen
sidewalk-like nature of this trail. Finally, the grade eased as I neared
the east shore of the Lake. I looked at my watch and noticed that I was
still barely under 19 hours, and decided to give it all I could for the
run around the lake.
I made it to the hut with 2 minutes to spare before the 19 hour mark,
and fairly burst in the door. Doubtlessly appearing as if I had "been
through the wringer", hutman Matt inquired as to where I was coming
from, and I started spilling the details of my long day. Matt has done
the 24 hour summer traverse ( including Madison Hut), and was very happy
to hear that a winter day traverse was possible after all. A table full
of guests immediately offered some lasagna and pesto bread with wine,
capping off a great journey with an unexpected but extremely welcome ending.
I was offered bedding for the night if I wanted to stay, but as I had
not contacted my wife yet, I shortly set out for the notch and some sleep
in my car after some conversation with Matt, Peter (?), and the friendly
guests present at the hut. A big thanks to them for such a swell reception.
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