Yesterday I lead a hike for ADK up Allen.  I don't normally want large groups for winter hikes, they can cause issues with mismatched speeds and such, but knowing that there was feet of snow that likely needed breaking, 11 of us went out to do the hike.  

We had hope at the start of the day.  There were a couple registered fro Adams since the storm, and 2 registered for Allen, with 1 saying : "Not today".  It turns out that the 2 that had signed in the day before camped overnight next to the Adams caretaker cabin, and they took Fujacks road up.  They unfortunately turned around about 1/2 way up the slide.

We took the marked trail to the traditional herd path.  There is a gauntlet of low trees (not sure if we were just off trail or it was that much snow) in the mile between the river and the herd path.  Not horrible to get through, but a bit annoying.  The herd path to the slide was pretty reasonable for route.  We did a couple extra loops searching for the trail, but corrected it on the way out.  Basically, on the way in, keep left.  On the way out, keep right.

Then there is the slide.  The first half is not that bad, in the woods, and not really exposed.  When you get to the top 1000 feet or so of the slide, where we crossed over from right to left, the snow changed and was not that compactable  It was basically graupel on top of ice.  The worst of it was just to the side of the big ice bar.  A whippet really helped one of my hike up that.  Changing to full crampons may also have helped.  I have since found out that the new MSR snowshoes they had still had the protection on the 2 crossbars of teeth, so they weren't getting full traction.  I suspect if we knew about that and removed them, the day would have been completely different.  I personally had no problem with snowshoes, but that is me.  At the top of the slide, where we exited, it was better snow and still steep.  When you can see the sky on the other side of the mountain, take the trail to the left not to the right.  The sign is a couple minutes and one last climb down that way.

Now let me say that coming down that slide made it worth it (beyond the winter credit).  I think that I butt slid for 0.4 of the top 0.5 miles.  At one point I even caught air!

It was a long day, but the trail is now fully broken, and it looked like Fujacks also is broken out decently (a group of 3 came up behind us and I think they came that way).  If you need Allen, get it before the next storm!

This was one of my more difficult hikes for sure.  It doesn't rise to the level of my hike up Hough.  That hike still stands out as the hardest hike I've done, especially since it was for a single peak.  This hike is up there though.  Allen and I have a history.  The first time I did it, I fell a few times coming down, once hard enough to bruise (maybe break?) a bone in my palm next to the thumb.  My back was rubbed raw from the pack I was using, I got drenched in a downpour for the last 3 miles of the hike, and I ended up packing up to go home when I couldn't get my stove lit.  My first winter attempt, I pulled both groin muscles jumping over the Opalescent river and turned around at mile 6.  My second winter attempt, I couldn't get warm and was in pain from Hough the week before so I only went 4 to the river and turned around.  Needless to say, I'm glad I finally got this one done.  It's no longer my nemesis.  Cliff and Redfield are the only winter peaks left that I've attempted and turned around on, and at that, I turned around early before going too far in.

So, that leaves me with 12 winter 46 to go.  This was 18.4 miles over nearly 17 hours and 3900 feet of elevation.  Year to date, 4 hikes and 58.3 miles over 45.9 hours and 2.68 miles of elevation.