Today, I took a floating holiday and went up to get my winter Porter (Cascade was done a couple weeks ago, so it was a secondary goal if weather was clear).  I got up to the trail head about 845 and was on the trail just before 9.  When I was getting boots and all on, I looked down at the trail register and the couple of bridges over small streams and all I saw was ice on the trail.  Now anyone that has hiked a popular winter trail will know that the snowshoes compact everything down and what is known as a "monorail" is created.  Towards the end of the season that tends

So, last time I ended up going up Cascade and skipping Porter.  The biggest reason was I got to the top right about my turnaround time.  This was based off of not knowing how fast I would be heading out.  It took 4 hour up but only 1.5 down.  If it was 4 down I would have been off the trail at 5 and in the mountains where the sunset is around 6, it can get dark quickly and I don't really want to be hiking in the dark.  Now I know better about my abilities.  My turn around time won't be 130 like it was last time.  It will be more like 3.  Looking back

Saturday will be the first of my winter 46.  I have all the gear and this will be my shakedown hike.  I didn't go up last weekend because of a major rain storm on Friday and unsure of the trails.  Trail reports after said some of the water crossings were bad, but overall the trails were fine throughout the high peaks.  This week, we've again got rain up there, but on Wednesday, and not as much or bad as we had last week.  That gives it a couple days to freeze back up and there's supposed to be another 9 or so inches of snow falling Friday.  So, with that all in

I got up to the mountain about a quarter of 7 and was on the trail by 7.  It was on and off drizzle/rain for the first hour or so.  Being that it was forested, I didn't get horribly wet.  The wind was also rather consistent and strong the whole hike up.  As you can see in the stats below, this was a relatively short hike, GPS tracked it as 5.44 miles, officially it's supposed to be 6.2 miles.  This is probably because I turned down the sensitivity of the mapper.  I decided to do Porter first as it is the smaller of the two.  The trail was a stream the whol

If I'm really good, Monday I'll be doing another 2 peaks.  More likely than not, it will be next weekend though.  These two will be Cascade and Porter from Marcy Field.  The old approach to the peaks has been closed due to it's immense popularity and issues with parking.  Cascade was the sacrificial peak as it was only 4.8 miles round trip and not a horrible hike either.  We'll find out what the new one is after this eason as the approaches to Cascade are now significantly longer.  I'll be doing the one from Marcy Field which takes me over Blueberry mountain an