I got a text from a hiking friend on Thursday asking if I wanted to go hiking this weekend, and what I thought about the forecast for Saturday. Well, yes, I'm always up for a hike if I am free, and she pointed out a hike I've been wanting to do to knock nearly 7 miles of new trail for the Red Line challenge. The weather, well, it looked to be on and off showers throughout the day with potential thunder showers in the afternoon.
In the theme of starting to hit the less used trails, and working to red-lining the map, I did a traverse from Marcy Field over Blueberry and Porter, and out via 73. This was also to scout for a possible hike a friend wants me to help him with in 2 weeks, since I've never done the Blueberry side of things.
A while ago, a friend from my ADF days and I were talking about hiking as she had started hiking the Whites in New Hampshire, and I had already finished my 46er. I told her that I would love to show her "my" mountains some day, whenever she wanted to. Well, this memorial day was the time for me to show her. My original plans were to come in from the south, backpack into the Lake Colden/Flowed Lands area and grab some peaks out of there like Marshal, Marcy, Skylight, Grey, and Colden, but the one place she had to go was Avalanche Pass/Lake.
This day, I attempted to do Dial and Nippletop. The day started out as usual, with a quick walk up to the trail register and down lake road to the turn off for the Leach trail. Going up the Leach trail is not bad, but there were a few icy spots that made it adventerous. After the icey spots were over, switched over to snowshoes for the climb up Noonmark's shoulder. This climb just killed me. I couldn't get my heart rate down, and was really struggling.
The plan for the day was to start early and go up the Beaver Meadows trail to get Gothics and Armstrong. If we felt good about it, we would continue on to Upper Wolfjaw and Lower Wolfjaw if we were feeling it.
First hike of the year from AMR. We went for one of the further ones and did Sawteeth up and down the Weld trail. Early start and up and down the lake road with no big issues. I was getting a little tired with the fast pace, but I pulled through. We crossed the river, stopped and looked at Rainbow Falls a bit, and then it was up the mountain. Once you start climbing, it keeps going. The trail was already broken out, and we just packed it down better. The trail was smooth, and no rocks. It was everything I like about winter hiking.
To end out the year, I hiked Big Slide. This was weirdly the first time I did it over the Brothers, which is the typical way most people first approach it.
It's the first day of winter, time to start hiking winter peaks again! Unfortunately, there was a major rain storm in the week leading up to the 21st, and that did some major road damage by Owl's Head on 73. Coming into the day, I was concerned about water levels around the washbowl. I totally forgot that on the ridge trail you cross the outlet 3 times.
For my last winter hike of the year, I went back up north and decided to do a "simple" 12 mile hike, TableTop and Phelps. The weather forecast was good, but suggested weather would be moving in later in the day.