s2oleary
04-01-2003, 12:18 PM
well after much reading and preparing we went this past weekend.
i am going to post what i feel is all of the important info and details of our trip.
one of the biggest problems of the trip was the indisisveness of anyone giving info for example the question "do you need snow shoes or crampons?"
is a popular question and alot of the replies were as follows "well you might but then again you might not it really depends." Theses type of awnsers were frusterating in trying to prepare. so i will just say what we did what we brought and how it worked and then you may decide the value of it.
Our plan was to be at pinkham at 6:30 on sat morning to get a shelter. We were there about 6:50 and there was only 2 shelters taken in front of us. During the week we gathered and packed our gear as follows. me and my roomate. We packed each: a cold weather sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, a military pancho liner (blanket) snow shoe's, about 10 granola bars, 4 bags of ramen noodels, i can of chicken broth, and one can of backed beens, we also brought a small propane stove, and two tanks of propane, we also had a flashlight each and extra batteries. what else did we have hmmmm. ok we had a small first aid kit, lighters Butane tourch style waterproof and windproof, swiss army knife, clothes line for shelters, ski boots skies,ski goggles, and poles, a northface down coat,
this is what was in the pack
were wore a base layer of polypro, (capaline, long underware) were wore rain pantsa a tee shirt and a rain coat. a hat a pair of fleece linned mittens, hicking sox and hicking boots. we did not bring any extra clothes in anticipation that at night we would be next to naked in our bags and dry our clothes for the morning.
as you can see we brought a boat load of stuff and we paid for it during the hike to ho jo's
and by the way if you have never done this hike before it is no joke it is all about cardio it is not a nice walk through the woods it is a kick in the balls i estimated our packs were about 65-75 pounds hint(go light as possible)
so we hit ho jo's in 2 hours 50 min then we dumped the over night gear and rested for about 45 min and then headed to the ravine
the weather durning this trip was nasty it was rainny and windy in addition it was foggy this was no problem for the hike to ho jo's but it was a major problem for the rest of the trip.
the terain heading up was difficult htere was still alot of snow on the trail some packed and some ice. we headed up and were depending upon conversation with others for our dirrection this was a mistake we spoke to alot of people that told us we were 800 feet below lunch rocks in fact we found out that we were actualy about 100 to 300 feet short of lions head well right of the ravine. visiablitity at this point was about 15 20 feet and the wind now was about 50 mph and it was a combination of hail sleet and rain and it hurt against the skin. sp at this point we saw 2 skiers in the distance and they informed us of our mistake. so we then traversed accross the face back over to the ravine. we had planned to "gear up" at lunch rocks well we were then well above lunch rocks and forced to try and put ski boots on on this very steep face we then very tentivlly skied down and passed lunch rocks and headed down the trail back to ho jo's this skiing was pleasent and there was plenty of snow we were not on the sherborne trail at this point but skied down a frozen over river that parreled the trail we hiked up after a couple of minutes of skiing it was open water and we had to jike over to the sherobrne trail from there through thick woods and then it was a easy ski to ho jo's
after a bit of consideration we decided to pack up camp do to the wetness . so we headed down the sherbourne trai with out heavy packs on this was good skiing and mostly snow covered. there was one point that we had to take off the skiis and hike like 50 feet acroos bare ground. there were other places were there was thin snow but managable
it took us about 45 min to ski down
so this is what happened on our trip
things i would have left:
we did actually leave the snow shoes in the car
i would have packed less food, and less water,(at hojo's you can get water it needs to be purified but there is water)
we would have left one of the flash lights and all the extra batteries and the extra propane
all in interest to save wieght
however we would have packed dry clothes, our clothes were wet do to rain and sweat we sweat alot.
i would have liked snow shoes not the big ones but just small ones for sure footing, amd crampons would have been awsome going up the face
well i think this covers it
in all of the pictures i saw it was a bunch of people in tee shirts drinking beer and hooting and holoring this is what we hoped for but we got the oppiste but were prepared for it and had a good time
in conclusion dont underestimate the hike it is a ball buster (i dont hike much but am in pretty ok shape) pack light , this time of year small snow shoes and crampons are worth carrirng.
well i hope this helps later see you around
i am going to post what i feel is all of the important info and details of our trip.
one of the biggest problems of the trip was the indisisveness of anyone giving info for example the question "do you need snow shoes or crampons?"
is a popular question and alot of the replies were as follows "well you might but then again you might not it really depends." Theses type of awnsers were frusterating in trying to prepare. so i will just say what we did what we brought and how it worked and then you may decide the value of it.
Our plan was to be at pinkham at 6:30 on sat morning to get a shelter. We were there about 6:50 and there was only 2 shelters taken in front of us. During the week we gathered and packed our gear as follows. me and my roomate. We packed each: a cold weather sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, a military pancho liner (blanket) snow shoe's, about 10 granola bars, 4 bags of ramen noodels, i can of chicken broth, and one can of backed beens, we also brought a small propane stove, and two tanks of propane, we also had a flashlight each and extra batteries. what else did we have hmmmm. ok we had a small first aid kit, lighters Butane tourch style waterproof and windproof, swiss army knife, clothes line for shelters, ski boots skies,ski goggles, and poles, a northface down coat,
this is what was in the pack
were wore a base layer of polypro, (capaline, long underware) were wore rain pantsa a tee shirt and a rain coat. a hat a pair of fleece linned mittens, hicking sox and hicking boots. we did not bring any extra clothes in anticipation that at night we would be next to naked in our bags and dry our clothes for the morning.
as you can see we brought a boat load of stuff and we paid for it during the hike to ho jo's
and by the way if you have never done this hike before it is no joke it is all about cardio it is not a nice walk through the woods it is a kick in the balls i estimated our packs were about 65-75 pounds hint(go light as possible)
so we hit ho jo's in 2 hours 50 min then we dumped the over night gear and rested for about 45 min and then headed to the ravine
the weather durning this trip was nasty it was rainny and windy in addition it was foggy this was no problem for the hike to ho jo's but it was a major problem for the rest of the trip.
the terain heading up was difficult htere was still alot of snow on the trail some packed and some ice. we headed up and were depending upon conversation with others for our dirrection this was a mistake we spoke to alot of people that told us we were 800 feet below lunch rocks in fact we found out that we were actualy about 100 to 300 feet short of lions head well right of the ravine. visiablitity at this point was about 15 20 feet and the wind now was about 50 mph and it was a combination of hail sleet and rain and it hurt against the skin. sp at this point we saw 2 skiers in the distance and they informed us of our mistake. so we then traversed accross the face back over to the ravine. we had planned to "gear up" at lunch rocks well we were then well above lunch rocks and forced to try and put ski boots on on this very steep face we then very tentivlly skied down and passed lunch rocks and headed down the trail back to ho jo's this skiing was pleasent and there was plenty of snow we were not on the sherborne trail at this point but skied down a frozen over river that parreled the trail we hiked up after a couple of minutes of skiing it was open water and we had to jike over to the sherobrne trail from there through thick woods and then it was a easy ski to ho jo's
after a bit of consideration we decided to pack up camp do to the wetness . so we headed down the sherbourne trai with out heavy packs on this was good skiing and mostly snow covered. there was one point that we had to take off the skiis and hike like 50 feet acroos bare ground. there were other places were there was thin snow but managable
it took us about 45 min to ski down
so this is what happened on our trip
things i would have left:
we did actually leave the snow shoes in the car
i would have packed less food, and less water,(at hojo's you can get water it needs to be purified but there is water)
we would have left one of the flash lights and all the extra batteries and the extra propane
all in interest to save wieght
however we would have packed dry clothes, our clothes were wet do to rain and sweat we sweat alot.
i would have liked snow shoes not the big ones but just small ones for sure footing, amd crampons would have been awsome going up the face
well i think this covers it
in all of the pictures i saw it was a bunch of people in tee shirts drinking beer and hooting and holoring this is what we hoped for but we got the oppiste but were prepared for it and had a good time
in conclusion dont underestimate the hike it is a ball buster (i dont hike much but am in pretty ok shape) pack light , this time of year small snow shoes and crampons are worth carrirng.
well i hope this helps later see you around