Finishing the NH48.
On August 24, 1996, I finally finished hiking all 48 of the peaks over 4000′ in the Whites, on Wildcat A.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
With my friends David Hooke, David Metsky, and Ed Lowney, we skied up and down Moosilauke.
One day in March, a bunch of us Daves and one Ed decided to ski Moosilauke, since the snow was supposed to be good and we hadn’t skied the mountain since December. So, we parked just off 118 at the Access Road and skied up to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, where we put on skins. We chose to ski up the Gorge Brook trail, since it’s a more challanging route than the new Snapper trail.
Down low, the conditions were perfect, with nice sunshine on fresh snow. We crossed Gorge Brook and started climbing for real. At the upper views, the clouds were coming in, but we could still see the Blue Ridge poking through.
Above there, the trail is much more exposed, here crossing the Balcony. The first views of the summit ended our hopes of getting any views, but that wasn’t about to stop us. At treeline, we removed our skis and pushed on into the 40 MPH winds after gearing up.
The summit was windy, cold, and wonderful. We took a few summit shots (#1,#2), looked around and headed back to our skis for the descent. We were warming ourselves up on the upper stretches, occasionally stopping for views of the ridge before starting the fast and furious descent. The snow was excellent, and for me I finally had a skill level that was up to the task. We made it back down in about 1/5th the time it took to make it up and we only kissed a few trees.
– by David Metsky
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken. – David Kotz
A hike up to Mitzpah hut on a snowy day.
My friend David Metsky wrote this trip report about our hike up to Mitzpah hut on a snowy day.
On a fine winter weekend, Dave Kotz and I decided to hike up to Mizpah Hut from Crawford Notch, via the Crawford Path. It had just snowed and we were expecting deep snow conditions. But the snow was very light and fluffy, so hiking wasn’t a problem.
The trip to the hut is pretty straightforward, just up the Crawford Path and take a right onto the Mizpah cut-off, total distance is only about 3 miles. People had hiked in front of us, but in places the light snow had drifted in and completely covered the tracks.
When we got to the closed hut the weather seemed to be turning worse. The snow was falling heavier as we stopped for lunch. There were lots of folks tenting near the hut (much too close, actually) and one group set up their tents under a huge huge cornice on the far end of the hut. I hope they made it through the night.
We walked around the hut to the backside for a view, then nice hike outthrough the snowy trees. The weather started clearing a bit, and we got nice views in the notch of the old Crawford House, Saco Lake, and the old Crawford Depot. Through the clouds we even got some nice views of Mt Avalon and Mt Field. Then we shoveled out Dave’s car and were on our way.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
A traverse of (most of) The Presidential Range on the longest day of summer.
Text and photos by David Metsky.
The summer was starting and a bunch of friends decided to do a one-day Presidential Traverse around the summer solstice. It’s a very seasonal thing to do, don’t you know. Most of us had done a Traverse, although I think I was the only one to who’d done a one-day trip before.
David Kotz 
