After yesterday’s brief snowfall the weather turned warm and sunny once again, allowing us a beautiful fall afternoon. This morning we woke to dense river-valley fog, so I headed across Lyme to the Dartmouth Skiway and the high point of Holts Ledge. There, well above the fog, I encountered brilliant foliage at the base and an impressive 2″ snowcover on the exposed slopes near the top. Here is one photo from the top, showing Holts Ledge at left and the peaks of Moosilauke, Cube, and Smarts left to right – but don’t miss the gallery for six other full-res photos in brilliant color.
View of Holts Ledge with (L to R) Moosilauke, Cube, and Smarts, with waves of fall foliage below.
Hike stats: distance = 5.9km gain = 353m time = 1h 37m (including photo stops)
It may be 60 degrees in Hanover, with only the vestiges of snowbanks left to remind us of winter, but this morning on the summit of Moosilauke it was clearly still winter.
After my disappointment on Couchsachraga three weeks ago, and no good opportunity to return there this winter, I felt a deep need to get into the mountains – and Moosilauke is always soothing to the soul. Yesterday’s light snowstorm followed by today’s blue skies and strong April sunshine were the cue that today is the day. Read on, and see the photos.
I’ve probably hiked Moosilauke over 60 times – I just love this mountain. For 2015 I decided to “grid” Moosilauke by climbing it at least once per month (some people are crazy enough to climb all of the 48 of the NH 4,000-foot mountains every month of the year, aka, “The Grid“). To avoid too much repetition, I also decided to “redline” the mountain by traveling all of its trails at least once. I had not visited some of these trails in over 20 years! It was fun to get up there in all seasons and in a huge range of conditions from nasty winter white-outs to glorious sunshine. Today I finished, on one of those gorgeous blue-sky days on which you can see all of the Vermont and New Hampshire peaks. See all 12 months and more photos here.
Moosilauke summit on a beautiful, sunny, warm(!) December day.
Only two days left in March, but Moosilauke still has 2-3 feet of snow at the base, and 4-5 feet along the ridgeline. Andy (12) and I hiked to the summit via the Glencliff trail today. With sunny weather in the forties at the trailhead, the snowpack was soft and wet, eager to swallow any foot that strayed from the trail packed by hundreds of hikers before us. The warm March sunshine allowed for a comfortable hike, no hat no gloves. High on the slopes of south peak we finally caught some views to the west; indeed, I had a great view down into the Tunnel Brook valley and even spotted a person standing on Mud Pond where I’d skied just six days ago.
As we reached the Carriage Road trail junction and the ridgeline, we climbed into the clouds. The temperatures were still above freezing, though only barely, and as we crossed the ridge and climbed above treeline the wind picked up and the ambient temperature dropped. We could barely see from one cairn to the next, but Andy was so enthralled by the rime ice that we took our time. We met six backcountry skiers at the summit, and explored the cloudy terrain for a while before heading for home.
The soft wet snow, four feet deep along the upper reaches of the trail, provided great opportunities for butt-sledding and made for a quick descent. Four hours up, less than two hours down. Great day!
To welcome in the new year, as we have done so often before, I headed off with a group of friends to a cabin on the side of Mount Moosilauke in the core of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Great Bear Cabin is a cozy log structure nestled along the Appalachian Trail as it heads northward up the slopes of Moosilauke, and has become somewhat of a traditional winter outing for me and my kids. Although my kids were unable to attend this time, our party included three children and eight adults – friends for over thirty years – including one of the original builders of the cabin. With the woodstove roaring, and the woods frosted from a recent snowfall that glazed the trees and blanketed the nearby meadow with 10″ of fresh powder, we were cozy indeed.
A glorious winter day, right after a big snowstorm.
My friends Kathy and David and I decided to head up Mount Moosilauke, after Friday’s big snowstorm. There was about 6” of new snow on top of several feet of solid base, which made for fantastic conditions. With a group of 4 snowshoers breaking trail a couple of hours ahead of us, we cruised up the Glencliff trail. Read on…
Great Bear cabin is one of the DOC cabins on Mount Moosilauke.
We spent two nights of our four-day MLK weekend on the snowy slopes of Moosilauke, visiting Great Bear cabin with our friends. Great Bear cabin is a log cabin built and maintained by the Dartmouth Outing Club, and it is one of my favorite winter cabins because of its snug design and its close accessibility. It is located on the southwestern slopes of Mount Moosilauke, my favorite mountain in the world, and this weekend it was surrounded by many feet of fresh powdery snow.
Great Bear ski weekend.
We had two nights and a nice long day in between. On that day, it was sunny and reasonably warm, so we set out for a daytrip skiing up some old logging roads. To get there we had a tricky bushwhack through the woods, and to break trail up the logging road. The sunshine and powdery snow made for a really pleasant ski. Unfortunately, some of the kids were pretty tired, and Andy was under the weather, so we turned around well short of our goal of reaching Mud Pond.
Andy got sick when he returned to the cabin, but I have to give him huge credit for doing all that skiing despite being dizzy and nauseous throughout!
We had a fine time in the cabin, stoking the woodstove, playing cards, and doing lots of cooking. It’s always a lot of fun and very relaxing to spend time at DOC cabins with friends.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2021, 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.
On ten-ten-ten we climbed this mountain near Moosilauke.
Black Mountain is a nice little peak in the midst of a broad valley to the west of Mount Moosilauke. On this special day – 10/10/10 – we scrambled up and were treated with a gorgeous view of the Connecticut River valley and The Mountain and a distant peek at the Franconia Ridge.
Black Mountain. Andy, Daddy, John, and Mara sit atop a glacial erratic on the summit of Black Mountain.
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We climbed Moosilauke on New Year’s day, once again.
A group of us climbed Mt. Moosilauke on January 1, 2000. We were some of the last to summit on this otherwise busy day on the summit.
Nearing the summit of Moosilauke on New Year’s Day, 2000.
Although the traditional chubber alum group did not hole up in a Y2K-compliant cabin for New Year’s eve, opting instead for the house of Ken and Karen Kaliski in the sprawling metropolis of East Thetford, we still headed out on New Year’s morning for a hike up Moosilauke.
While there was some discussion of summiting at Midnight, or even at dawn, most groups seemed to get a later start than that ;-). Our group (David Metsky ’85 and Brenda Conaway, Ken Kaliski ’85, Ed Lowney ’85, Kathy Gelhar ’87, myself ’86, and two friends Andrew and Ching) got a crack-o-dawn start at 10am, at the base of the Carriage Road. There was maybe 2″ of snow at the base, high clouds, and temps in the 20s predicted.
Boy, that Carriage road is a long slog, when on foot rather than on skis. We were especially gratified, then, when we reached the viewpoint near the turnaround. Just then, the clouds cleared and the sun came out, illuminating the brilliant white Moosilauke and Washington. At about 2pm we were in the middle of the ridge crossing over toward the north peak when we met David Hooke ’84 and Kathy Roy ’85 coming down. David told us of the crowds on the summit, larger than ever seen on New Year’s Day. Many chubbers were sighted, including Put Blodgett ’53 hiking with Sam Adams (son of Sherm Adams ’20) and Jim Hardigg ’44 (!).
While we were chatting, down came Jack Noon ’68 and Bob Averill ’72. On the summit Jack had been signing copies of his new book “Up Moosilauke”, and proceeded to hand out copies.
While we were skimming the books, who should appear behind us but Bernie ’74 and Mary Waugh….
On the way up we had met Dick Birnie ’66 coming down, as well as a backpacker who said he had spent the night on South Peak because “the North Peak was too crowded with other people.”
The summit itself was as windy and icy as ever, although warm (20 degrees or so) and given the late hour we turned around and headed down fast, racing the darkness. No luck. We walked out by starlight to the howl of distant coyotes, satisfied with a great hike and a wonderful way to welcome the new century.
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.
After my disappointment on 
David Kotz 