White Mountains Holiday
18-25 March
The six members of the trip, Linda, Bill and Kathy, Sandy, Richard and David, successfully made the rendez vous at Boston Logan Airport and by seven were on their way to New Hampshire. After negotiating the suburbs of Boston the two cars drew up in a Burger King carpark where apparently the trip leader issued a threat; eat here or do without. The crime has been recorded and will no doubt return to haunt him.
Arriving late to the unwonted luxury of en suite hotel bedrooms, we started Sunday at a leisurely pace and consumed most of it in pfaffing, shopping for food, and sorting out gear. This involved much visiting of ski shops and some small purchases. Richard emerged with matching yellow gear and may now at a distance be mistaken for Clare Campbell. We arrived at Shapleigh Bunk House at Crawford Notch in time to take a short walk before settling in for the evening. The self catering turned out to be a small microwave and plastic plates, but we managed to preserve club tradition and prepare three course meals. That evening there was a slide show on walking the Appalacian Trail, only Sandy and Linda got beyond Georgia before nodding off and by New Hampshire the whole party was well away.
The next day dawned grey with snow flurries blowing about in the strong winds through the Notch. The forecast on Mount Washington was for 75 mile hour winds and temperatures well below freezing. Richard never did adapt to the old fahrenheit scale, so we will settle for -12C. So trips on high being contra-indicated we found the one open backcountry trail and put in a stiff four hours exercise.
The snow, however, flatters to deceive and it was clear that the White Mountains were suffering their worst winter in a 100 years and all the well made plans to ski to huts in the AMC network would be to no avail.
The luxurious lounge of Bretton Woods proved enticing and coffee and hot chocolateand a long teatime was enjoyed.
Fortunately we had left open the bookings for these huts, and on the hot gossip of all the local freeheelers, we high tailed it north to Jay Peak which benefitting from its special "orographic" microclimate to the south east of Lake Ontario had just received 24 inches of snow.
After a quick trip around the golf course and a little tentative telemark pratice we checked into the Woodshed,
an atmospheric old BandB with quaint nooks, a good woodstove and reasonable prices. The next day we skied at Hazen Notch and made a full 5hour tour through the forest. On the Thursday we skied at Jay Peak, but the 24 inches had disappeared to 2 on the golf course and the lift bound telemarkers had the best of the day especially as they benefitted from a special two for one promotion.
We were booked into the Blake Lodge back in the White Mountains for the last three nights of our trip, so we returned
south to New Hampshire and the search for snow.
We made a tour on the Avalanche Brook trail from Pinkham Notch, but after a hour on skins our telemarkers decided that Wildcat Mountain downhll beckoned and they left Kathy, Bill, Linda and David to complete the trip. Conditions demanded skins for negotiating the steep narrow descents through multiple stream beds and the last mile involved carrying gear down icy paths.
On Saturday Richard return to the UK and the late March snow that had missed out New England, and the weather turned springlike and all hopes of ski-ing rapidly disappeared as the snow line retreated ever higher
Sandy and Linda had enjoyed three days in Boston en route, Kathy and Bill stayed three nights on the way back, and Carole joined David for an even more ski ing free second week.
Sandy found snow from Inverpattack at Easter, Linda swears it was great in Oregon, and Richard reported wonderful days at Glen Coe and Nevis Range.
The snow conditions did not succeed in destroying an enjoyable and congenial trip.