Another day on the job
Today Jon Kennedy, intrepid caretaker of Lonesome Lake Hut, and I fulfilled our biweekly hutchecking duty in fine style. As a condition of the Appalachian Mountain Club's special-use-permit with the Forest Service, teams of two people must hike to Lakes of the Clouds and Madison Huts every weekend during the winter to make sure that no one is violating forest protection regulations- namely, the regulation that there is no camping within a quarter-mile of any hut, nor above treeline when there is less than two feet of snow on the ground.
On Saturday at Madison, we arrived just as a group of five or so well-outfitted fellows were setting up their tent right outside of the hut's shuttered kitchen. Madison Hut is located in the col between Mounts Madison and Adams, and it is less than a hundred yards away from treeline. Why anyone would prefer to camp above treeline beside a locked and shuttered building, rather than in the shelter of fir trees, is baffling to me, but we encountered several groups that planned to do exactly that in a gathering snow storm.
Today, though, the weather cleared out and gave way to the rare and spectacular phenomenon of a clear, calm day on Agiocochook. Rather than take a long drive and a short hike to Lakes of the Clouds Hut via the 2.5 mile Ammy, we hiked right from our days-off doorstep at Pinkham Notch up over Lion's Head, then across the alpine southern shoulder of Washington to the hut on the south-western slope of the mountain. The Lion's Head winter route is a fun trail to climb, particularly because it doesn't dink around with switchbacks and climbs nearly a thousand vertical feet in a single, nearly straight shot on the northern rim of Tuckerman's Ravine. We got stuck behind a group of eight that stretched above us in a train the head of which we could not see, but it was a fun climb nonetheless, and reached Lion's Head near the end of the morning.
From there we skirted above the Alpine Garden Trail in order to avoid the icy edge of the ravine and in order to climb gradually towards the northern junction of Tuckerman's Crossover, a trail that leads from the western lip of the ravine to the hut. Tuck's Crossover traverses the high plateau on Agiocochook's southern flank, a spectacular alpine tableland. Big cairns for the Lawn Cutoff and Davis Path string across the plain in mile-long paths that converge near Boott Spur. While we hiked across, cumulus clouds filled in the valleys just beneath us, such that the edges of the alpine lawn dropped off into a carpet of undercast.
As a welcome change from the previous day, we found no signs of illegal camping at Lakes of the Clouds Hut, and only one group of day-trippers passed by while we were there. Lakes has an emergency shelter available to winter climbers who are desperate: it's an unwelcoming basement room nicknamed "the dungeon." As with Madison, Lakes is not particularly far from the shelter of treeline, so it's difficult to imagine anyone wanting to stay there in anything but the most hopeless whiteout. On this day, though, we had nothing but sunshine and relatively balmy (about -5 degrees C) temps. We ate a liesurely trail lunch on the drifted snow on the hut's eastern side and bathed in the high sunshine before we returned to Pinkham via the Camel and Boott Spur Trails.
A beautiful day, a beautiful hike. And I earned 8 hours' worth of wages.
What I'm reading now:
Watership Down by Richard Adams.
On Saturday at Madison, we arrived just as a group of five or so well-outfitted fellows were setting up their tent right outside of the hut's shuttered kitchen. Madison Hut is located in the col between Mounts Madison and Adams, and it is less than a hundred yards away from treeline. Why anyone would prefer to camp above treeline beside a locked and shuttered building, rather than in the shelter of fir trees, is baffling to me, but we encountered several groups that planned to do exactly that in a gathering snow storm.
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The protagonists on Lion's Head, Mt. Washington. |
Today, though, the weather cleared out and gave way to the rare and spectacular phenomenon of a clear, calm day on Agiocochook. Rather than take a long drive and a short hike to Lakes of the Clouds Hut via the 2.5 mile Ammy, we hiked right from our days-off doorstep at Pinkham Notch up over Lion's Head, then across the alpine southern shoulder of Washington to the hut on the south-western slope of the mountain. The Lion's Head winter route is a fun trail to climb, particularly because it doesn't dink around with switchbacks and climbs nearly a thousand vertical feet in a single, nearly straight shot on the northern rim of Tuckerman's Ravine. We got stuck behind a group of eight that stretched above us in a train the head of which we could not see, but it was a fun climb nonetheless, and reached Lion's Head near the end of the morning.
|
Above the lip of Tuckerman's Ravine, Mt. Washington. |
From there we skirted above the Alpine Garden Trail in order to avoid the icy edge of the ravine and in order to climb gradually towards the northern junction of Tuckerman's Crossover, a trail that leads from the western lip of the ravine to the hut. Tuck's Crossover traverses the high plateau on Agiocochook's southern flank, a spectacular alpine tableland. Big cairns for the Lawn Cutoff and Davis Path string across the plain in mile-long paths that converge near Boott Spur. While we hiked across, cumulus clouds filled in the valleys just beneath us, such that the edges of the alpine lawn dropped off into a carpet of undercast.
As a welcome change from the previous day, we found no signs of illegal camping at Lakes of the Clouds Hut, and only one group of day-trippers passed by while we were there. Lakes has an emergency shelter available to winter climbers who are desperate: it's an unwelcoming basement room nicknamed "the dungeon." As with Madison, Lakes is not particularly far from the shelter of treeline, so it's difficult to imagine anyone wanting to stay there in anything but the most hopeless whiteout. On this day, though, we had nothing but sunshine and relatively balmy (about -5 degrees C) temps. We ate a liesurely trail lunch on the drifted snow on the hut's eastern side and bathed in the high sunshine before we returned to Pinkham via the Camel and Boott Spur Trails.
A beautiful day, a beautiful hike. And I earned 8 hours' worth of wages.
What I'm reading now:
Watership Down by Richard Adams.
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