Mt Washington State Park, Monday May 14, 2012

The end of last week saw the summit slip back into winter. There was a definite snowline visible starting at 4,000′. There was only 2″ of new snow but 4″ of rime ice and winds gusting above 75mph.

Buildings and vehicles quickly iced over and a plow truck was needed to re-open the upper 2 miles of the auto road due to snow drifts.

Marty our summit Mascot took this short slip back into winter in stride. He preferred to play on a ledge near post office rather than going outside this morning.

Over the weekend Search & Rescue teams attended trainings to refresh their rescue skills. At Cannon Mountain Ski Area in Franconia Notch State Park teams learned about swift water rescue and up close looks at NH Air National Guard’s UH-60A Black Hawk Medical Rescue Helicopter.

In Gorham our Firefighter level II class practiced high angle and patient packaging and carrying skills.

While we wish that we would never need our backcountry search & rescue team skills or the services of the National Guard, the reality is that needs for search and rescue services are not going away. Accidents can happen to even the best prepared outdoor enthusiast. It’s the needless incidents that could be avoided through proper planning and common sense we hope can be avoided by simply reviewing basic hiking information found on NH Fish & Games Hike Safe site.

Meet the NH State Park Bloggers

This Cannon Mountain ski instructor doesn’t shy away from a challenge, and he is willing to brave the back-roads with a van full of sweaty, smelly runners!

We trust Will with our lives as he knows these roads like the back of his hand. (he promised to give us all back massages when he isn’t driving)

Grant (aka Clark Kent) doesn’t have the word “slow” in his vocabulary. This mountain biking, skateboarding, hiking, runner does it all with a camera attached to him somewhere.

Mary (aka Lois Lane with super powers) is the Assistant Coach of the Southern New Hampshire University Women’s Cross Country Team. She averages about 65-70 miles of running per week.

Cait trains rain or shine and when you train in Twin Mountain, you learn a thing or two about hill intervals. If you are looking for an outdoor enthusiast’s vacation spot, consider staying at her Carlson’s Lodge www.carlsonslodge.com in Twin Mountain.

Stacy (who sat down after finishing the marathon in Providence and got stuck in that position) has been racking up miles for over 5 years now. Her chocolate lab Penny waits for her at every finish line!

Kate runs like a gazelle and is already winning local races. She ran with Olympic teams in Slovakia. Look out for this one! (She’ll have to tell the story)

Try running with Adam wearing and pulling a couple hundred pounds of gear. Adam is a high-rise stair racing, mountain biking, kayaking, running, tireless exercise aficionado! (Aficionado is a fun word to say)

Doug is a lean mean running machine. (Just kidding on the “mean” part). His team won the Reach the Beach in his age group in 2006 and placed 2nd overall in 2007. Even more important… he knows the inside secrets of which exchange points give out the best food.

Michele wears funky headbands and hates interval training but is willing to suffer for the sake of the team. She is pretending to be a warrior in this picture but really just loves to have fun!

Mike who saves lives on Mount Washington for a living through mountain Search and Rescue has run the Mount Washington 7.6 mile foot race to the summit for the past 25 years. He also does amazing blog posts on Mount Washington every Monday!

Mt Washington State Park, Monday May 7, 2012

This weekend it is really starting to feel like spring is here in the mountains. The Cog Railway is operating weekends and was able to make it all the way to the summit on Saturday and Sunday. The Mt Washington Auto Road, is open to the tree line for private cars and with a little luck with the weather they could possibly be open to the summit next weekend. Moose Brook State Park has opened a section of the campground for early campers. Moose Brook is one of my favorite state parks! There are cozy campsites nestled in a spruce forest with lots of trees between neighboring sites, showers and facilities are top notch but also the myriad of hiking and biking trails through the northern sector of park is a little know secret. Along these paths are interesting views of the Northern Presidential Range

but also one can find many varieties of spring flowers

Moose Brook State Park in Gorham NH is a convenient base for hiking Mt Washington as it is only 8 miles from Pinkham Notch where several of the more popular trails begin for a climb on the east side of the mountain. Hiking one of the 12 trails to the summit of Mt Washington can be an extremely rewarding adventure. Being high up in the alpine zone is like no other hiking experience one can have this side of the Rocky Mountains and below Newfoundland. It can also be dangerous for those under prepared either physically or equipment wise. If you’re not an experienced hiker than it is always a good idea to climb the mountain with someone who has and to do your homework on researching the hiking trail guide books, trail maps and of course get an up-to-date weather forecast. For the hard core skiers there is still skiable snow in Tuckerman Ravine, the Eastern Snow Fields

and for high end expert skiers the Great Gulf Headwall

Park staff is hard at work behind the scenes getting the summit facilities ready.

We are not up there just looking at the view but there are times when we just have to stop and gaze out at the wonder scenes of nature that is constantly unfolding before our eyes such as an under cast with a Brocken-specter,

Or a hungry fox looking for a snack being chased away by the summit mascot.

No matter how you plan to get up here, don’t forget to call ahead if you’re planning on taking the Mt Washington Auto Road (603-466-3398), or Cog Railway (603-278-5404) to the summit or the AMC Pinkham Notch Visitor Center (603-466-2725) for the latest on hiking trail conditions. See you soon!

PS, For decades summit crews have occasionaly put out turkey and meat scrapes to feed the foxes and ravens in winter to help color an often dull white world at the top of New England. This is not done in summer as there is plenty of colorful secenery and lots of natural food for the wild animals. Mike P

NH State Park Bloggers at the Boston Marathon

You’d think that that if you were told “blue shirt, black shorts” and you found prime real-estate on top of the section of the course affectionately called Heartbreak Hill you could spot your teammates with no problem as they jaunt by. What about your co-worker who you see every day who resembles Clark Kent who would be running with Lois Lane (who in this situation has super powers too)? Wouldn’t you think that you could find them too? Well with over 20,000 marathon runners, Kate and I discovered that it is not as easy as you think.

We must have asked each other, “Is that Grant? Is that Doug?” about a million times.

Grant, Doug, and Mary must have been in disguise

Or hiding somewhere

We cheered anyways! (even though people were staring at us funny)

Even though we failed miserably at our goal of cheering on our fellow NH State Park Bloggers, just being around an event as legendary as this and seeing professional runners stride by you at the 22 mile mark on a 90 degree day as if they have been training on Venus for this moment all winter long, was a phenomenal experience. The energy, the support, the admiration, the compassion, the sounds from cow bells and vuvuzelas, and the cheers from the Boston College students who have been preparing for this moment since they woke up or the night before, altogether is enough to jump start anyone’s motivation and adrenaline.

Kate and I beat all the runners to the finish line, even with flip flops on, and eventually found one of our NH State Park Bloggers.

But the real finish line is when you have a foamy Sam Adams 26.2 in front of you. Deserving after all that hard work that we did!

Congratulations NH State Park Bloggers for an amazing Boston Marathon 2012 run!

Doug Hall 3:46:26
Grant Klene (aka Clark Kent) 3:37:41
and Mary Garrity (aka Lois Lane) 3:37:41

Join our NH State Park Bloggers Reach the Beach Team 2012 group on Facebook.

Mt Washington State Park: April 30th, 2012

The mountain has been going back and forth from record high temperatures in March to record cold temperatures in April.

This past weekend weather observers noted a low temp of 4F which may have broken the record low April 28th temperature of 8F set back in the 1940’s.

During openings in the fog earlier this week, views from the summit down into the valley is showing spring is advancing up to Pinkham Notch despite this mountains’ reluctance to let winter slip away.

The “Seven” in King Ravine on Mt Adams is showing it’s outline very well. Once the “Seven” has melted away from view then local streams like the Peabody, Moose, Ammonoosuc and Israel Rivers are usually warm enough to swim by early July. Better brook trout fishing then swimming before then. We’ll see how fast the “Seven” breaks up this spring!

The Mt Washington Cog Railroad announced this week that they are now open on weekends with trains leaving their base at 10:30am and 1:30pm. In anticipation of guests arriving, park staff has added de-icing guy cables to our daily chore list.

While the winds have been too high, gusting over 85mph at the summit, for trains to reach the top this weekend, they can safely run up to the Sky Line Switch on the upper north shoulder of the mountain

with plenty of spectacular views along the way. We are all getting excited to greet visitors to the park for the 2012 summer season including “Marty” the Summit Cat!

On Friday our nice weather rapidly changed into a blizzard and now while clear, it has been a rather cold and windy weekend.

In some of the press releases announcing the Cog’s opening for its 143rd season it is interesting to note how Sylvester Marsh, an inventor and businessman who hailed from Campton, NH came around with the idea to build a railroad to the summit of Mt Washington. Story has it that the 46-year old Mr. Marsh along with two friends decided to climb Mt Washington in 1857 via the Fabyan Path to spend the night in the newly constructed Tip Top House.

The Fabyan Path was around 9 miles long and roughly followed the route of today’s Base Station Road from Route 302 and then up onto the ridge between Burt’s and Ammonoosuc Ravines, the route followed by the Cog today. After a lengthy hike just to gain the tree-line Marsh became disoriented in a storm and thick fog. Only in the last 100-years has the practice of piling stones, called cairns, used to mark the trails above treeline, been happening. The Marsh party just kept heading uphill and eventually made it up to the stone-walled Tip Top House, but only after Marsh feared for his life during the ascent. “Necessity is the Mother of Invention” (Plato). Marsh thought there must be an easier/safer way to climb this mountain. Marsh knew all about steam engines and understood that no train of that time would be able to climb the mountain due to the steepness of the grade, iron wheels would only slip on iron rails. Marsh was also familiar with Herrick Aiken’s, of Franklin NH, work with gears.  I imagine Marsh and party were warmly welcomed into the Tip Top House by an affable bartender who applied liberal draughts of O be Joyful to the exhausted men.  Even being dog tired Marsh couldn’t sleep well on Tip Top House’s hard bunk with only thin moss for a mattress. The wind howling a gale outdoors didn’t help either. The idea came to him that long, cold night. Combine a specially built steam engine with titled boiler to compensate for the 25-37% angle along with rack and pinion system, to provide for the trains traction and climbing ability. Back in those days much of the land in NH’s North Country was owned by timber-barons, in the case of Mt Washington it was the Pingree’s from Maine who owned the mountain. In many cases vast tract of NH’s wilderness was simply given or sold to friends of the King or Governor, like the Pingree’s, in hopes they would develop the wild country side with their businesses creating settlements. Or lands were “granted” to repay favors done such as when someone built a highway or found a short cut path thru a notch. Shortly after his return from Mt Washington, Marsh applied to the Legislature of NH for a Charter to build a steam propelled railroad to the top of the mountain. While the Legislature thought Marsh to be insane they did agree to grant him a Charter to attempt to build his railroad. This Charter was essentially an act of Eminent Domain, where a local government can take private land from one to give to another for the local common good and was the second time Eminent Domain was used in New Hampshire. Interestingly enough the first case of Eminent Domain was a Charter in 1861 granted to Landlord Thompson, proprietor of The Glen House on the east side of the mountain, to construct a carriage road to the summit. Thanks to Sylvester Marsh’s vision and determination, the Cog Railroad to the summit of Mt Washington was completed in 1869. The train became the world’s first and at the time the steepest mountain climbing railroad in the world and a world class engineering achievement to this day. And no more getting lost in the fog trying to climb the mountain on foot for Mr. Sylvester Marsh!

NH State Parks’ Reach the Beach Relay Team

Who in their right mind would sign up for a 200 mile race? That’s what the Reach the Beach Race relay organizers asked the New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation when they generously offered the Division a relay team. Twelve crazy runners jumped at the opportunity. We may not be in the right mind, but we are always in the adventure mind!

If you are not familiar with the Reach the Beach Relay Race planned for New Hampshire on September 14 and 15, let us help to catch you up to speed. It is a 200 mile race that starts at Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch State Park and crosses the finish line in Hampton Beach State Park. Yes, that is 200 miles in 24 hours! They have another 200 mile relay in Massachusetts and a new one starting this year in New Jersey. New Hampshire will always be the proud location of their original relay 13 glorious years ago!

Our team name is the NH State Park Bloggers which means that we have blogging to do. We will keep you up-to-date with pictures and video using our new GoPro camera on our training progress throughout the summer and into the fall. We had our first meeting at the delicious, fun, and funky Foster’s Boiler Room Restaurant at the Common Man Inn & Spa in Plymouth to talk about local races that we can sign up for, how we can use this awesome opportunity to promote our amazing state parks, and to pin down a To-Do list.

More importantly, we all agreed that we should use this opportunity to create awareness for a serious problem facing outdoor enthusiasts throughout the country; New Hampshire especially and that is Lyme Disease. We will do as much as we can throughout the summer to promote awareness, safety, prevention, and to work with Lyme Disease foundations to learn what more can do to make our woods safer.

Check out the Reach the Beach Relay website for more information. They accept a limited number of teams and spots are filling up fast. If you want to race against us, you better signup quick.

Mt. Washington State Park: April 23, 2012

Last week summit crews helped remove slush and snow from the upper sections of the Auto Road. Getting the slush pockets off the road helps us not only from getting stuck

but we can switch back to trucks for transport instead of more expensive to operate snowcats. A first for me was plowing the last of the winter snow off the “Cragway” a section of road that sometimes hold over 20′ of snow, but not this year.

One of the hardest “jobs” in opening the Mt Washington Auto Road to the summit each spring is steaming the ice from dozens of frozen culvert pipes under the auto road. These culverts especially along the gravel sections of the road, if left plugged with ice can cause massive washouts. Auto Road Foreman John Gardner and his crew work long and hard to clear these culverts before a big rain occurs.

Today after almost 2″ of rain the culverts are working to their water carrying capacity. Some gravel erosion is occurring but nothing is out of control thanks to those open culverts and ditches.

All this water coming down the east side of the mountain joins together at the floor of Pinkham Notch to form the Ellis River with the famous Glen Ellis Falls this morning putting on a spectacular display!

As the temperatures on the summit slowly drops the rain has changed to freezing rain mixing with a little wet snow.

The combination of freezing rain and high winds sets a perfect stage for unprepared hikers to suffer mountain hypothermia. In these conditions one can cool as rapidly as being immersed in a near freezing lake, ocean or stream which takes only minutes once an exhausted body becomes incapable of fully metabolizing stored energy and shiver hard enough to produce the heat needed to keep the bodies temperature at its optimum 98.6F. Beware, being forewarned is being forearmed. No matter how one is well experienced in the mountains hiking alone can be big trouble when weather turns bad. This hiker for example has lots of experience but nevertheless ended up over her head and needed to call for help. The expense NH Fish & Game incurs is high even though there are volunteer SAR groups helping to keep costs down. Unfortunately in the United States it’s too easy to “sue” which can cost a state agency lots more if they don’t pony up all their resources when a rescue call comes in. This lady was hiking alone in winter above the treeline in bad weather and got lost. Thankfully, she came out of it okay. Somehow NH hikers need to pay in a little annual fee to help fund SAR just as we pay a little out of our monthly phone bill to support our state’s 911 notification system.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure and honor to partake in an advanced firefighting training camp conducted at the NH Fire Academy in Concord with students for the Berlin Firefighter II Class. We didn’t have to worry about the cold but had to contend with lots of heat! The skills learned from these drills, in a controlled environment, will help us all be better and safer firefighters when faced with similar situations. I’ll use these skills not only with the Gorham Fire Department where I’m a volunteer, but also at Mt Washington State Park. Being located at the top of the mountain there is no easy access for a fire department with big fire trucks to respond. Having park staff cross trained as firefighters helps us protect lives and valuable property at the summit. After the devastating Power House Fire in 2003 it became painfully apparent for the need of state employees to continue winter care taking of summit utilities in addition to the regular summer season. We need to discover and extinguish a fire early on in its development stage, like a simple waste basket fire before it gets out of hand. We now have some old donated personal protective clothing (PPE) and fairly good self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). We have about 100 handheld fire extinguishers of various sizes and types strategically placed in all the summit buildings to help us do this rare but extremely important job. Here is a short clip of just a couple of the fire suppression techniques practiced at the NH Fire Academy.

We are blessed that in NH we have such a marvelous Firefighter training facility as the Department of Safety, NH Fire Academy in Concord, NH. The next best thing, which is in the works,  is to get a North Country Fire Academy annex in Bethlehem so Coos and Grafton County Firefighters can save the travel time and be able to attend more of these firefighter classes.

Dreams Come True near Crawford Notch State Park

I’m back! I thought I was done here, but I just had to share my story of hiking Mount Eisenhower near Crawford Notch State Park. Last Saturday, hearing that it was going to be a balmy 60 degrees, my future apartment-mates Molly, Caroline, Susan, Emily, and I headed up to tackle another 4000 footer. Joining the AMC 4000 Footer Club is on my bucket list. Although I’ve only climbed 3 out of 48 so far, those 3 have been since November. I’m on my way!

We climbed via the classic Edmands Path, rejoicing the fact that the road to the parking lot was no longer closed for winter. What started out as a warm spring day quickly changed back to winter as we climbed up the trail.


We quickly accepted that our feet were going to be wet from the slushy conditions, and soon we were rewarded for our efforts by some awesome views.

The Mount Washington Valley Hotel in the distance!


After an icy scramble, we summited 4780 foot Mt. Eisenhower. Although it’s the tallest mountain I’ve ever climbed, it was dwarfed by the monster Mt. Washington nearby.





The descent down to the parking lot was hilarious. The snow was melting, and every so often the trail would just disintegrate under our feet. I wish I had a recording of us shrieking as we constantly sunk knee deep into the snow.

After a quick hammock session near the trailhead, we got back into the car to head back to school.

I was stuffing my face with a sandwich when Emily stopped the car and pointed to the side of the road.

Could it be?

IT WAS. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Thank you to Susan for letting me use all your awesome photos!

Mt Washington State Park, April 16, 2012

Looking at the above photograph it’s easy to see how our “White Mountains” have received this name. The mountains are white with snow most of the year but also when free from snow in the summer months the high peaks above the 4,000′ timberline still have a whitish appearance when viewed from a distance. Legend tells us it was the early mariners off the coast of Maine who coined the name of “The White Hills” for New Hampshire’s interior mountain range.

This week we continue our roller coaster spring weather pattern with 2′ new snow the last week. We have parked the trucks and returned to snow tractor for travel over the auto roads upper 4 miles.

The new snow, clouds and wind gave us a pretty neat sunrise on Friday morning.

As a climber I couldn’t resist this return to winter in spring for one last ice climb in Huntington Ravine on Saturday with Geoff Wilson.

Huntington Ravine on the east side of the mountain and a mile north of Tuckerman Ravine, is famous for some of the East Coasts’ best rock and ice climbing. With the recent heavy snowfall my partner Geoff, an avid backcountry skier, couldn’t stop musing that some of Huntington’s the normal ice routes like Odell and Central gullies could possibly be skied this week.

Most of the long gullies in Huntington Ravine have been skied but only a handful of times.  Our objective today is to ice climb Pinnacle Gully. Ice climbing can be very easy, or a very difficult, extreme competition sport. Pinnacle Gully is in the easy-to-moderate range. To the best of my knowledge Pinnacle has never been skied as the bottom 150′ is a +65 degree, Grade 3 ice wall. Pinnacle Gully is kind of hidden away in a north east facing narrow cleft between an overhanging Pinnacle buttress to the south and Central rock buttress on the north.

The climbing on 1st pitch was fantastic, soft yet secure ice that held our ice axe and crampon points perfectly. These ice conditions are also know as “Hero” ice because it makes you look and climb like a hero! The upper two pitches were a mixture of ice and steep snow climbing. Great fun! Here’s a short video clip of the top of the 1st pitch.

We stopped off onto the Alpine Gardens and had a good view of some beautiful ski tracks recently laid down in the Eastern Snow Fields that morning

We descended the mountain via the Lion Head hiking trail and had a good view into Tuckerman Ravine

Here’s a much better video of “the scene” in Tucks:

The recent snow will help prolong the ski season of “Tucks” and will make for some good conditions for the Sons of Inferno ski race next weekend.

Mt. Washington State Park, Monday April 9, 2012

Mt Washington started the week off last Sunday afternoon on a sad note. Let me first explain a little how Search and Rescue (SAR) on Mt Washington works.  The 60-acre summit of Mt Washington is a NH State Park. The bulk of the mountain is part of the one million acres of the White Mountain National Forest.  The Mt Washington Auto Road and Cog Rail Road are both private companies and each owns a 66′ strip of land from their bases to the summit. These separate companies owned their right-of-ways since the mid-1850′s, well before the National Forest was created in 1911. The heaviest used backcountry recreational areas of the entire White Mountain National Forest are on  east side of the mountain, namely Huntington and Tuckerman Ravines, which is under the local management of the Androscoggin District Ranger Station. Tuckerman Ravine which is visited by over 2,000 skiers/hikers on a nice spring day, is specifically managed by this Ranger Districts’ US Forest Service (USFS) Snow Ranger Program. The Snow Rangers provides public information, avalanche forecasting, search and rescue and other recreational management tasks in the ravines. These ravines pose specific mountaineering hazards more common in the higher mountain ranges, which makes Mt Washington unique among the worlds ‘smaller’ mountains due to it’s extremes in wind and weather, avalanches, and other objective hazards.

Our NH Fish & Game Department (NHFG) is the lead state agency responsible for all inland wood and water emergency responses in the backcountry except for Huntington and Tuckerman Ravines on Mt Washington, officially known as the Cutler River Drainage Area, during the winter and spring months of the year. During these months it’s the USFS Snow Rangers who take the lead in SAR on the steep technical terrain on the eastern slopes of Mt Washington. Like NHFG, the USFS do not have the full-time manpower to deal with an entire backcountry rescue effort by themselves as it can take over 18 rescuers to conduct a simple litter evacuation. These lead agencies provide the overhead command, first response and resource management needed to deal with a 911 backcountry call for help. NHFG and USFS both rely heavily on local volunteer SAR teams who can provide trained personnel to assist with lengthy, difficult carry-outs from remote mountainous areas.  Some of these teams can also provide specialty skills such as high angle rescue, winter above tree line navigation, advanced emergency medical skills, volunteer ski patrols, etc.  On regular carry-outs, all that usually is requested is to send mountain savvy, sure footed, strong backed volunteers to help carry a +225lb stretcher and patient down a rough hiking trail.

A list of the NH’s volunteer SAR teams can be found on the NH Outdoor Council’s (NHOC) website. Mt Washington State Park doesn’t have any legal obligation to provide for SAR outside it’s boundary but some of our staff do respond to mountain rescues as volunteer such as Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue (AVSAR) who I respond with when not on the summit.

At the Park, we do maintain an un-official list of fatalities in the Presidential Range which are the mountains contained within the NH Highway Routes 302, 115, 16 and 2 corridors.

The “list” is not meant as a morbid curiosity but as a reminder that these peaks can be dangerous and should not be taken for granted even though it can be climbed by a 6-year old with experienced guides. Unfortunately, park staff will soon be adding two more names to the “list,” number 146 is Patrick Scott Powers, 46, from Mansfield Mass died from a long fall into the “Lunch Rocks” while attempting to descend the icy Tuckerman Ravine Headwall at night on January 9, 2012. Number 147 was on April 1, 2012, Norman Priebatsch, 67, from Boston Mass, died from injuries sustained from a fall into an open crevasse that led into an under snow waterfall.

With the case of Mr. Priebatsch his body is still under the snows of Tuckerman Ravine. Many people wonder why the Snow Rangers couldn’t just simply rappel down the snow hole to him and pull him up to the surface?  The problem is Mr. Priebatsch fell several hundred feet from high up on the Headwall, over a rock band then into a hole that holds the Cutler River which contains even bigger unseen hazards. This snow hole or “killer crevasse” is located above the top of  a rock formation locally known as the “open book” which with heavy spring snow melt is a near vertical 10-story Niagara type waterfall.

Rangers suspect his remains are somewhere in the boulders of the stream bed below the bottom of this open-book waterfall. This waterfall is currently within a narrow ice tunnel covered above by 20-40′ of snow and ice. In order for this ice tunnel to naturally melt and widen enough to safely recover Mr. Priebatsh’s body it will take many weeks, by my guess, given the amount of ice and snow that remains in this area of the ravine.  The abnormally rapid snow melt of March has halted and has been replaced with cooler more seasonable weather.  Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to the family and friends of Mr. Priebatsh and Mr. Powers. I think Ed Whymper says it best in this quote about the joys and sadness of mountaineering: