Flying up from North Carolina, our guest planned to return to the White Mountains making her third visit to our area — and hopefully the one that’s “the charm,” as they say. Her plan was to winter hike or snowshoe, then also ski at one of our local resorts. We’re not sure how the skiing went. Based on how many people were at Wildcat this past week, however, it appears to still be in, despite less-than-perfect weather lately.
She called us a couple weeks out to plan her trip and to address gear concerns. She was hoping to schedule two days of hiking. Day one was meant to be the smaller of the two as she wanted to ease in, so-to-speak, not fully knowing what to expect. She had hiked up here before, but, this time was a first in the winter season. On lead for both days was Redline Guide Chase Hall. Chase summed up the days that followed (in part), as follows:
We decided to hike Mt. Kearsarge North to give her an idea of what the trails would be like at higher elevations. We encountered icy conditions and we had to wear our spikes, which again for our guest was a first. She was rewarded with an amazing undercast from the fire tower on the 3269′ summit. The views above the clouds were quite special.
On the second day we stepped up our game a little and decided to try for Mt. Pierce (4313′). The weather forecast the night prior wasn’t looking very promising but we both agreed that we wanted to hike in any “safe and reasonable” weather. We were lucky and the hike happened without a drop of rain from the sky. A couple drops from the trees did find us but it was nothing to worry us or make us think it was time to turn around. We arrived at the summit of with a misty effect of clouds but nothing to dampen the spirits of our guest who experienced a lot of firsts on this visit. —Chase
And let’s look at this one one more time…
