Skiing in the backcountry or snowshoeing, either was fine. Whichever, Sarah told us, as long as it was fun for her and her wife, Christy — whose recent birthday was the cause for this celebratory adventure. She didn’t want something too over the top in terms of being adrenaline-inducing. In other words, let’s stick to some “type one” fun that we can enjoy while we’re doing […]
Or perhaps should we write To Hale, with Wildcat A Added Two Days Later. The 4054′ Mt Hale and 4422′ Wildcat A were but two of the mountains that re-returning guest, Alex, needed for his still-in-progress quest to conquer New Hampshire’s 4000-footers. These were not this weekend’s intended targets, however, but the forecast for high winds and nastiness prompted both Redline Guide Ryan Mcguire and our […]
Clear skies yielded to clouds, calmness became the wind, and through it all a team of four persevered and made it to the cloud shrouded summit of the 6288′ Mount Washington. One climber, interviewed after the adventure, declared it to be the toughest thing they had ever done and that their muscles were very, very sore. They went on, however, to express that they felt no […]
Redlining — hiking all of the trails in the AMC’s White Mountain Guidebook — was one the objectives of a returning guest and ultrarunner Monday. The other objective was to winter summit the 6288′ Mt Washington and to do so via the classic Lion Head Trail’s “winter route” (the standard routing closes due to avalanche danger). The redlining part, initially, was to include needed sections of […]
It’s one thing to hike Mt Washington for your first time, let alone do it in winter, now you want me to do it during a blizzard?! —said one of ’em When people book a tour with us and the weather is crappy we can sometimes be flexible and change the hike to a better day. Sometimes. In other times the team we’re leading can’t be […]
On the day of New Year’s Eve Redline Guide Ken Hodges took a returning couple he had been training the day before. He led them up the Lion Head Trail — the quasi-technical winter route — on the 6288-foot Mt Washington. The idea was to summit this notorious mountain. While the weather was being cooperative, which is seldom on this peak that deservedly boasts having the […]
Another group from Massachusetts reached out looking to do some mountain snowshoeing with us — lucky beneficiaries of the great timing of getting some recent cover like our last party did. On lead for this trip up the 2557′ Mt Pemigewasset located at the southern end of Franconia Notch was Redline Guide Ryan Mcguire. Ryan led the group of four up the mostly empty Mt Pemigewasset […]
They knew that the forecast wasn’t calling for ideal conditions for their half-day afternoon snowshoe hike, but they were resigned to love it no matter what. With a great attitude like that one can’t go wrong, right? And that describes the general attitude of the extended family referred to us by Bretton Woods for a mountain snowshoeing adventure. Bring it, they exclaimed, ice rain, rain rain, […]
Our second winter trip up the 6288′ Mt Washington took place this weekend. This sentence in of itself is unremarkable, until one considers we are still several days from the start of actual winter. Moreover, it’s not a typo, because on the mountain, it’s been full-on winter for weeks. Apparently Mt Washington didn’t receive or read the memo. Maybe it landed in the Junk folder. The […]
It was a long, burly, windy, snow-filled day, but damn was it fun. Mountain running in December is not something we advertise, but it is apparently what we can do. In snowshoes, if needed. At least that’s what Redline Guide Erik Samia did, along with an ultrarunner from Massachusetts! And not only does she run, our guest is also a “redliner” — meaning she is hiking […]
The team successfully summited the mountain and our guests had an amazing experience […] Visiting from Connecticut guests Laura and Mike, a husband-wife team, wanted to experience our tallest peak, the grandest of the “4000-Footers,” the 6288-foot Mt Washington — in winter conditions. And right now, trust us when we say winter is in full swing on the mountain. It’s not far behind in the Valley, […]
That’s what this weekend felt like. Beginning Friday we instructed four pretty diverse wilderness education courses. First up we ran a River Skills Course. Much to our surprise this was much less painful and far more enjoyable than we had envisioned, despite having to traverse shore ice getting to the river. Next up was our very popular Wilderness Navigation Course. This was doable thanks to limited […]
