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Weeee - all of a sudden it feels as if winter is here. Tho I'm pretty certain we're not totally all-in, the signs are clear. October 18th, it's 28 degrees at 6 AM and the flurries are coming down. Of course there is no real chance of any accumulation here in the Valley, but my deck has a dusting. I have to drive to Portland for a rehearsal this morning, and I'm not looking forward to that. Now's the time to allow extra time for every drive.
Every day I've had time to go climbing, it's rained this week. BOOO... But I did get in a couple of rides on funky days and a nice drive up into Crawford Notch with a friend on Tuesday. We are past peak foliage now, but there is still some color down in the lower elevations. As we drove through Bartlett there was still some nice color on the trees, and even up to Arethusa & Frankenstein. There were a lot of folks stopped at the scenic view before Arethusa and I you could see an obvious frost line at about 4,000' in Mt Washington.
As we drove up the hill past Elephant Head, there was an immediate change in the scenery. The couple of days previous had been windy and rainy, and for the most part up there the trees were bare! I had planned on driving Mt Clinton Road across to the Base Road, but there was a sign saying the road was closed at the Edmunds Path trailhead. It didn't say what the problem was, but that road has been getting worse & worse over the past several years.
We turned back and headed back down to Sawyer River Road. I have ridden my bike up there this summer and when they were still working on the road, repairing a washout close to the same place it was washed out from Irene. Now they have fixed it all up and put in a huge new culvert. The whole road is in excellent shape now. As we drove up the road I noticed there there were 4 cars at the trailhead lot for Signal Ridge. It would have been a very nice day for that hike. Interestingly there were no cars up at the gate at the top for the Sawyer Pond trail. Lastly we drove up Bear Notch to check the view towards Mt. Chocorua. There was still color from there and you could see its bare peak standing alone in the distance. On the way back down I noticed that the Experimental Forest road was closed at the top. I'm not sure if it was closed at the bottom as well.
Ice Conditions Report:
Selected Ice Conditions effective April 24, 2024
It's all over for 2023/2024.
Huntington Ravine
OUT
Repentance
OUT
Standard Route
OUT
Dracula
OUT
For the full current conditions report, CLICK
HERE
I have to figure that the various notch roads - Evans, Hurricane Mountain, Bear Notch - all will be closed fairly soon. As soon as we get any accumulating snow, the gates will be shut for the season. I'll post a notice as soon as I hear anything.
I'm planning on starting up the Ice Report starting next week. Almost assuredly nothing will be happening for another week or two, and whatever happens will be in the upper elevations or perhaps on Cannon, but it's sure coming. Stay tuned. Here's a couple of pics from Tuesday's drive that include a few pix of Frankenstein cliff. Check out the water stripes. It's always cool that you can see exactly where the climbs form.
ICE FEST 2019:
Mark your calendars folks! Time to start thinking about ice! IT'S THE 26TH YEAR of the 2019 Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest: February 1st-3rd, 2019
VALLEY CYCLING:
The leaves are slippery and the ground is firming up, but there is still lots of riding left in the Valley. You just need to be careful of the possibility of ice in the shade on the bridges in places like Pillar To Pond and slippery rocks. That said, the power line trail on the East side is riding very well right now. The big plus is that you are pretty much fully in the sun out and back. I use that ride quite often on colder days before the big snows come. The same with the Rob Brook off Bear Notch Road.
INSTANT BUG REPORT - BUGCon 0:
This is the last of the BUGCon reports for the 2018 season. Tho I'm fairly confident that we'll see a few more warm days, the couple of hard freezes will kill off most all of the annoying bugs. Except possibly for the ticks of course, which seem to hang on no matter what.
Mobile Version Of NEClimbs:
Up on one of the Mount Washington Valley's finest crags and want to know what that climb you're looking at is? Or maybe you're on your way up from Boston and want to check out the Ice Report for your upcoming weekend plans. Or more likely, you're at work just want to daydream about your next adventure. Well if you have a smart phone handy, you can get to NEClimbs from anywhere you have cell service. While it doesn't offer every single feature of the site and it's not an "app", in mobile form, it does do a whole lot and is very useful. Here is the live link to the mobile version of NEClimbs:
Check it out and if you have issues on your specific phone, please feel free to let me know.
NEClimbs & White Mountain Report On Facebook:
Join us and LIKE us on Facebook. I'll try and post interesting pix every Thursday and the latest Ice Report in the season, tho certainly not the whole Report. Here's where you can check it out:
Climbing is a very dangerous sport. You can get hurt or even kill yourself. When you go climbing, you do so of your own free will. Everything on this site is to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't blame us if you get up some totally heinous route, in over your head and fall and hurt yourself.
