Mt. Moosilauke 2/18

What: Mt. Moosilauke via Glencliff Trail
When: 2/18/07
Who: Beck and LaSpina
Type: Foot


Well hello there, friends. I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted, but I assure that I have been adventuring on foot and wheel. Actually Boston finally got some snow which made for some interesting commuting on my 1968 Robin Hood three speed bike. Deciding not to bike home in the storm turned out to be a terrible idea because the next day my bike was completely snowed in and frozen to the sidewalk. But we're not here to talk about wheels, now are we?

Mt. Moosilauke is one of the most famous of the white mountains outside of the presidentials mostly I think because of its unique name. Also the fact that it's 4800 foot summit is bald and therefore affords very nice panoramic views. That is of course if you don't hike it in the winter while it's snowing. Which, of course, we did.

My alarm went off at 5:00AM and then again at 5:09 and then again at 5:18. See I'm not usually a person who uses the snooze button, but I'm also not usually a person who gets his ass out of bed before 8AM. I got up and pulled my shit together in time to be in my car and on the road by 5:55 AM - perfect timing since I was to meet Andy LaSpina at the trailhead at 8:30 and Moosilauke is at 2.5 hour drive from Boston.

I was running at bit late and got to the trailhead at 9. Andy arrived at 9:30. We started off on the trail at 10 after accidentally going in the wrong direction and ending up in snow up to our hips. Oops. The actual Glenclif trail was pretty well broken out thanks to the Dartmouth Outing Club. We decided not to bring our snowshoes.

The trail starts off going through some open fields and then cuts off into the woods. The grade was pretty consistent which made it seem like we weren't really getting anywhere. With most hikes you encounter long stretches of flat followed by stretches of very steep grades, but once you make it to the top of those scrambles (just when you start thinking that you really need to stop and take a break) you get to a nice level surface and are able to catch your breath while hiking on flat terrain. Not so on the glenclif trail. The glenclif just continued climbing up up up, never really getting steep, and never really getting flat.

Starting about halfway up the mountain the trail started getting much thinner and the snow much deeper. Now if you accidentally stepped too far to the right you would be up to your hip in snow and have to drag yourself out. It was around this time that we realized that snowshoes probably would have been pretty helpful. Thankfully it was cold enough that my bareboots were able to stay dry. That's when I realized tip #1 for winter hiking:

DO NOT BRING CLIF BARS!

See Clif bars are so solid they are hard enough to eat when it's warm outside. Throw some clif bars out in 0 degree weather and they are solid bricks of inedible protein in no time.

Andy's frozen nalgene was getting pretty hard to open when we made it to the "top" of the mountain. See I call it the top because it was so cloudy and snowy it was pretty tough to see the trail never mind where the actual summit was. But I know that we made it pretty close to the summit if not actually there. Regardless both of us had summitted Moosilauke before so it wasn't really of concern. We were enjoying ourselves.