My new gear consists of Garmont Momentum Snow GTX boots (I think, I gotta verify this) and MSR Evo Ascent Snowshoes. The snowshoes were recommended by a half-a-dozen people in a thread on the Views From The Top forum board (http://www.vftt.org), so I went with these, as did Tony. Boots I just tried on a few pairs until I found ones I thought felt comfortable.
Garmont Snow GTX & MSR Evo Ascent Snowshoes
Shoes strapped to my backpack
The road to the parking lot of the trailhead was covered with a couple of inches of snow, being in the middle of nowhere on Route 302 I didn't want to get stuck, so we went over to the parking lot for Mount Tom. This lot wasn't plowed, so we ended up parking at the AMC Highland center. The sign says parking is for people staying at the center but we took our chances and parked there anyway. I didn't get a ticket or towed. We geared up and headed to the trailhead at 10:14am. It was 12 degrees at the base.
Please note: I didn't set the clock back an hour on my camera, so all my pictures are one hour ahead of the actual time.
Parking lot for Crawford connector trail
Parking lot and trailhead signs
Crawford connector trail
Snow covered bridge
Mizpah was closed but we went to it anyway
Gibbs Falls
Tony @ Gibbs Falls
Down trees on Crawford Path
Mizpah cut-off sign
Mizpah cut-off trail
Up until the Mizpah cut-off we were following someones shoe prints in the snow. We were not alone out here, surprising for a very cold and windy Monday morning. Whoever we were following continued up Crawford path, Tony and I decided to take the cut-off to the Mizpah Spring Hut. It was clear no one had taken this trail today, and considering the amount of fresh powder, I'd say not many people use this trail during the winter months. We probably could have used our snowshoes here but we didn't.
Mizpah cut-off trail
Mizpah cut-off trail
Mizpah cut-off trail
Mizpah Spring Hut
The snow was halfway up the main door
The trees were beautiful
During the summer you would hike up this ladder
First view above treeline
Almost to the summit
Summit of Mount Pierce 4,310'
Mount Eisenhower from Pierce
This is about 100' away from the summit but it had a better view of Eisenhower. Who took the pic? The only other person on the mountain today, the foot prints we followed up until the Mizpah cut-off trail
Closeup of Mount Eisenhower
Ridge trail to Mount Eisenhower
We did not stay long at the summit of Pierce. The winds were howling and my personal meteorologist was saying it was -20 degrees. Being so cold we didn't even stay for our summit brews. We continued on past the summit of Pierce as we were doing a loop and not going back down to Mizpah. We started walking and realized two things.. 1) Tony was missing a microspike and 2) We were not on trail. We had been a the summit for 10-15 minutes and it was getting cold. For the first time since I started hiking, panic began to set in. This is what you don't want to happen and is how people die on these mountains. The micro-spike issue was not a big deal, but not finding the trail because of all the snow and ice was becoming a very serious problem. Getting lost below treeline is dangerous, but getting lost above treeline can become life threatening very quickly in these harsh conditions. Thankfully, we found the trail within a couple of minutes, but those minutes felt like hours to me.
It's amazing how much warmer it is below treeline
Tony missing a microspike. We think it was lost in the deep snow at the Mizpah hut.
Parking lot @ the AMC Highland Center
It was a great hike today. I don't have all the official stats because the cold weather was eating my GPS batteries and I ran out of batteries during the descent. These are some pretty good estimates.
Summit of Mount Pierce: 4,310'
Total hike time: 5h
Distance: 7m
Elevation Gain: 2,350' (taken from another website)
Trails: Crawford Cut-Off, Crawford Path, Webster Cliff Trail, Mizpah Cut-Off
