When our individual outdoor hopes for Sunday were dashed by an approaching blizzard, Brooks and I joined forces for a spur-of-the-moment Saturday Monadnock outing.  We headed out sometime after 7am, and arrived at Park HQ around 9am.  It was a crisp 7 degrees out, but we were dressed properly and quickly got up to temp once underway on the trail.  One of our objectives was to get into come crampon territory, and hence ascended via the Spellman trail - a funky combination of cliffs and rock slides on the side of the mountain, roughly parallel to the popular White Dot trail, running 0.7 miles or so to its northeast.  Brooks donned his crampons as the trail pitched up in earnest.  There were great views to the south and east most of the way up, with Wachussett and Pack Monadnock relatively close by - one of my favorite aspects of the Spellman Trail.  Contrary to what I had expected to do, I decided that my MicroSpikes would be enough, and did fine with them - principally because we weren't confronted with any steeply angled sheets of ice - rather, just lots of rocks and ledges.  However, once we gained the ridge and started making our way toward the summit, we came upon a large pitch of seriously hard and slick ice, angled at 20 degrees or so.  Brooks walked right up it, but my MicroSpikes didn't quite cut it.  I would make it up about 30 feet, go down, and enjoy a slippery ride back down to the base of the pitch.  After 3 shaky but entertaining tries which all ended the same way, and resolving to sharpen my MicroSpikes for next time, I called it quits and fished out the crampons and ice axe.  The sky was overcast with high, pre-Nor'easter clouds - the sun a bright, blurred spot of light that cast a somewhat matching, icy illumination on the frozen ridge.  As we progressed up the ridge and moved out of the trees, we were impressed with how much harsher the cold was - due in part to the stiff and steady wind, and in part to colder temps than below.  Brooks added a shell layer.  On arriving at the summit around 11am, I added a heavy fleece and my own shell layer.  Brooks had no more layers to add, though, so we stayed just long enough to finish taking in the view (notably Stratton and Ascutney to the west, and snowcapped Moosilauke, Lafayette and Washington and in the northerly distance).  We quickly enjoyed several Summit Cookies, making quick celebratory note of the fact that we had hiked approximately three miles, gaining 1800 feet of vertical.  We took the direct 1.5-mile White Dot route down, and were back to the car shortly after noon.  The ride home was filled with fun conversation, punctuated by a healthful gourmet lunch at the Leominster Burger King.  Thanks to Brooks for a great day!  OK, now for some snow shoveling . . .

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