Copy/Repost Hike

Spring has sprung, and a New England skier's thoughts drift towards Tuckerman Ravine. Jon and I have been there before and we had 8 members signed up for the hike into the ravine. Members chose a variety of accommodations, with Rob, Brad and Matt electing to stay with us at Rock ‘N River Lodge, Luciano picking the Joe Dodge Lodge at Pinkham Notch and still others electing to drive up on Saturday morning.

We agreed to meet at Pinkham Notch at the front porch at 10:00. As we approached the notch, all of us were able to snag the last remaining spaces in the parking lot. Otherwise we would have had to park along the side of Route 16. We packed up and headed over to the visitor’s center about a half hour early. We hung there a while, drinking water, checking the conditions and hung our packs on the scale to see how much they weighed. Mostly everyone’s pack weighed about 20 pounds. At 10:00 we decided to head up into the ravine.

Soon after we started we took the few steps up to a ledge across Crystal Cascade, one of the most impressive in the mountains! The trip up the Tuckerman Ravine trail was pretty much as we expected. The trail was bare ground at the start and then patches of ice after the crossing of the Cutler River on the bridge.  There were quite a few people we saw along the way, some just hiking up to watch, others with skis and snowboards attached to packs. We just charged on, stripping down clothes as our exertion made us hot. The sun was out most of the time, but there were periodic hazy clouds overhead. About 2/3 of the way up, we met fellow GO member Bob who was making his descent from being in the ravine. We arrived at HoJo’s at 11:30, just 1:30 from Pinkham to our first view of the ravine. The place was crowded with about 25 skiers and hikers. After observing the warning signs and first aid cache we pushed up the final climb to the ravine.  

This last stretch took us 20 minutes of fairly steep climbing, opening out to the floor of the ravine. The view was spectacular! We headed up to the right to Lunch Rocks and set up our spot. We had Crazy Creek Chairs, insulated pads and blankets. It was a nice vantage point to take in the left/middle of ravine. Most of the skiers were headed up Left Gully, but some took a run to the right of the Left Gully. It was sunny overhead and the sunshine lit up the snow like a flood light. We had bite to eat, drank wine/beer and took in the atmosphere of the ravine, Lunch Rocks, dogs running around, crop of skiers and boarders coming down and all the eye candy! Jon had plenty to take pictures of. :-)

Around 2:30 we all walked back down the Tuckerman Trail. Most of us got together at the Red Fox Grill for dinner and reflected on the day. Life is good! When we got home Sunshine was exhausted from the hike and collapsed on Jon's jacket. :-)

The trip was enjoyable, the weather turned out great and we had some great views of Tuckerman Ravine including the eye candy!

Trip Report by Mike
Photos by Jon

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