Winter 2010 Overnights in the White Mtns
Fred Knight

I had five overnights in the White Mtns this winter, ranging from Jan to Apr and -10degF to +20degF at night. January's inaugural event was the cold one, but my new nested sleeping bag system proved a winner---coziness through the night. I used huts, Kinsman Pond, Ethan Pond, and Beaver Brook, for the first four, but the last one was outside (That's a story.) I did two solo and the other three with groups. I only got really lost once, but I never found the goal Garfield Ridge Shelter on the second solo event, hence, the Garfield camp below.

1. Kinsman Pond (full report) : Chuck Wynn's urging motivated my return to winter camping, an interest that had waned years ago because I was always cold at night. While looking for yet warmer sleeping bags on Craig's list, I thought of nesting a pair of sleeping bags instead of finding one that was especially warm. The pair is the cat's meow for me; I'm utterly cozy. The only problem is my need to get up at night to tinkle, which is my only interruption of a long winter's sleep. On this outing, we weathered the cold inside the hut.
2. Ethan Pond (full report) : I spent the day up higher on Mt Willey but got to the hut with daylight to spare. My only difficulty was actually reaching the hut through some snow drifts.
3. Beaver Brook (pictures) : Joe Shultz and I had a goal of dumping our packs at the Beaver Brook hut, just 1.1. miles from the trailhead but up a very steep trail, and then continuing on to Mt Moosilauke. We followed the only tracks we saw, tracks made by snow boarders coming down the slope on the day before, after the 10" snow during the week. Unfortunately, the snow boarders had not followed the true trail. After realizing our error, we failed to head back down to return to the real trail. Instead, we pushed up the slope in the general direction that we thought was right. We had our snowshoes on with our heavy packs. To avoid dense firs we strayed diagonally away from the trail. Eventually, we had to push through lots of heavily cluttered terrain. I'm afraid that lasted a long time, but I always knew that we would finally meet the Mt Thom trail. After 5 hours, we heard voices---French being spoken just above us---so we thought that we were nearing the cross trail. Turns out that the other party from Quebec had followed a similar incorrect path and were now, with the aid of a GPS, heading for the shelter. To our intense disappointment, we met the other hikers' trail, and it was definitely not the true trail. We did, however, follow their footprints. After another hour, when I was very tired, we stumbled out onto the original Beaver Brook Trail, just at the entrance to the shelter spur trail. Whew! It was 2pm. We dropped our packs and headed to Mt Thom. The next morning we were tired enough to simply head back down to the trailhead. No Mt Moosilauke. The hut, however, had a great view of Franconia Ridge. Overnight temps were in the teens. A good time, if you discount the uncertainty of not knowing where we were for 6 hours.

4. Return to Kinsman Pond (pictures) : Lea, Matt, and I returned to Kinsman Pond hut in Mar, reached it in plenty of time, and continued on to North and South Kinsman and beyond. A gorgeous day and not-too-cold night in the teens. We tested the Kinsman Pond and decided to return across it and then down the Kinsman Pond Trail. This gave Matt and me 900 minutes of exercise for the weekend, but required some painful tramping along the sideroad at the base to reach the car. I was pooped.
5. Garfield Ridge (pictures) : I made a final overnight when April stayed cold, hiking up the Garfield Trail. It took almost 6 hours up, starting with a light dusting of snow on the trail and gradually getting snowier until at 3600' I switched to snowshoes. I came well prepared, and thus heavily laden. Nobody else on the trail, as the weekend was predicted to be rainy at lower elevations. Only snow at the higher elevations, starting above 2000'. As this was the final weekend of getfit@mit, I wanted lots of minutes of exercise. I kept a fairly steady, measured pace, but I got winded near the top. Reaching the trail junction just below the Mt. Garfield summit, I turned down the steep 300' descent toward the Garfield Ridge shelter. However, the trail disappeared. I tried 3 or 4 spurs, but each ended in nothing that looked like a trail. As it was getting late, I decided to retrace my steps to the junction and set up a camp there. I had my rainfly and all the gear I needed to stay warm. The snow was coming down gently. I tried a couple of places, finally opting for a dugout area in a group of fir trees, which provided a good canopy. I had my warm pea soup from my thermos for dinner. My cozy bivy worked fine; I tied my rainfly to trees on both sides to keep my sleeping bags confined. During the night, I got snow on my bags with some wetness, but I stayed warm---a thoroughly enjoyable sleep as I had had a tough week. The hike out in the morning took 5 hours. The final mile was on the approach road that had been washed out at two bridge crossings due to the March rainstorms. As I had on the ascent, I had to bushwhack between the two bridges---a tough ending as I was tired. The weekend gave me 845 minutes.

1. Chuck posing at the Kinsman Pond Hut Just after arrival, with the temperature dropping, we decided to build a snow wall in the hut opening.	2. Leaving Ethan Pond Campsite The last 0.1 miles was unmarked and had snow drifts off the Pond.	3. Beaver Brook Shelter Joe and I enjoyed the view from Beaver Brook, but the hike to it lasted a bit longer than anticipated---6 hours of bushwhacking after a wrong turn at the start.
4. Matt watching Lea Cooking Oatmeal Second time to Kinsman Pond hut, Lea, Matt and I walked up the Fishin' Jimmy, then went home via the Kinsman Pond Trail. Hot oatmeal in the morning.	5. The Garfield camp Surrounded by trees, covered by the rainfly, warm in my double sleeping bag, slightly sore from 9 hours of hiking, rested from 12 hours in the sack, up for a hike home, I had a good overnight.