One day in March, a bunch of us Daves and one
Ed decided to ski
Moosilauke, since the snow was supposed to be good and we hadn't skied
the mountain since December. So, we parked just off 118 at the Access
Road and skied up to the Moosilauke Ravine
Lodge, where we put on skins. We chose to ski up the
Gorge Brook trail, since it's a more
challanging route than the new Snapper trail.
Above there, the trail is much more exposed,
here crossing the Balcony. The first views of the
summit ended our hopes of getting any views, but that wasn't about
to stop us. At treeline, we removed our skis
and pushed on into the 40 MPH winds after gearing up.
The summit was windy, cold, and wonderful. We took a few summit shots
(#1,#2),
looked around and headed back to our skis
for the descent. We were warming ourselves up on the
upper stretches, occasionally stopping for
views of the ridge before starting the
fast and furious descent. The snow was
excellent, and for me I finally had a skill level that was up to the
task. We made it back down in about 1/5th the time it took to make it
up and we only kissed a few trees.
