TR: Great Gulf, NH 11/11

[backcountryben]

Saturday Night I get a call from my buddy Noah at school. We'd been planning on skiing the bit of fresh snow at stowe on sunday. Seeing Noah's name on caller ID i get a sinking feeling - surely he wants to bail, maybe he's got work to do or something.

Nope.

His voice is excited when he picks up. "Dude- check out mtwashington.org. The Great Gulf might be skiable!" I waste no time finding the picture in question. The plan for an epic day starts to form in my mind...

530am - I've been in bed for about 3 1/2 hours and I want to kill my alarm clock. My eyes are heavy and now I'm feeling kinda silly walking out into the Hanover pre-dawn air with an ice axe on my pack and skis in hand. We meet in the parking lot - Noah, Tom, and Noah's friend Kye. It's too early, but I'm excited.

We start up the Jewel trail sometime before 9. It's an absolutely beautiful day out - almost no clouds, sunny skies, and nice and chilly. There's a dusting of snow at the base of the cog railway, and ice on the trail in the woods. As we climb higher on the trail, there's more and more snow on the ground, finally covering up the treacherous ice. Every time our skis brush the branches we get a nice load of wet snow on our heads. The early season ice makes cool patterns with the frozen grass on the side of the trail. And we're about to ski Mt. Washington in November.

It gets a little colder once we get up above treeline, but it's not too bad- probably lower teens or single digits, with a bit of wind. Soon we're standing on the ridge just south of Mt. Clay, looking toward the Great Gulf. There are a lot of rocks, and not a whole lot of skiable-looking lines, but we're optimistic still. Noah and I scope out potential lines from a rock:


The first two gullys we find are no-gos - too little coverage, bad visibility, and a lot of rocks. The third one looks marginally skiable though, although we can't see very far down it, and it looks as though it might cliff out or rock out. Over lunch we debate whether to ski it or not. There's really no question in our minds though...

Since we can't see much of the line and it's early season conditions, we decide to set and anchor and ski on belay. I've never done this before, so it was a good learning experience... We also tested the snow a bit for stability, but despite signs of wind-loading it seemed very solid. Noah and I donned our harnesses, slung a rock, and started down.

Noah skiing while I belay

The line ended up being great, with soft, if slightly windblown, snow and nice narrow, steep turns. I was not expecting to get this kind of gully skiing in november!


Me skiing


more me skiing




The climb back up.

After that, we decided to hike higher up toward the summit and see what else presented itself. After a while, we got to what I believe is the top of Airplane Gully, which was much wider, better covered, and over all less sketchy to ski. We decided not to use the rope here, and got some truly awesome turns, eventually skiing about 1/3-1/2 way down to the bottom of the gulf.


Noah skiing the top of the Gully


Resting part of the way down


Noah and I scout the next bit of skiing. We didn't get much lower than here - it got too rocky to ski further...


Noah topping out with more gear than is strictly necessary

more pictures in part 2...

[backcountryben]

Part 2:
After skiing Airplane, it was starting to get late in the afternoon. Tom had never summited washington before though (california freshman...) and we could see the top, so we decided to pay a visit to the top, where we found more wind, rocks and snow...


Noah, Tom, and I on the summit

We put on our skis in the parking lot at the top and decided to try to ski down as far as possible next to the cog railway. This led to some creative route-finding through the boulder field, but also some breath-taking views as we skied moderate pitched snow high above treeline with the sun setting over the franconia ridge in the distance...


After a while, there were too many rocks, wooden railroad ties, and old metal piping hiding just under the snow to continue skiing, so we threw the skis on the packs and continued down next to the cog. It was some of the most amazing, surreal lighting I've seen, and the combination of some really, really light powder and beautiful views was epic.




After we got a bit below treeline, the rocks disappeared and we were able to put on our skis again for another 1500' of vert or so before the snow finally ran out completely. We walked the last little bit down to the parking lot with slightly more dinged skis, almost no light, and huge smiles on our faces from skiing steep gullys on Washington in early November.

[nhtele]

Stoked for you. I'm really glad to see that Dartmouth boys are still out there getting after it in the Whites. I'm really tempted to climb Pinnacle while home for T-day.

-Colin '03, MS '05

[jepilot]

dude, very sick. Way to get after it. Mt. Washington in November...way cool.

[powder11]

Cool Mt. Washington stoke! A few years ago I skied into the chute on Tuckermans with nice fresh pow at the top only to find a sheet of blue ice underneath in the middle. I had to do a controlled hockey stop down a 45 degree ice patch for a few hundred feet. It really scared the shit out of me considering what could've happened if I tomahawked into the boulder field below. You can never have too much gear on that mountain.

[Alpine Dreams]

Really nice TR! I have fond memories of the area.

[Tuckerman]

Looks like Turkey chute nice timing. I don't get the ropes but the snow looked good.

[soul_skier]

good to see you got out. God I love that mountain, sick stoke

[lionelhutz]

Nice report...how lucky you were to get that bluebird of a day on the summit in November.

[squirrelmurphy]

sick!!! nice work buddy, wish i coulda been there

[ArmadaBC]

unbelieveable

I have never gotten a blue bird day there.

[telepariah]

That's some nice Type III fun right there!

[KIRinPNW]

Awesome work. Makes me excited to go home in a few weeks.

[Sluff]

I needed some stoke. Stellar work.

[stupendous man]

FKNA!

3454

[Ireallyliketoski2]

Great to see the old stomping grounds. This picture is one of the best I've seen in a while.

[MadPatSki]

GREAT....GLULP!!!!

IN NOVEMBER!!!!

Congrats.

[Platinum Pete]

kick ass EC!!

[enzo3366]

that looks sick. Ben, when the hell are we going to go skiing?

[backcountryben]

that looks sick. Ben, when the hell are we going to go skiing?

soon!

what are you up to this weekend?

[wardog]

Ben, that is a fantastic report. Thanks.

"You can never have too much gear on that mountain."

Amen.

[Lone Star]

Freakin' awesome first TR. keep 'em coming!

[PhishingME]

Very sweet

[gpcharles]

rock and rolls man! I live in hanover... we should meet up some time and/or go skiing

[Godwin-Austin]

excellent.