a grand day out!

MOC and april vacation, go together like...fun and more fun. this was the 17th year that the outing club has taken students up into tuckerman ravine. and while i can remember a couple nasty weather days, i recall many more on the good side. the iconic 'blue bird' sky yesterday, added to the latter. before setting off, we took the traditional pose at the bottom trail sign, warning all hikers that conditions above could be extremely dangerous and to turn back if any 'bad weather' came in. it did not look like we would have any of that today.




all that being said, the first thing i discovered this year, and should have expected--but didn't!--was the tuck trail was totally iced, from just past crystal cascades to hermit lake. fortunately, half the ten students had brought some sort of micro-spike set ups and after donning them, were good to go. i sent the others up the sherburne ski trail thinking it would be more hiker friendly. we all made it up to ho-jo's at the same time, each group with its own tales of ice slicked paths! sticking with the be-spiked group on the tuck trail, i watched several sliding extravaganzas--one particular crash, involved two sliding bodies spinning out of control as they careened down the "icy sluice" when the lead person slipped on a bulge. the sherburne crew had similar stories about a particular "icy gauntlet" that required a hand over hand ascent using the fir trees along the edge. a particularly dramatic report of a dropped pole, saved by the last in line would have been entertaining had we not needed to go down after our time in the bowl.



regrouped, we all enjoyed a bit of lunch looking up at the ravine from the comfort of the caretakers' ice free porch. a couple of other hikers were stopped as well and when i took up a conversation with one pair, we discovered that we had worked at pinkham together back in 1975! ed parsons, now living in tamworth, was up hiking for the day with his friend nancy. we had a good laugh at how small the world was and spoke of some of the others from 'back in the day' that we still kept up with. he was impressed that pam and i had made it all work over the forty one years. after taking a picture with him and another of our group, we packed and headed up into the bowl behind the two of them.

there was a bit of ice on the trail up but nothing that couldn't be gotten over or around. in about a half an hour we popped into ravine and i heard the chorus of, "oh my...this is incredible!" it is quite a site and with a full group of first-timers, i got a good kick out of their delight--despite the slipping and sliding to get here. there were only five others up with our dozen so we literally 'had the place to ourselves'. i saw ed tagging along behind the lone skier over in left gully as i led the boldest of our group up central, beyond "lunch rocks". we were only going part way to get a good launch into a slide. the snow was perfect for sliding and would have been excellent skiing, but i had left mine back at mascoma, not really wanting to carry them if i was the lone skier or snowboarder. since the sherburne was pretty much ice and melted out more than half its length, i was not too bummed that i had made that choice. everybody, took at least one zip down--most three or four--and all had huge smiles on their faces when they finally stopped at the bottom of the bowl.



dirk found a deep hole to climb into while a couple of the more frequent sliders changed into 'drys' from their 'wets' before we headed out of the ravine. we had the 2.5-3 miles to get down and none of us was relishing the icy descent. at the hermit lake shelters we made the decision to go right, down the sherbune. turns out that given the warming temp. and the plentiful sun, that was a good choice. the ski trail is quite a bit more open than the hiking trail and the ice was much softer--mostly passable without too much slippage. mostly, but one student did his best impression of superman when he tripped over something and instantly picked up a good amount of speed on a 20 foot slick spot. 'no blood no foul' allowed us a hearty laugh, but i for one, was took a good deal of care where i stepped. i found the side trail that i remembered from snowy years past took a few off that way. it had practically no ice and was covered by 2-3 inches of wet snow--that and the blow downs were all cut free. we walked comfortably along listening to whooping and hollering from those slipping along above us.




back at the dodge lodge, a group of non-believers went in to "take a look" at a crew picture with me, taken back in '75 when i "had really long hair!" (before we had started i showed three or four students and they had obviously spread the word and now were going to prove it to the others.) i got the van unlocked and after a bathroom check we piled in and took off. the ride home was smooth and this year we didn't get stopped for the van being not being inspected--even though it was three days past. i was supposed to drop it off at a local station for that after we unloaded everybody--bonus!

it truly was a grand day out!!