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Ski
Hiking Trail Conditions Report
Peaks
Peaks None, NH
Trails
Trails: Zealand Road, Zealand Trail, Ethan Pond Trail, Thoreau Falls Trail, Wilderness Trail, Cedar Brook Trail, East Side Trail
Date of Hike
Date of Hike: Saturday, February 11, 2017
Parking/Access Road Notes
Parking/Access Road Notes: Lots of space at Rt. 302 (Twin Mountain)and Lincoln Woods parking lots 
Surface Conditions
Surface Conditions: Wet Trail, Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Ice - Breakable Crust, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Standing/Running Water on Trail, Snow/Ice - Frozen Granular, Snow - Drifts, Snow - Wet/Sticky, Slush 
Recommended Equipment
Recommended Equipment: Snowshoes, Skis 
Water Crossing Notes
Water Crossing Notes: Lots of small open water crossings, but most easily crossable on snow bridges; some wet areas with standing water problematic; lucky to have Thoreau Falls Trail bridge for another winter 
Trail Maintenance Notes
Trail Maintenance Notes: Volunteers have done a fine job of removing blow downs on the Thoreau Falls Trail; Wilderness, Cedar Brook, and upper East Side Trails are a mess with erosion gullies; four highway bridges on East Side Trail are ridiculously overbuilt  
Dog-Related Notes
Dog-Related Notes: saw none 
Bugs
Bugs: saw none 
Lost and Found
Lost and Found: lost and found none 
 
Comments
Comments: The 2017 Annual Armadillo Pemi Ski-through was our 29th event since 1982 (we missed a few years because of lousy snow conditions). Only three participated this year. Zealand Road and Zealand Trail were well packed out to Zool hut, trail breaking was fairly easy on Ethan Pond Trail through Zealand Notch as others had been through recently, although no one in the past week, so we broke about 6-8 inches of powder and an underlying rain crust. Below the rain crust, the 2-3 ft of snowpack was solid, unlike our last ski-through in late February 2015. To save time, we usually do not stop at Zool on our ski-through, but this year we spent an extra 45 minutes with a stop at the hut.

The old rail grade in the notch was tricky, as the underlying rain crust would break off in slabs and slide sideways, so we really needed to dig in our edges to avoid slipping off the trail into the ravine below. We broke the entire Thoreau Falls Trail, and it appeared that no one had been through this winter, which was also suggested by the caretakers at Zool hut the past two weekends. Although The Thoreau Falls Trail was easier going than our last ski-through in late February 2015, which required breaking 4 to 5 feet of structureless sugar snow (depth hoar from weeks of equi-temperature [ET] snow metamorphism from the continuous cold temperatures without any rain or sun crusts to strengthen the snowpack), this year we only had to break about 6-8 inches of powder and the underlying rain crust, as we did on the Ethan Pond Trail.

Having read recent reports on this site about the rain crust, for the first time I chose to carry my MSR Denali’s as a back up for this section, which I used for the steeps and ups and downs for about 2.5 miles on the upper Thoreau Falls Trail. My two companions stuck with x-c skis, and probably worked much harder than I did in my snowshoes. The 5 miles of the Thoreau Falls Trail, usually the hardest part of this variation of our route (some years we ski the Shoal Pond Trail variation), took us a little over 4 hours to break out. Thanks to our friends Frodo and/or Chinook Trail, nearly all blow downs on the Thoreau Falls had been removed, which was greatly appreciated. And, deserving of special thanks are NH State Senator Jeb Bradley, former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, and U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, for obtaining a temporary stay of execution for demolition of the Thoreau Falls Trail bridge by the mean U.S. Forest Service. We still miss the suspension bridge across the East Branch, dismantled by the U.S.F.S. several years ago, as the route out to Lincoln Woods via the Cedar Brook and East Side Trails takes us 1 to 2 hours longer than down the west side of the East Branch.

Other than a lone snowshoer who had broken the trail from Lincoln Woods to the sign post at the junction of the East Side and Cedar Brook Trails, no one had broken out the trails beyond the campground 3 miles in from Lincoln Woods, so we had to break out parts of the Wilderness, Cedar Brook, and the East Side Trails. Water crossings and expansive wet areas on the Cedar Brook and Wilderness Trails created icing problems with our skis, so once again I switched back to my snowshoes. All three of us elected waxless skis this year, which was a wise decision.

Temperatures for our 8:20 am start at the Rt 302 parking lot in Twin Mountain were about +5 F, which rose over the day to about +20 F at 8:15 pm on our exit at Lincoln Woods. We skied through snow flurries between Rte 302 and Zool hut. Overall, the snow conditions were better than in 2015, but not as good as in 2014 (Shoal Pond Trail) and 2013 (Thoreau Falls Trail). With more snow the day after our ski-through and in the forecast for this week, our tracks are probably already obliterated, but still should provide easier breaking conditions for those that follow than at anytime earlier this winter.
 
Name
Name: HFKA Dr D 
E-Mail
E-Mail:  
Date Submitted
Date Submitted: 2017-02-14 
Link
Link: https:// 
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