| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Mt. Ascutney, VT |
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 | Trails: |
Futures Trail, Futures Link, auto road |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Saturday, March 3, 2018 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Gate to State Park is closed, parking across Rt 44A is nicely plowed |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow/Ice - Frozen Granular, Snow - Drifts, Snow - Wet/Sticky, Snow - Spring Snow |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes, Light Traction |
|
 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Ice bridges over some of the streams are unstable and covered w/ fresh powder, making it hard to see the edges -- or even the stream itself, at times. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Some blowdown at the low end of Futures, but easy to get around. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
It gets deep and wet from about a mile in, and the last few pitches up Futures and Futures link are steep and icy. But my husky did fine and loved it. Plenty of running water. |
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 | Bugs: |
Ha, let them suffer a bit longer... |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
Friday's storm dumped quite a bit of snow at altitude. First mile of Futures from the lean-to trailhead is untracked, but has only a trace of powder on a solid monorail -- microspikes work fine. Once you drop down after the first small lookout (a mile and change in), the snow depth increases rapidly with drifting and unpacked powder on frozen granular. I switched to snowshoes for the rest of the climb, but it gets progressively deeper as you ascend; by the time you cross the (unplowed) Autoroad and head over towards the Steam Donkey spur, you're in 8-10" of loose, wet powder over ice on a tricky camber -- tedious and exhausting work. Slab W towards the parking lot is untracked as well, with lots of drifts and unpacked powder. The Autoroad has not been plowed recently; there's a old snowmobile track that's left a little bit of packed granular in places, but it's mostly drifted over. The last mile out is on a couple of inches of very wet, unpacked powder -- too little for snowshoes, but your microspikes will ball up with ice almost instantly. |
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 | Name: |
lblackmore |
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 | E-Mail: |
lars@ameridane.org |
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| Date Submitted: |
2018-03-03 |
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 | Link: |
 https://www.strava.com/activities/1434346167 |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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