| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
North Twin Mountain, South Twin Mountain, Mt. Guyot, Zealand Mountain, Mt. Hale, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Little River Road, snowmobile trail, Haystack Road, North Twin Trail, North Twin Spur, Twinway, Zealand Spur, Lend-A-Hand Trail, Firewardens Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Sunday, March 31, 2024 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Leave Franz $10 at Seven Dwarfs. Best investment you'll make all day. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Ice - Black, Wet Trail, Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow/Ice - Frozen Granular, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Snow - Spring Snow |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes, Light Traction |
|
 | Water Crossing Notes: |
The North Twin Trail crossing of Little River is a little bit of a nuisance. Nora found a route by crossing over to the middle from the right of the trail, then left upstream until your gazelle like leaps are manageable. Beware of ice on the rocks if your barebooting. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Quite a few blowdowns overall, but on any given section there weren't a lot of them. Frankly I would have expected more. In any case, nothing huge. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Saw none. It's a little postholey in sections (see below) so caveat canis. |
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 | Bugs: |
None |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
TL;DR: Overall the rain and free/thaw have consolidated the snow from last week, so you have pretty firm underpinnings so long as you're in snowshoes.
North Twin Trail to Firewarden's Trail is pretty well packed down. Postholed to hell in a few places but not long enough stretches to wreck your day. It was pretty cold overnight so we were able to bareboot/spike in probably 80% up North Twin no prob. About 0.5mi from the summit it started getting drifty, so switched to snowshoes for the rest of the hike. You'll want them too. North Twin to South Twin unremarkable; it's rough packed. So is Twinway South Twin to Guyot. Guyot to Zealand seeing a fair amount of traffic and is in good shape.
How I _wish_ I had something better to report between Zealand summit and Zealand Falls. Things were going GREAT with a nice packed down surface until we crossed paths with two _idiots_ clomping up the trail in boots. They were struggling. Determined idiots are the worst. Maybe they had spikes maybe bareboots, don't care. By that point in the afternoon the snow was getting pretty soft everywhere, so they did a lot of damage. And that was only on the way out. We tried to clomp down a few places, but it was pretty pointless. They were packing very light for the temps, but likely there's 2X damage now. Sorry :-(
Snowshoe and boot tracks up Lend-a-Hand to Hale. Not too bad. Firewarden's Trail off Hale was in surprisingly decent shape since there were a lot of boots and like one snowshoe track. Snow is washed out by streams in like 10 places and you're on rocks, but most of those sections are sort. Otherwise it's decently packed except for the odd posthole carnage but was softening up, bring shoes.
Looks like temps are headed up so YMMV. Just wear the danged snowshoes, eh? |
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 | Name: |
Muench, Nora |
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 | E-Mail: |
erik.coder@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2024-03-31 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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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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