TR: Mt. Washington Mini - Skied, Clothed, By Skiers

Pursuing consecutive months skiing (this made 58 i think i have to check past TRs) and nearly derailed by a brief job on the east coast consuming the month of june, drastic measures had to be taken. I could not fly to vermont with skis as that seemed stupid, and meant i could hardly bring anything else. Luckily I had a gear cache containing all gear i used to use. What did i find in the gold mine? Some salomon rear entrys, skis i decided not to bring and opted for a an old pair of k2 fatties (mini blades) and a pair of park sized mismatched poles once belonging to an African now turned Everest explorer.




We left Vermont early, a very cold night on Mt. Washington was a good sign for any snow that was up there might have the chance to be good with a little warming. At Pikham we packed up the gear. The first thing i noticed is the lack of weight in my pack for summer skiing. this is due to the boots and my 90cm skis, who knew rear entry boots hardly weighed anything.




We made the Hermit lake shelter in about 1 hour. A fast easy push up a huge trail. A bit longer to the headwall. As we got to the snow 20 + people were laying down beautiful turns, other people were practicing mountaineering, also some just hanging out. Quite the scene.



We began up the bootpack after sliding in comfortably to my boots, the booter which deceptively gets steeper and steeper (cliche for tux) as we got to the top I realized that I was about to put on mini skis and began to get nervous about the 35+ degree pitch that i was clinging onto.



Blades are not stable, especially on steep corn and each turn my tips would move up to 1 foot in any direction very uncontrollably. Having survived that we decided we were going to the summit as it was a perfect day. Up the "lobstah claw" top out on lions head and push for the peak. We kept our gear as we didn't know our descent. Nearing the summit, partner needing a break we stumbled across a 100 vertical foot patch of snow barely big enough for blades. So we took our break and i skied.




Claiming the [B]highest skier on the east coast[/B] award i strapped on the blades and actually made some comfortable turns on a less steep pitch. I wanted to go nude, but a bus load of young french girls decending the mountain made me think otherwise. I went to call my mom, but i had no service on this mountain (who would guess) immediately realizing i got no gnar points, i packed my shit up and we went to the anti climatic summit full of gapers and people that struggled to make it 100 feet from their cars to get the summit photo. Slightly under the summit I found some solitude and an area of quickly melting rime ice which was a sight to see for june.





We slogged down lions head trail back to the car, and made it back to burlington area at 1030pm LONG DAY!