Sometimes you just get lucky! <BR> <BR>After horrific winds (+/- 100 mph) and cold temps on the Rockpile on Saturday while we were biding our time at Sugarloaf, Sunday dawned calm, cold and clear as a bell on Mt. Washington. After Dan and I enjoyed a cholesterol-laden breakfast at Welch's Restaurant in Gorham we arrived at the Pinkham Notch parking lot at 8 am sharp. <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3859.jpg" ALT="Gulf of Slides from Pinkham Notch"> <BR> <BR>We waited around until 8:15 or so, but with no sign of Evan or his friend Meghan we hit the trail. <BR> <BR>The Gulf of Slides Ski Trail doesn't drain in quite the same way as a typical hiking trail, and as a result there were some very wet spots down low. After negotiating the mud and slop the trail quickly begins to climb, switching back and forth in a series of fall-away turns and double fall lines. We found ourselves wishing that the trail itself still had snow cover, for the Gulf of Slides Ski Trail would be one rollicking run. <BR> <BR>The pack was already growing heavy by the time Ironman Evan and Meghan caught -- and naturally passed -- us on the way up. Patches of snow finally gave way to relatively sustained snowcover on the trail before we reached the first rescue cache at 3,700 feet or so. As we paused for a break, a lone hiker approached and introduced himself as none other but our own Lftgly! <BR> <BR>Shortly after the second rescue cache, our objective -- Main Gully -- came into view: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3860.jpg" ALT="Main Gully"> <BR> <BR>Evan and Meghan were found lounging in the slide's runout, along with about a half dozen other folks. This for me was one huge benefit of the Gulf of Slides: the absence of thousands of yahoos who were surely next door in Tuckerman Ravine. We saw about a dozen skiers and riders all day in the gully -- just about the right number, as far as I'm concerned. <BR> <BR>The day was warming rapidly in the strong sun. After a moment or two spent emptying our packs of unnecessary gear, Dan and I began our ascent (Ironman Evan, true to form, was already a good third of the way up by this point). Meghan had fractured two vertebrae at Jay Peak back in January, and therefore was sitting out the skiing, choosing instead to simply relax in the warm spring sun. <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3861.jpg" ALT="Dan begins to climb the Main Gully"> <BR> <BR>A prominent splitting, cracking ice bulge blocked the way about a third of the distance up the gully. By the time we reached the bulge, Evan had already started down, carving exquisite turns in the soft spring corn. <BR> <BR>Although negotiable via a creative route up, I was grateful for my crampons after watching Dan struggle to retain his foot hold. With crampons on I felt like Spiderman clinging to the side of a skyscraper in the ice-slickened 40-degree chute. After climbing to a point just above the bulge, Dan was justifiably a bit spooked by the lack of footing and we decided to rest for a moment before starting our run from there. As we caught our breath Evan had already returned to that point, opting to continue on to the top of the gully. With a bit of encouragement, Dan relented and we again strapped our skis to our packs and continued on to the top of the gully instead of skiing down from there. <BR> <BR>Small trees in the gully split the chute into three, and we angled for the climber's leftmost line as it appeared to offer the easiest footing and the best cover. After what seemed like an endless climb, stopping often to rest, we finally reached the top of the 800 vertical-foot chute precisely 5 hours after we had left the trailhead at Pinkham Notch: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3862.jpg" ALT="Looking down from the top of Main Gully"> <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3863.jpg" ALT="View south toward Slides Peak and beyond from the top of Main Gully -- note the slopes of Attitash Bear Peak barely visible in the distance"> <BR> <BR>Dan and I paused to savor the view over a snack. Nearly impenetrable krumholz prevented any further ascent for the few remaining feet onto the ridgeline and over toward the snowfields (we later learned that Ironman Evan actually bushwhacked through that stuff!). A gentle breeze cooled our faces, already baking in the strong spring sun. These was a rare day indeed on the northeast's highest mountain! Before long, however, the wait was too much to resist, and we stepped into our skis and headed down. <BR> <BR>It's difficult to find the words to describe the quality of that corn snow. It just doesn't get any better than it was yesterday. A solid base underfoot was topped with an inch or two of the smoothest and silkiest corn imaginable. It was sublime. Arc after controlled arc carried us down the center line from the top through what was at times untracked corn. When that line ended we jogged to skier's left a few feet and followed a seamless line that carried us past the danger of the ice bulge. Now back at the wide-open spaces of the lower third of the gully, we opened it up and began to crank aggressive, nearly wall-to-wall turns back to the staging area at the bottom. <BR> <BR>Smiles beamed all around. Cheers were exchanged, but words were hardly necessary, for the expressions on our faces and the lights in our eyes said it all. The turns were as sweet as could be, that's for sure, but somehow tasted even sweeter due to the effort required to achieve them. <BR> <BR>After the day before at Sugarloaf, and the energy expended lugging heavy alpine gear around for 5 hours, I was convinced that my day was done and proudly announced so to my companions. I planned to relax in the warm sun as Dan and Evan took one more run, but pangs of jealousy provided a second wind, and before long I found myself again ascending the gully. <BR> <BR>Evan continued again to the top of the gully, this time following a route to climber's right. Dan followed a similar line but only climbed about two-thirds of the way, armed with my crampons that I had loaned to him after watching him struggle to retain footing on the first run. Now myself without crampons, I went only about half way up the gully to a point on climber's right just above the ice bulge, and kicked out a platform for myself to sit on where I could hang onto a tree for security. I decided to wait there for Dan and Evan to ski down, photographing their runs before joining them for the final half of the descent. <BR> <BR>Those were my intentions, anyway. My technology had other ideas, for later in the day the media card in my digital camera became corrupt, rendering many of the photos taken yesterday -- including those of Dan's and Evan's exceptional runs -- inaccessible and unreadable. Such is life, I suppose. In any event, I thoroughly enjoyed the cloudless views and a Power Bar while waiting, and managed to snap some photos of unknown telemark skiers following Dan's and Evan's route: <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3864.jpg" ALT="an unknown telemark skier descends Main Gully"> <BR> <BR>It was now 3 pm, and time to call it a day. Never one to choose downhiking and carrying all of my gear when some of it might be possible to negotiate with skis and ski boots on my feet, I opted to ski down as far as the patches of snow would carry me. Dan and Evan had similar ideas. Meghan started out on snowshoes. We all were on the trail by 3:15. <BR> <BR>As most rational people would consider the Gulf of Slides Ski Trail to now be unskinnable (Evan's not included amongst them), the snow on the trail was now horribly postholed. The skiing here was anything but pleasant, but it still beat carrying skis and heavy alpine ski boots in my pack. I'd estimate that we managed to drop close to 500 vertical feet before the snow cover finally became too intermittent to make a ski descent worthwhile. We clipped out of our skis, changed our boots, and packed everything for the 2.5-mile down hike. <BR> <BR>Dan and I marched on like robots, more from tired determination than from any kind of energy. We only hoped that our feet would follow instructions and land on the ground where our brains told them to. Dan would call out readings from his altimeter: "2000 feet to go." "1306 feet to go." About the only other time he spoke during the down hike was to ask, "Did I mention how sweet that corn was?" And he asked it repeatedly. <BR> <BR>With only one rest break, we were back at the car in just under two hours from the start of our descent. Although physically drained, we both felt an enormous sense of satisfaction. The weather had been perfect, the snow had been perfect, and the company had been perfect. What more could you ask for? <BR> <BR>Well, on second thought, a shortening of the 5-hour drive home would have been nice!
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<BR> <BR>-Scott
