Mt Monroe (2/19/25)

When you see Mt Monroe in the title, you can generally be sure that it was an attempt at Washington where I had to take the consolation prize, and this was no exception. Still, despite not getting Washington, this one wound up being an interesting hike in its own right. It was certainly the hardest hike that I have done in a very long time, and it pushed me physically in ways that haven't happened for a while.

Whenever you are looking for a weather forecast for the White Mountains, there are two major sources to check. The first is mountain-forecast.com, and the second is the Mount Washington Observatory. Mountain forecast will generally underrate the weather, while the Observatory will generally overrate the weather. In other words, Mountain forecast will almost always say that it's safe to hike, while if you followed the Observatory forecast, you would never hike. Thus, the only thing to do is to assume that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between the two forecasts. For this hike, Mountain forecast had 10 mph winds at Washington's summit, while the Observatory had 60 mph winds. I assumed that meant that winds would be in the 20 mph to 30 mph range, perfectly acceptable for a hike up Washington.

Adding to the good news, the weather was supposed to be bright and sunny, and both improving and warming throughout the day. I left a little later than I normally would, because I didn't want to be too early and catch the weather before it improved. I stopped for gas along the way in Fryeburg, and also grabbed my usual bagel from Big Dave's in North Conway. As I drove along 302, I was tempted to turn into Bretton Woods and have another great ski day, but of course I had none of that equipment with me. Overall, the driving wasn't bad, though the roads were a little sketchy in the higher mountains.

I ended up in a caravan of four cars heading down the road to the trailhead. The road was a bit snowy, but it had clearly been well treated, and it easily could have handled 30 mph. The guy in front of me insisted on going 15 mph, though, so it took a long time to get to the trailhead. I expected everyone else in the caravan to turn into the trailhead with me, but no one did. Instead, everyone headed to the Cog parking lot. You can park there for a $10 fee. Personally, I refuse to do that for two reasons. First, I don't want to pay the $10 if I can avoid it. Second, I don't want to financially support the Cog Railway and their attempts to build a hotel on top of Mt Washington.

When I parked, there were only two people in the parking lot, me and a plow truck. I appreciated the fact that they were plowing out the parking lot. I was hiking on Wednesday, and there had been a big snowstorm on Sunday, and then two days of intense wind on Monday and Tuesday. Thus, it was likely that this was the first day since Saturday that people had really been out hiking. The unfortunate thing was that the plow truck built up a huge pile of snow right in front of the trailhead. It was taller than me, and I had to climb over it to start my hike.

Given the recent snow, I decided to use snowshoes for this trip. Unlike my recent hike to Mt Roberts where snowshoes turned out to be a bad choice, on this hike they were absolutely the right call. I wouldn't have gotten far at all without them.

As I went over the snow pile and started hiking, I quickly realized that no one had been on the first mile of the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail since the snow. I had to break out the entire first mile, which cost me a lot of energy that would become important later. Everyone else avoided that by going to the Cog parking lot, saving themselves three quarters of a mile each way on their hike. Still, if I had to do it over again, I would make the same choice, for the reasons that I outlined above.

At least the trail was beautiful.

When I finally linked up with the main Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail, I saw that people coming out of the Cog parking lot had broken out the trail, so I appreciated that. I trudged almost a mile up the trail when I ran into my first person of the day. He was walking towards me, which I thought was odd. Normally, in the morning you go up the mountain, and in the afternoon you come back down. I stopped and chatted with him, and he explained that he had decided to turn around because he didn't think the snow conditions were safe. He thought there might be avalanche danger. He explained that there was a hiker in front of him who had triggered a mini-avalanche while climbing up the steep part of the Ammo after the pond.

I thanked him for the information. To be honest, I wasn't especially worried about avalanches, for two reasons. First, there had been an avalanche warning on Mt. Washington, but it had expired twenty-four hours earlier. Second, avalanches are generally more of a danger on the east side of the mountain than the west. Still, I thought it a good idea to be vigilant, and I kept an eye out for any warning signs of avalanches from that point forward.

To get an idea of just how much snow there was, take a look at the picture below. The piece of wood you see is a handrail! In the summertime, that would be at hand level and help keep you steady on the bridge. Now, it was at foot level. I actually almost tripped over it while crossing. I am always awkward in snowshoes.

You would never know that's a bridge.

Finally, after about two and a half total miles of hiking, I came to the pond. I think they call it Gem Pool or something like that. It's a popular break spot, because it marks the point where the trail starts to go steeply uphill. I grabbed a quick snack (one of Dragonfly's mother's delicious power bars) and some water, and then I started up the trail. I was being careful about potential avalanches, and I was ready to turn around if needed. I also flipped up the televators on my snowshoes. The televator is a little bar on the back of your snowshoe that gives a place for your foot to rest after each step, making it easier to go uphill. This hike would end up being the longest continuous use of televators I have ever had. Normally I only engage them for a few minutes at a time, but on this hike they ended up being engaged for basically the entire ascent. That's how steep it was.

As I climbed, the nice snowshoe track that existed before the pond disappeared, and the only tracks that I had left to follow were those of someone who did not have snowshoes and was post-holing like crazy. Post-holing is when your foot sinks down so far in the snow that it creates a deep hole that is problematic both for you and for those who come after you. That's why you should always wear snowshoes unless the trail is very well packed down. I suspected that no one would be crazy enough to go up in these conditions with bare boots, so I assumed that the person in front of me had either microspikes or crampons, and my guess was that he had the latter.

I took some pictures of just how deep the holes were, but I'm not going to post them here, because they don't do them justice. Suffice to say that some of the post-holes could have eaten half my trekking pole. Speaking of trekking poles, I was hiking without the snow baskets on them. I have never found the snow baskets to be of much use, and in fact not having the snow baskets can be a big advantage. You see, if your trekking pole sinks down in the snow, then it has a lot of resistance against it from pure mass of snow, and you can use it as a lever to help pull yourself up. Snow baskets don't let it get down far enough to have that effect.

Breaking out the trail was exhausting work. Yes, I had the holes that the person in front of me had created, but in a lot of ways that just made it worse. The hill was so steep that there was a lot of back-sliding, but I didn't see any signs of avalanche danger, so I judged it safe to keep going. Nonetheless, I knew that I was draining a ton of energy. The sheer amount of trail-breaking that I had done so far was way more than I normally do. In fact, I don't know if I have done that much trail-breaking since my solo hike up North Crocker. This snow was deeper than the snow on North Crocker had been, too.

There were some tight spaces to squeeze under or through because of how high the snow was.

The steepest section of the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail runs from the pond to a water crossing. I was near the top of that section when I noticed that there were two guys in snowshoes behind me. I called back to them, "If one of you guys wants to take over breaking trail for a while, I wouldn't object." The guy in front called up to me, "I'm trying, brother. I have to catch up to you first."

I kept pushing ahead, and at the water crossing I discovered the guy who was in front of me. He was using crampons and an ice ax, and he was trying to cut his way up the frozen river instead of taking the trail around to the side. I pointed out to him that he was off-trail, and he thanked me for letting him know. Meanwhile, the two guys behind caught up, and now all four of us were together. We all did introductions. The two guys behind me were Mike and Bob. Mike was very fit, and clearly very experienced in the mountains. He later told me that he worked as a mountain guide now that he was retired from his corporate job. Bob was a fun guy who wasn't in as good shape as Mike, but was cool to hike with, and clearly understood his limits. The guy with the crampons was Charlie. He was wearing a pair of goggles on his head, and clearly didn't have a lot of experience in the Whites, though I think Bob said that Charlie had hiked out west before.

We re-arranged our line so that it was now Mike, then me, then Bob, then Charlie. We wanted to put the snowshoes all in front. Getting out of the riverbed wasn't easy, but Mike managed to cut us a path. Mike called back to Charlie, and let him know that he probably shouldn't be wearing his goggles on his head, because then they would get all sweaty and steamy, and that moisture would freeze, and then the goggles would be useless. Mike advised Charlie to put the goggles away in his bag until he needed them. Charlie appreciated the advice and did as Mike advised.

If you look closely, you can see Bretton Woods on the left and the Cog station on the center-right.

After a while of Mike leading, Bob took over leading at the next river crossing. By this point Charlie had fallen back, so there were only three of us now. Bob let us know that he was going to be slow, but both Mike and I were okay with that. Quite honestly, I didn't mind the idea of conserving some energy. This was going to be a slow day no matter what. In fact, it might be the slowest that I have ever hiked, or at least close to it.

Bob cuts a path while Mike watches.

After Bob led for a while, I took back over. Bob had just fallen in a hole, so it was a good time to slide past him. Mike suggested that we should take quicker rotations anyway, and I thought he was right. There were a couple of spots where I wasn't sure which way the trail went, so Mike helped me out with picking directions. Mike took back over right as we got into the worst section of trail. The trail went right through some dense trees. Normally, they would be over your head, but with the snow depth raising us up, we had to push right through them. I thought I saw a path that would go around them, and I decided to test it. Unfortunately, the path was a mirage, and I fell right into a spruce trap. It took me a little bit to maneuver myself out of it, and while I did, Bob took over my second spot in line. Mike led us through several hundred feet of dense trees before we finally made it out the other side, a little battered and bruised, but not seriously injured. As Mike said, "This puts the suck in Ammonoosuc."

From there, the conditions got significantly better as we pushed up the last few hundred feet of vertical elevation to the Lakes of the Clouds hut. Mike was way out in front, with Bob and I lagging behind. Bob was giving me regular updates on how much elevation we had left to go. When I arrived at the Lakes hut, Mike was on the roof. How did he get on the roof, you ask? I'll show you in a moment.

If you look in the center of the photo, you can see Mike on top of the hut.

So, how did Mike get there? Well, this is what the Lakes hut looked like on the other side.

I can't imagine why they close this hut during the winter...

Winter in the White Mountains is just crazy. I walked all the way around the hut, and eventually found Mike and Bob huddled in the emergency shelter in the basement of the hut that they call the Dungeon.

Unfortunately, someone left the door open, so the dungeon was covered in snow on the inside.

I think it's cool that the Dungeon exists, as it could save someone's life during the winter. However, hikers have abused it over time, just as they have abused every other emergency shelter that the AMC provides, and so it's only a matter of time until we lose access to it. As Mike said, "This is why we can't have nice things."

Mike and Bob left before I did and headed up Mt Monroe. I now had a choice to make. Did I want to go up Monroe or Washington? My legs were already sore from all the trail breaking, and I was fairly confident that I would be the only one going up Washington if I did so. Washington looks really close from the hut, but I know from experience that it's not. In the end, I decided that I didn't have enough left in the tank, and I would go after Monroe and leave Washington for another day. I later found out that Bob had made the same choice for the same reason.

I headed up Monroe, following the tracks that Mike and Bob had made. I ran into them near the summit. The wind was really howling up there. It was certainly a lot more than 10 mph! I would estimate that it was between 30 and 40 mph. I didn't have any trouble standing up, but my face was getting blasted. This was partially because I had made a mistake. I didn't think the wind was going to be that bad, so I wore a balaclava, sunglasses, and my jacket hood, instead of wearing a balaclava, goggles, a facemask, and my jacket hood. I ended up with my face freezing, but thankfully the run up and down Monroe doesn't take long, so I was never in any real danger. My lips ended up chapped for days afterwards, though. I finally took down the televators after summiting Monroe, meaning that I had them up from the Gem Pool all the way to the top of Monroe, by far the farthest I have ever used them for.

As I was climbing Monroe, I noticed that Charlie had finally arrived at the hut. The four of us would never come together as a group, though, as Mike and Bob left before I made it down to Charlie. When I did, I chatted with Charlie for a moment. He decided to go no further than the hut, as he was exhausted. I think it was a good choice on his part. Trying to break trail without snowshoes at the beginning must have taken a ton out of him. It reminds me of the story of Kate Matrosova, who died in the White Mountains because she was wearing crampons instead of snowshoes (among other reasons).

On the way down, I just followed the tracks cut by Mike and Bob. Bob said he was much faster on the downhill than the uphill, and that must have been the case, because I never caught up with them. I also stopped a bunch of times to take off gear, though. Mike and Bob found a new way to descend that avoided all the dense foliage, so I appreciated that.

The way down way very steep, and snowshoes are not known for being fantastic going downhill. I did a lot of sliding, and I fell a number of times. Thankfully, I just landed in the soft snow and didn't take any injuries. Eventually, I started butt-sliding. I knew that I was going to get my pants wet doing that, but they were quick-drying pants, so I wasn't really worried. The harder part was butt-sliding with snowshoes on, but I did the best I could. Honestly, the conditions would have been perfect for a sled, and it made me wish I had brought one. Or that I owned one, for that matter.

Lower down the mountain, I started to see these mysterious pole marks that weren't from Mike or Bob.

I made good time down the lower part of the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail, until I came to the split with the parking lot trail. I thought of going to the Cog parking lot and road walking back to the parking lot, but I didn't really want to carry my snowshoes, so I decided to stay on the Ammo. 

Here, the mystery deepened. The trail was post-holed by someone not wearing snowshoes, which was weird since I was pretty sure that I had been the only person on it that day. I also started to see more of the mysterious pole marks from the picture above. When I ran into two guys on the trail, that solved the mystery. It turned out that much like the first guy I met that day, they had gotten up to the pond, but turned around when they started up the steep part of Ammonoosuc.

In their case, it was apparently because of cold feet. I thought that strange since they were wearing thicker boots than I was, but I suppose there's two explanations there. First, different people's bodies run at different temperatures. Second, they didn't have snowshoes, so they were sinking down into the snow more. They were also probably exerting more effort.

I passed by the two gentlemen and raced back to the parking lot. I had a little surge of energy knowing that I was almost finished with the hike. When I got back to my car, I realized just how tired and sore I was. I need to get back in better hiking shape to deal with hikes like this one. Nonetheless, I am happy that I had a successful hike overall. Tagging Monroe is still an accomplishment, even if it isn't Washington. In the end, you can't accomplish anything unless you go out and work at it. Put another way, you can't take flight until you spread your wings.