Welch and Dickey Mountain Loop – Central New Hampshire
Peakbagging in the White Mountains
On Sunday I climbed Welch Mountain (2,605 ft) and Dickey Mountain (2,734 ft) with a meetup.com group I just joined called the New England Hiking and Adventurer's Group. This is a very active group of hikers, climbers and peakbaggers that do a lot of trips in New Hampshire's White Mountains. I'm hoping to go on a few more winter day hikes with them before the season is over and to see if I can recruit a few like-minded souls for section hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine next summer and autumn.
Crampons Required
Five of us climbed these two mountains today, which have a reputation for being challenging in wet conditions or in winter. The chief source of difficulty are large open slaps that hikers encounter on the ascent that are covered with ice and snow. These can be quite treacherous and are impassible without crampons or extra traction.
Today's weather was spectacular with bright sunshine, temperatures in the mid 20's, and moderate wind. We had great views and could pick out the Tripyramids (below), Mt Cardigan, Mt Sunapee, Mt Lafayette, and Mt Moosilauke among many other peaks.
I wore plastic boots and crampons on this hike and carried a 20 lb pack including food and water. One of my companions Hubert, a much more experienced winter hiker and climber, brought along rope and ice axes, but we were lucky and didn't need them.
On today's hike, we took a counter clockwise route on the loop trail, climbing Welsh first and then Dickey after a short descent between the peaks. We maintained a casual pace with lots of breaks for food, water, pees and layer changes that were short enough that we didn't get cold. Having a small group definitely helped facilitate this and even though none of us had ever met before, we were remarkably synchronized as a group, starting together and stopping for each other without having to say a word. It was great – and I look forward to more hikes with this group.
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Sounds like you had a super day in the company of some like minded souls – doesn’t get much better than that. Those slabs look absolutely treacherous, though!
This is a good group – I’ll be leading some trips with them later in the year.
The slabs here on WD were pretty awesome. I’ll be climbing Mt.Monadnock (2nd most climbed peak east of the Mississippi)this weekend in western NH which also has a lot of slabs. Winter hiking/climbing has turned out to be a great way to miss the crowds that otherwise swarm these peaks the rest of the year, and that have kept me away.