4000 Footers

One of the classic hikes in the White Mountains is a traverse of three 4000 foot mountains: West Bond, Mount Bond, and Bondcliff, collectively known as The Bonds. All of these summits are above treeline and provide fantastic views of the Pemigewasset Wilderness …

The two most popular routes to climb Wildcat A and D are to hike up the 19 Mile Brook Trail from Carter Notch or to climb the Polecat Trail from the Wildcat Ski Resort. I took a very different route up to WildCat …

What do bowling pins, 15 pound bags of rice and charcoal, cases of beer, TV sets, and water reservoirs have in common? They’re just some of the crazy ass things that hikers load into their packs to train for backpacking trips where …

Mount Moosilauke is the first big mountain that Appalachian Trail northbounders encounter when they climb through the White Mountains. The 10th highest four thousand footer in the White Mountain 48, it has a very different profile and personality than most of the other …

When my glasses froze over, I wasn’t sure whether I’d make it up the last 50 yards to the summit of Moosilauke. I could barely make out SG’s blue snowshoes in front of me and the wind was blowing so fiercely that …

By the time you feel a hotspot, it’s often too late to do anything about it. That’s been my experience with hiking up steep mountains in winter. I knew we were just 300 feet below Franconia Ridge, so I said screw it, and …

“I think we’re headed the wrong way,” said Trey. Yep, we’d turned south instead of north when we got to the top of the Polecat Ski Trail on Wildcat Mountain, an ignominious start to our Wildcat Traverse, and further proof that ski …

Trey and I attempted to climb Wildcat A, B, C, and D on Friday but we were stopped in our tracks by chest high snow drifts and such deep powder that we were postholing up to our waist, even though we were …

The temperature was in the single digits when I woke on Saturday morning just before dawn. I’d decided to spend the weekend sleeping outside in my tent and -25 degree sleeping bag, while my friends slept all snug and warm inside of …

I led an Appalachian Mountain Club hiking trip to North (4180′) and Middle Tripyramid (4140′) Mountains last weekend. These are two 4,000 footers in the southern section of the White Mountains. linked by a 0.8 mile ridge. South Tripyramid (4100′), the third …

My friend Trey and I climbed up Mt Whiteface (4060′) and Mt Passaconaway (4043′) on Sunday. We hiked the peaks starting from the Ferncroft trailhead in Wonolancet, hiking up via the Blueberry Ledge cutoff, the Blueberry Ledge Tr, the Rollins Trail, and …

I completed a Winter Bonds Traverse two weeks ago,one of the toughest and most remote winter hikes in the White Mountains. I was accompanied by four other very strong hikers: Ron, Craig, Larry, and Garret, who hike together regularly and were nice …

I led an Appalachian Mountain Club hike on Sunday to two White Mountain 4000 footers named Mount Tom (4051′) and Mount Field (4340′) in Crawford Notch. These peaks are fairly easy to climb and the trails leading to them are usually well …

I climbed Galehead (4024′) and South Twin (4902′) Mountains last weekend together with 10 other hikers from the Appalachian Mountain Club. This was a long hike, just over 14 miles in length in winter conditions, and with sunset at 4:15 pm, we hiked …