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Tuckerman's Ravine (Mt. Washington, NH)

Discussion of hiking from Maine to Florida
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Jon
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:43 pm
Location: Bangor, PA

Tuckerman's Ravine (Mt. Washington, NH)

Unread post by Jon »

So we made an expedition up to Tuckerman's Ravine. We had intended on getting to the summit, however the weather and the snow was not in our favor. We made it to the lip of Tuckerman's which is about 5,200 feet. Then from there it's only another 1,000 feet to the summit, but we were getting blasted with 75 mph winds. Also we narrowly missed a wet slab avalanche in the bowl of Tuckerman's by about 30 minutes. I descended down the Lion's Head winter route, and it was hard packed ice with a steep angle over 60degrees. A rope would have been really nice on that route!

Temperatures in the 60s and 70s the snow was melting furously. We started at Pinkham Notch at 2,000 feet and wore shorts on the hike up tuckerman's ravine trail
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Climbing friends of mine Jurgen and Dan with the Lion's Head Rocks jutting above them.
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The bowl of the ravine
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Ranger station at around 4,000 feet. We changed into our winter gear here since the wind picked up and the temps were in the 30s
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In late spring Tuckerman's Ravine is one of the last places with snow. There are no lifts though and it's one long line of skiiers who brave the climb up.
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Dan waiting in knee deep snow for skiiers to pass us.
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Climbing friend Kevin posing for a shot with the headwall of Tuckerman's Ravine behind him
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We did not get to witness the avalanche, however it was surprising to see it because the Avalanche Danger was "Low" for the day, and had been lowered several days ago. None of the guys that I climbed with had ever seen one in person before. It was amazing how much snow had moved. Thankfully no one was in the path when it happened, and it was "natural" and not a human caused avalanche.

Skiier for scale

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I ditched the poles and broke out the ice axe and crampons for the ascent up to the lip of Tuckerman Ravine.
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Climbing partners Ravi and Kevin mentally getting ready for the ascent.
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It's hard to photograph the steepness of this climb. But it's basically as steep as going up a ladder, and you just have to put your feet in the holes of the climbers ahead of you. Trying it with snowshoes is dangerous and near impossible. The rangers say that you should have crampons and ice axe. Most of the skiiers we saw just had ski poles and snow boots.
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We tried to stay standing vertically while we climbed, but at some times the wind would hit us with ice spray and we had to just hug the wall while it passed. Also sinking in the melting snow was a problem, you had to move fast so you didn't lose momentum.
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We take a break at the top of the Tuckerman Ravine Elevation about 5,200 feet.
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A cloud is moving in. This shot also shows the lip of the bowl, and the insane dropoff that you can barely view from the top
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Our chance at a summit bid is pretty much gone at this point. We strain to look through the clouds at where the summit buildings should be. We hope they will clear in the next 5-10 minutes.
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Things don't clear up, the clouds stay low and we decided to take the Lion's Head Winter Route back down. We headed across some
bare rock to the Lion's Head.
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As we got below the lion's Head the bowl of the Ravine was swallowed by a cloud. We hoped our skiing and climbing buddies were already heading back down.
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A shot as we descended, the Lion's Head above us.
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Some giant fissures open up on the Tuckerman trail from all the snowmelt.
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We went back for another try the next day, but despite it being clear skies the snow was slop. We had started a snowshoe up the back route (Nelson Crag) and had to turn around above 3,500 feet because of boots being soaked through, and lack of energy. Still was a fun snowshoe on the Appalachian Trail.

Here is a shot of Mt. Washington from North Conway
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He's going to have to wait until next year.
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mike
Posts: 1442
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:20 pm
Location: Ravena, NY

Re: Tuckerman's Ravine (Mt. Washington, NH)

Unread post by mike »

Tuckerman's Ravine is a great hike/ski adventure. That climb up the chute is quite steep (60 degrees). When it is icy it can be quite dangerous. Many years ago this stupid salesperson at Campor tried to tell me that you don't need an ice axe on Tuckerman's Ravine. It's a great place to hike and ski. I like your pictures too. It's a lot steeper then the pictures show. That slab avalanche looked a little scary. Nice trip report!
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Jon
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:43 pm
Location: Bangor, PA

Re: Tuckerman's Ravine (Mt. Washington, NH)

Unread post by Jon »

mike wrote:Tuckerman's Ravine is a great hike/ski adventure. That climb up the chute is quite steep (60 degrees). When it is icy it can be quite dangerous. Many years ago this stupid salesperson at Campor tried to tell me that you don't need an ice axe on Tuckerman's Ravine. It's a great place to hike and ski. I like your pictures too. It's a lot steeper then the pictures show. That slab avalanche looked a little scary. Nice trip report!
I don't know about the advice from guys at campmor O.o I love campmor for a lot of stuff, but I usually tend not to listen to the people because it's really hard to gauge their experience level. The avalanche warning website from the US forestry Service Snow Rangers (the guys who live on the mountain and test the snow for avalanches) said that they want everyone to have crampons and ice axe that attempts to scale the wall in any gullies of tuckerman's ravine. Also that a lot of accidents happen (some fatal) when people aren't wearing appropriate traction gear (chains instead of crampons) and they use ski-poles instead of ice axes.

However we (the hiking party) were the only ones that afternoon that I could see with ice axes. About 90% of everyone just had poles, some just walked straight up without anything (our team leader Dan just a snowboard on his back). And they all pretty much made it. I thought the ice axe helped tremendously, and I strapped my poles to the bag because I had them. I also had my crampons on, and I didn't see anyone else wearing a pair. The other people in my group went up either with just snowboots, or some ascended with snowshoes. I could see the people trying to use poles struggling, because the snow was so deep and it was mushy so it was work to get the poles in and out. The ice axe went in smooth, out smooth and it stuck like velcro when you needed it to. Only thing I had a problem with was my left hand, wish I had another axe.

You see but also we are not skiiers we were hikers heading up a skiing people's route. Most climbers heading for the summit in the Winter take the Lion's Head winter route, which has segments that are steeper pitched than the bowl(60-70degrees slope) and ice axe and crampons are required for that route. But the thousand foot increase is split up into segments under tree cover with little breaks in between, whereas the bowl lip is one giant sprint with full exposure on the way up. We descended this route, and had no idea what was below so it was slow going, and a lot of clinging to trees on the way down. Wish we had a rope for that part!

Within the ravine bowl the skiers there try to get as many runs in as they can, and taking off crampons and strapping ice axes to packs, and then getting the stuff out at the bottom of the ravine takes up time. Most of the guys were running up and down several times during the afternoon. I can understand if you talk to those skiiers why they say that crampons and ice axe aren't needed for tuckermans. It's because they're nuts to begin with for skiing it!

Either way that is one steep slope. It's basically a 900 ft climb from the ravine bowl floor to the lip. It's probably less than 900 ft horizontally. Also the steepness increases as you approach the lip.

I would say for next year I'm going to go with crampons, and 2 ice axes, and probably a rope this time to make getting down the Lion's Head Winter route easier.
TrunksWD
Posts: 91
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:38 pm

Re: Tuckerman's Ravine (Mt. Washington, NH)

Unread post by TrunksWD »

Jon, you always take amazing pictures. I'll be making my first trip up to Maine in October and will hopefully be hiking Katahdin. I just have to see if my hiking buddies are up for a big hike. That is not a mountain to hike alone. I'll probably make a side trip on the way back to see the White Mountains and drive up Mt. Washington.

For next Winter I'll be getting Crampons and an Ice Axe, since I'll be hitting some high peaks with rock scrambles. I've already figured out which Crampons to get, but do you have recommendations on a good Ice Axe?
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