Pretty darn epic.
Brenda organized this trip for a bunch of us to have a Mt Washington backcountry bonanza, and the weather and snow gods provided one in spades. From our luxury condo at Attitash we headed out early to Pinkham on Saturday morning. Some in our group scoffed at our worry about a parking spot but when we had to scramble for a place they showed Rob and I the respect and honor we so truely deserved. Alas, they'd forgotten about it 2 minutes later. Ran into Seema and Brian getting ready for a training climb in Tux with Frodo and Skimom.
We started skinning up GoS around 8:30, and we weren't alone but it was nothing compared to the hoards headed up Tux. We met a few friends along the way (Marta, Nick & Pat) and made it to the base of GoS around 10:30. We elected to climb the 2nd Gully, and then some in the group headed to the snowfields while the rest of us descended back to the packs. Our first run in GoS, pretty sweet! The snow had corned just perfectly, and there was great skiing as far as the eye could see.
We skinned up to the base of the snowfields, ate lunch, dropped pack and headed up for some more runs. At one point, Sonoma the hound got a bit spooked and Stefan had to carry him (86 lbs of golden!) down a ways while skiing. Once back on snow he was fine again, I think he just wanted to see Stefan ski up close. We did several runs here and around 3:00 called it a day. It was tough to leave, the snow was so good. But we had miles to go and our legs were pretty shot.
The ski out was a bit tiring, but the snow stayed soft and skiable all the way out to the cars. Just two places where we had to take of skis to cross streams, lots of folks just kept them on across the rocks and logs. At the parking lot at Pinkham people were kicking back and having a brew and a cigar. We took a well deserved rest and headed back to the condo.
