January 15, 2011:
Whiteface Mountain | 4867 ft. | 5/46 in height | 1st winter peak
Looking for something new and exciting we took our friends Adam and Jen up on an offer to teach us to snow shoe. Since they live very close to Lake Placid, near the base of Whiteface, and Jayme and I knew the trail from having done it in the summertime, we decided to give it a shot.
Careful gear planning is a must. EMS sells a Tech-wick base layer (T3 – the heaviest), covered by micro-fleece pants, and then gore-tex rain pants over the top of that kept our legs warm. Tech-wick layers, then fleece, then waterproof shells (5 layers) on top allowed us to keep from freezing when we stopped, but remove excess insulation when we got moving and our heart rates went up.
The snow shoes were MSR Denali EVO Ascents and I would recommend them to anyone; these shoes were more than enough to keep both of us floating, and had enough grip to keep us from slipping unless the snow was very loosely packed.
We woke up early at Adam and Jen’s, climbed into the Subaru, and were at the trailhead gearing up at 7:45 a.m. The temperature was a mere single degree.
The first mile of the trail is extremely steep, first down and then back up to the summit of Marble Mountain. It was cold, but clear and our best views were from the little summit near the beginning of the day. We saw (and heard!) quite a few birds in the barren deciduous trees atop Marble.
The view from Marble Mt.
Where the Wilmington Reservoir Trail meets the Atmospheric Science Research Center Trail
Just past and below the summit the trail merged with the main trail from the Wilmington Reservoir to the summits of Whiteface and Esther. The second mile was just as steep as the first to where the spur trail to Esther diverged from the main path. Now into the Alpine Zone (3,500 feet +) the woods took on a new look and winds picked up considerably.
Chris in the Alpine Zone
Jayme doesn't even see the wild Adam coming!
Eventually the trail meets the seasonal Toll Road (closed this time of year) where the tree cover vanishes and the wind begins to howl. We noticed as we left the shelter of the woods that there was snow falling, and we could see the wind whipping up near the peak.
Jenny exposed to the elements
After a short trip up the road (the foot path was iced over and looking pretty treacherous) we found the castle atop the mountain (a strange and foreboding sight in the trackless winter) and made our slow ascent up the last few exposed rocks just below the summit.
The final push to the top.
Despite -18 degree weather and no way to measure the wind chill, all four of us pressed on, occasionally stopping to break ice off our faces from where the sweat had frozen to our skin. Goggles will be a purchase in the near future, but even without them we found the top and got our first Winter 46′er Peak!
Jen and Adam on the summit.
Jayme and Chris at the summit.
We didn’t spend long on the summit. The falling snow cut visibility to about a quarter mile and left me with an unnerving feeling of staring into oblivion. Winter peaks are beautiful and alien at the same time. Even though 1:30 is the warmest part of the afternoon, we were starting to get cold eating a quick lunch and made a break back down to the tree line. Once under the cover of the pines, the wind was much easier to tolerate and we made quick work of the descent, returning to the car by 4:45 p.m.
This was our first winter hike, but won’t be our last – the snow was beautiful and in some ways made the hike much easier since the snowpack was easy to walk on and doesn’t require you to carefully choose where to step to avoid ankle injuries. The biggest challenge, aside from keeping our faces from turning to ice at the summit, was keeping water bottles from freezing in our packs. In the future the bottles will be filled with warm water and put into a soft cooler in the backpack. Camelbacks (with thin tubes that freeze the first time they fill with water) will be left at home.
Nice post. My daughter and I did our first winter hike three days after ours! We rented MSR’s from the mountaineer and hiked Sawteeth. I decided to keep it mellow for our first hike, so we took the road to the boathouse and went up and back on the weld trail (Scenic trail hadn’t been touched). It was snowing pretty good, but it wasn’t as cold as the weekend you guys went. It was socked in at the top – no view. The trail was well packed and we had a great time. Going back was much faster. We were able to kind of glide a bit on the way down – it was much faster and easier on the legs than hiking boots. I got lucky and bought a pair of Denali’s on ebay for $100. They’re awesome, but I still need to buy the tails for the deep stuff. Happy hiking!