Scott, Justin, Dean and I headed up the morning of March 10, a blue bird day with temperatures over 50 degrees in Lincoln. We were a little nervous at the start as Justin was attempting to make the approach on snow shoes, and Dean was using Scott's newly finished split board. Fortunately both the snow shoes and the split board held up fine and the trip was successful.
We skinned up along the brook, and found the snow cover to be decent, but not spectacular. Slowly, the terrain became steeper, and the climb became fairly challenging, expecially for Justin on snow shoes. Somewhere around 2900 to 3000 vertical, we shouldered the skis and started the boot pack, eventually reaching an bulge (presumably the result of a slide down Lincoln's Throat earlier in the winter). At that point, we were pretty tired, so we stopped for lunch and basked in the sun for a while.
After lunch, we dug a snow pit and performed a few tests, including the propagation saw test. We found virtually no risk of avalanche. Ultimately, however, we decided to ski a slide coming down from Mt. Lafayette rather than Lincoln's Throat given the group's relatively low energy levels. After much discussion, we decided to name this slide Lincoln's Grundle. I'm sure there is an actual name for this slide, but I choose to stick my head in the sand and hold firm with the Grundle. The slide made for solid spring skiing, although some additional snow cover would have been appreciated. The pitch was reasonable, guessing around 30 degrees, and the slope bottlenecked a bit before popping back out on the brook trail.
Enjoy the video and the pictures below. Scott put my camera on his helmet, so there is actually a little footage of me skiing this time.
Here is the link to the video, for some reason, technical difficulties are keeping me from linking directly to the site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=002Cgjzane0.
And here are the pictures:
Justin exercising caution just before a brook crossing.
Looking up the brook towards Lincoln's Grundle.
Scott taking a quick rest.
Justin basking on a rock during lunch like a seal. Notice my $49.99 Costco snow shoes next to him. I cannot believe they survived a 3 mile hike with his massive boots. Good value!
They don't teach you this snow stablity test in most Avalanche courses.
Getting ready at the top of Lincoln's Grundle, looking down at the brook run out.
Looking over at Lincoln's Throat from Lincoln's Grundle.
Self Portrait #1.
After we got back to the parking lot, we were very excited to see the A Team was also out on Franconia Ridge, but disapointed that we didn't get to see them in person.
Self Portrait #2. Showing off my awesome shovel that has a built in snow-saw.
View of Cannon and the Tram from the top of Lincoln's Grundle.
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