GOS Sandbox, plus a little exploration - May 3, 2014

Scott and I headed up to Mt. Washington on Saturday, May 3.  Long week at work meant I couldn't leave Charlestown until Saturday morning.  Threat of rain/visibility issues on Saturday afternoon motivated me to set the alarm on the early side.  Left the house at 4:45 a.m., picked Scott up in Portsmouth at 5:40, and pulled into the visitor center parking lot at 7:35 a.m.  Figured the late season trip coupled with a threat of rain would mean a guaranteed spot in the main lot.  I lost that wager and owe Scott a beer, we were the 2nd car parked in the first auxiliary lot. 

We headed up Hillman hoping to ski Dutchess, but it became apparent the line would require some careful turns and side-stepping through the choke in the middle - just not enough snow to get after it for the whole run.

Rather picking our way down Dutchess, we popped up on to the Davis trail to look at Oakes.  Definitely turns to be had in Oakes still, especially in double barrel and a few hundred vertical in main, but the hike over to the far side of Oakes would have taken the better part of an hour, and since it was approaching 11:30 at this point, we decided to try and actually get some skiing in and headed to GOS.

 Hike was shorter than we expected (first time skiing GOS without skinning up the GOST), but due to user-error we ended up in the Sandbox instead of Main Gully (it admittedly took us a little while to realize this).  Actually was a nice surprise, wide open skiing over there with a number of line variations.  I took 2.5 laps and Scott cranked out 4.  The soft corn snow allowed us to really let it rip in places.  As you'll see in the pictures below, it definitely looked like there had been some significant avalanche activity in the Sandbox earlier this year!  The weather was great as well.  A high cloud cover kept the snow from getting too soft, and other than a few brief periods of freezing rain/hail, there was minimal precipitation.  The sun even popped out for the last run of the day!

- Looking down the Sandbox -

- Evidence of slide activity from earlier this winter in the Sandbox run out -

- Looking back up at the Sandbox -

- Scott cresting hiking up the Sandbox -

When it came time to exit, we skiied down a little too low in the Sandbox which made cutting over to the GOST challenging, to say the least.  After about 45 minutes though we emerged from the woods smelling very much like pine needles and began the long slog back to the car.  We were able to "ski" to about 3100 vertical, but had to boot it down for the last mile and 1100 vertical feet or so.  Arrived at the car at 6 p.m. and headed back to Boston.  Great trip as usual!

- Gray Wolf sighting at Tedeschi in Ossipee, NH on the way home -

Enjoy the video footage, came out pretty well!