It was late afternoon and I felt the need to get outside for some fresh air after a day of eating holiday fare and being lazy. I thought a trip up over Cummings Mountain with my new MSR Denali snowshoes would do the trick. One of my sons decided to join me.
This would be a good test run of my snowshoes that I purchased at EMS last month. They strapped on without any problem. We departed as the sun was setting over the Kilkenny wilderness.
The path from the back of the house leads to the base of Cummings Mountain and we were soon climbing up. As we gained some elevation and turned around to look back we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the Presidentials.
Continuing on we crossed a clear-cut with the recent postholing tracks of a large moose. There were lots of animal tracks but no human footprints. The moon was rising and three days from being full. It was bright under clear skies.
I was searching for a path that leads back down the mountain and we found it necessary to bushwhack in the general direction where I thought it was. My sense of direction was correct and we soon found it and started our descent.
We reached the bottom of the mountain and made our way back to the path that took us back home. We reached the house before requiring the use of my headlamp that I stuffed in my pocket at the last minute - just in case.
My new MSR Denali snowshoes worked great! There was about six inches of snow with a crusty top layer and the snowshoes handled it very well. I may need to purchase the tails if I encounter any deep snow.
No comments:
Post a Comment