Outdoor Diversion: A Warm Winter Hike to Passaconaway

A check of the forecast on Tuesday indicated very nice weather for today. I decided it would be a great day to hike Mount Passaconaway (4,043'). Last Saturday I hiked Mount Whiteface with hiking companions Jill and Amy. These two summits are usually done in the same hike but they already had Passaconaway for the lists they are working on. They were willing to loop around while I went up and tagged the Passaconaway summit but when we saw the postholes on the Rollins Trail we decided to turn around and go back down over the ledges of Whiteface. I decided to go back another day and hike Passaconaway, well today was the day!

As I was leaving the house at 5:00 AM the temperature was already just above freezing. My biggest concern would be warm temps softening the snow and creating a posthole situation. This is a long drive for me, almost two hours to get to the trailhead parking area. I pulled into an empty parking lot at Ferncroft.

As the sun came up the temperature continued to climb. Having already hiked in this area last weekend and checking trail reports I decided to leave the snowshoes behind. I brought microspikes and crampons. The parking lot and road were frozen so I started out in crampons. As I made my way past the homes and into the woods I was finding very little snow. The lack of snow was incredible for this time of year. There were sections of the trail that were completely bare and large areas of the woods that were snow-free.

I crossed a log over the one water crossing without any problem. The trail started to climb from here and while there was an increase in the amount of snow the trail was solid with some minor loose snow and there was no postholing. I got to the Rollins Trail junction and stopped for a short break. I then continued up to the summit. There were some icy areas along the way underneath a thin layer of snow that took me by surprise but I didn't slip or fall.

When I got to the outlook near the summit there were spectacular views. The other thing that was noticeable was no wind, not even a faint breeze. I took some photos and moved on to the summit that is located in a wooded area with no views. It was now warm enough that my microspikes were starting to ball-up with snow. I changed to my crampons and that took care of the balling up issue. The crampons would also be better for the icy spots on the way down.

As I made my way down I was glad for the extra traction of the crampons. They made it much easier to cross over the icy sections of trail and there was no snow balling up on them. I got down past the Rollins Trail junction and decided to try the buttsled. I took off the crampons, packed the loose stuff in my pack as well as the poles and carried the buttsled. I had no problem bare booting but there were only a few sections of trail that I could use the buttsled because of the lack of snow.

When I arrived back at the water crossing I packed up the sled, took out my poles and continued to bare boot without any problem back to the parking area. I had a reading of 60°F on my thermometer and with the warm temperature came muddy dirt roads and slushy snow. There were two other cars in the parking lot when I returned. I had seen no other hikers during my hike. I had the entire mountain to myself today!

Between the nice warm temperatures, sunny skies and good trail conditions it was one of those hikes that turned out to be better than expected. I now have forty winter 4,000 footers completed and eight more to go!

Enjoy the pics and videos!