Tucker Brook

Last Sunday morning, Feb. 8th, I woke up early and headed up to Franconia to meet a group from the AMC NH Chapter. The destination was the Tucker Brook trail. We skinned up Mittersil after spotting a van at the bottom of Tucker Brook.

The weather was a mixed bag of NH precipitation. Rain, sleet and snow were spotted in the Cannon parking lot alone. During the trip up, we met up with some snow flurries but mild temp with no wind. On the trip were tele skiers Nik, Rick, Ted, Paul, Thor, Lindsay, and Tony. Mark and Valerio were on AT gear and I used my Frankenstein apline gear with my trekkers.

It was strange seeing the abandoned lift towers on Mittersil while the Cannon lifts were working hard to move skiers to the top. After we worked on skins to the top of the Tucker Brook trail, we found boilerplate moguls. The trail is no secret. But as we moved down in elevation, the warmer temps softened the untracked snow. The best approach was to try and float turns on the wet heavy snow. It was a great time and I hope to meet up with any of these skiers again sometime soon.

The Dukes of Firescrew

No, not some lame attempt at punning one of my favorite 80's tv shows. The Dukes trail is a backcountry trail cut off of Mt. Firescrew. It's part of the AMC's Mt. Cardigan reservation in Bristol, NH. We hiked up the Manning trail. Shawn on his snowshoes and me on my alpine trekkers and skis with skins. Shoes aren't allowed on the Dukes trail which is what skiers normally skin up to the summit. The Manning trail is real steep in some sections. I actually fell out of my bindings a few times. Shawn did great on his snowshoes. It was definitely a workout.

The snow was great up top, but my buddy had a little trouble in the powder which he worked on the following weekend at Wawawachusset. Next time we'll be able to play around a bit more on the open glades at the top of the Dukes. It was great to get out and meet a backcountry goal. I had a great time and thank Shawn for coming along.