THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, April 15, 2010
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HILLMAN’S HIGHWAY
Adventurous skiers, snowboarders and ex- treme-sliders flock to Tuckerman Ravine each spring. We pulled into the parking lot at Pinkham at a little past ten and there was plenty of room to park. This would be considered unusual for a warm sunny Sunday in April but it was Eas- ter. The day before the cars overflowed out of the parking lot and 800 cars lined the edge of Route 16.
This year we smartened
up and packed our back- packs and tested them be- fore leaving the house. We bounced out of the car, asked someone to take a photo of us while we still thought our packs still felt light and we enthusiasti- cally hit the trail. The third of a mile walk
up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail to reach the Cutler River’s Crystal Cascades can be a fine outing on its own. The water was crazy crashing; mist filled the air like at Niagara Falls and produced a splendid
Hillman’s Highway as seen from Hojo’s. The elevation at the top of Hillman’s Highway is 5,300 feet and the bottom of the Sherburne Trail at the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center’s elevation is 2,030 feet--that makes for 3,270 vertical feet of skiing!
rainbow! The weather was warm
Mika and his dad Les from Montpelier, VT, Charlie and Rachel-- at HoJo’s a half a mile below the bowl of Tuckerman Ravine. Les is a member of the Mount Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol and he volunteers every other weekend. “Good Choice” was his reply when we told him we planned on skiing Hillman’s Highway.
and we were striped down to our short sleeved shirts. I don’t know how many times I have tramped up this route but I know ev- ery steep well. This was Rachel’s third trip with us. We didn’t rush but we did hike steady and we reached HoJo’s in just an
hour and fifteen minutes. People, dogs and Mount
Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol were all gathered around and on the deck. Ski Patrol members are always happy to answer questions and boy do they get some doozies. They will do their best to help to give you good informa- tion to enable you to make
good plans because the last thing they want to do is to have to make a res- cue. But no one is going to stop you if you want to do something stupid--Mount Washington isn’t a resort. The rapidly melting snow and falling ice was more dangerous in the bowl than I was interested in
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