Skiing to a Remote Mountain Hut in Sleet, Wind and Snow – What Fun!
By Steve Fagin
Publication: theday.com
Published 01/21/2012 12:00 AM
Updated 01/20/2012 07:53 PM
While hiking at night up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail toward the Hermit Lake Shelters below New Hampshire’s Mount Washington a number of years ago, I puzzled at a canned ham stuck in a snow bank.
A few yards farther up I encountered other food items and assorted gear similarly scattered along the path. I could hear shouting and cursing ahead.
Propelled as much by curiosity as a desire to reach shelter and burrow in my sleeping bag before tackling the summit the next day, I pushed forward and soon solved the mystery.
Half a dozen college-age guys were dragging an enormous toboggan laden with hundreds of pounds of supplies up the steep slope, and little by little they were jettisoning cargo to lighten the load. Among the last provisions they would sacrifice, I suspected, was a case of beer lashed down with rope.
The exhausted crew staggered noisily to the shelter hour later, and one peek through the zippered opening in my bag proved my prediction about the beer had been accurate.
I thought about their Sisyphusian struggle the other day as I slogged the last few yards to Zealand Falls Hut, perched more than half a mile high at the eastern edge of the Pemigewasset Wilderness in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
For three miles I had cross-country skied while towing a plastic sled loaded with about 60 pounds of gear along a relatively flat, unplowed forest road. Then the road ended and a winding, 2.8-mile path to the hut began. Because the narrow trail was deeply rutted and crossed several streams I found it easier to hike, so I took off my skis, strapped them to the sled and plodded rather than schussed while still towing the sled.
This worked relatively efficiently until the last 500 feet, when the trail rose steeply over ice-covered rocks. A light rain that had been falling for the past hour switched to wind-driven sleet, and I didn’t want to undo the waterproof tarp covering my pack and dig around for hiking boots and grippers, so I slipped and slid while dragging the cursed sled. I also may have let loose with a few profanities.
At this point a crew of skiers also heading to the shelter that had started out behind me caught up and I thought to myself, this is a nice way to make an impression. My buddy Phil Plouffe, who had arrived ahead of me, came back to help me pull the sled the last 50 yards, and a few minutes later we all stamped up the steps to the wooden shelter, tired but happy to be out of the wretched elements.
“We made it!” cried Rick Ely of Stonington, a longtime friend who organized the expedition.
In addition to Phil, Rick and me there were four others: Rick’s wife, Laura; and Jeff Parker, Andrew Watson and Chris Smarz, who all work in the bike store Rick and a partner own, Mystic Cycle Centre. The purpose of this outing, as if we needed one, was to celebrate Andrew’s birthday.
Zealand Falls Hut, owned and operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club, is one of several White Mountain shelters open to hikers all year. A few years earlier I had spent a week as a winter caretaker a few miles north at the Gray Knob Shelter owned and operated by the Randolph Mountain Club. Over the years I’ve also bunked at virtually every shelter in the Whites, as well as pitched tents at campsites and hunkered down in just about every lean-to, when my son, Tom and I were tagging all 67 of the 4,000-foot-plus-high mountains in New England.
Zealand is one of the most accessible and one of my favorite winter destinations because the unheated bunkrooms are directly off the main cabin instead of located in separate buildings, making it a relatively easy transition from dinner table to sleeping bag. Also, the outhouse connects to the cabin.
Caretaker Steve Frens lit the wood stove right on schedule at 4 p.m., and soon our quarters were relatively toasty. (for complete story click here)
