Tuckerman Ravine - 3.29.04

Total Distance: 5.8 miles. 4 hours round trip. Hours watching skiers and boarders do the seemingly impossible. Priceless!

Difficulty: up to Hojo's (Hermit Lake shelter) always the unrelenting elevation gain of 2300'. Easy to the Lunch Rocks.

Conditions: corn to mashed potatoes with a little bit of ice. A recent avalanche on the bowl to warn one of the dangers in wait.

Special Required Equipment: Skis/boards if you wish, camera (forgot mine), sunscreen. Bare booted it up and back easily, snowshoes/crampons not needed, soon this will change.

Trip Report:
An unexpected early morning e-mail from AMC leader Patricia inviting Ghostdog and me to join her to Tuckerman Ravine (the Southeast side of Mt. Washington) today started the day off perfectly! Grabbing my new EMS Summit 3000 pack, I filled it with extra clothes, water, gear, and a new Adventure Medical bivy bag (I promised to bring it with me always just in case!) courtesy of the lovely and charming Sky. We bolted out the door and headed to the local sub shop to buy two huge subs for lunch later.

I was well over a half hour late (I didn't check my e-mail for an hour and a half early this morning --duh, what was I thinking!. Dolly Copp Road is unplowed and closed so we had to take the grand loop thru downtown Gorham and parked beside Patricia's vehicle in the Pinkham Notch parking lot. We left quickly and hit the Tuck Ravine Trail with its unrelenting, steady elevation gain to HoJo's (Herman Lake shelters). We caught up to Patricia just after the last bridge and exchanged pleasantries up to the "lunch rocks" at an elevation of about 4300' to watch the show.

About 25 of us watched scores of expert skiers and boarders on this Monday enjoy an amazing day in the sun with scores of performances in the bowl. Some fearlessly skied down precipitous 80 degree slopes, others jumped over 20'-30' ledges and most did the 8'-10' jump of the avalanche. With deep blue, cloudless skies, plenty of snow, and a bright sunny day, sunscreen was manditory. No ski lifts here. You had to slog it up the trail and then burn the leg muscles to continue further up the lip.

Anyone climbing the Tuck Trail onward up to the bowl has our respect and deserves the finest run they ever had. Spring skiing in the Tuckerman Ravine has skill, danger and weeks left to enjoy. Hike it, ski it, watch it, it is awesome!

I saw the pictures of the avalanche here, the ones dated March 27th. It looked incredible.

5383' is the elevation of Tuckerman Junction above the headwall - I thought Lunch Rocks was further down?

MtnMagic said:

camera (forgot mine)

Click to expand...

All together now:

"Booooooooooooo"

Seriously though, Magic. Great report. Thanks!

You're so right. I was so tired when I wrote the t.r. Lunch rocks are about 4300.'

Thank you for sharing the Tuckerman.org. I forgot about it. The wet slab avalance pix are great. We walked through the debris field seeing many samll trees bent over from past avalanches.

My favorite pix showing the avalanche is http://www.tuckerman.org/photos/tucks/3-27-2004 Wet slab avalanche in Tuckerman4.JPG

I see that Mtnmagic forgot his camera but did not forget to bring his Subs. Gotta have priorities Anyone who saw MtnMagic eat at the MooseLand Grill last year would agree :roll: :roll: :roll:

Just kidding! Fantastic Report. I just may have to go and see it next year

WOW! that pic of the slide in tucks is incredible! i skied wildcat on saturday and through the think clouds got one good look into the ravine. i thought that the crack shown was actually a line of people hiking up! i thought it was an odd route to be hiking up, but then again, i've never skied tucks and wasn't familiar with how most people hike up. good thing that happened at night and no one was hurt!!

Thanks RivercOil. We watched some experts flying down the John Shelburne ski trail on their way back down to Pinkham Notch Lodge.

At the Tuckerman web site there is a pic of the debris field. Scroll to the bottom to March 27 for a look.

Cal you made me laugh for minutes when I read your post. Thanks!

Hey Magic, Cathie read your report and wants you to take us next year. The subs are on us :roll:

Ha ha !


You are on!

MtnMagic, you did say 80 degree pitch. Is that accurate?

Some brief sections sure can seem like it! Though it's closer to 60%.