Tuckerman Ravine - 03-10-05

[dmc]

Grabed the splitboards out of the car - Mine is a Burton my friends a custom Never Summer - and started skinning up the hiking trail around 9:30.
Bluebird day - temps in the mid-20's..

Took a slow pace - reached Hojos in about and hour and 15 minutes..

BS'd with caretakers for a while and ventured over to Hillmans Highway. Avalanche danger was bad so we decided to just test out my friends splitboard crampon setup on an icey Hillmans...

I decided to bootpack it over but the drifts were up to the waist - So I hung at the bottom while my buddy tested out the crampons..

After he scraped his way down - we headed over to the Sherburne trail.. It was really sweet...!! The wind had blown a ton of snow onto it and it all settled on the skiers left side - nice drifts!

Sherburne Trail

Sherburne Trail

Took about 20 minutes to get down...

A great day of skinning and riding!!!

My Burton Split...

 

[ozskier]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully I'll see you up there at some point this April!

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

Outstanding DMC

 

[skinut]

Tucks

Nice picks, but how can you put climbing skins on a snowboard?

 

[dmc]

Re: Tucks

Nice picks, but how can you put climbing skins on a snowboard?

Board splits down the middle.. Turns into ascent skis.. Bindings repostitioned... Slap the skins on...
http://snowboarding.about.com/od/backcountry/ss/how_split_works.htm

Made some awesome skin tracks around the Catskills last weekend.. Incredible snow condtions for riding which is all melting now...

 

[Greg]

Re: Tucks

Board splits down the middle.. Turns into ascent skis.. Bindings repostitioned... Slap the skins on...

Hey, that's pretty wild! Could you use them as skis on the descent if you wanted to?

 

[dmc]

Re: Tucks

Board splits down the middle.. Turns into ascent skis.. Bindings repostitioned... Slap the skins on...

Hey, that's pretty wild! Could you use them as skis on the descent if you wanted to?

That would be a big NO

The edges on one side of the board is straight the other shaped...
More info...
http://www.splitboard.com/split101/

 

[skinut]

wow

That's interesting. It must be expensive equipment, though. In addition they are very short for skinning. I have found as a heavy weight a long ski has an advantage in climbing with skins.

 

[Greg]

Re: Tucks

Board splits down the middle.. Turns into ascent skis.. Bindings repostitioned... Slap the skins on...

Hey, that's pretty wild! Could you use them as skis on the descent if you wanted to?

That would be a big NO

The edges on one side of the board is straight the other shaped...

Duh. :blink: That makes sense...

 

[dmc]

Re: wow

That's interesting. It must be expensive equipment, though. In addition they are very short for skinning. I have found as a heavy weight a long ski has an advantage in climbing with skins.

My split climbing skins are more then twice as wide then my tele skis - my board is a 168... I find it WAY easier to climb using the wide split skins..

They are expensive to buy... But the interface is only $150 and you can install it on any board... You just dont get a factory edge in the straight side.
I got my Burton from demo stock for cheap...

 

[skinut]

Tucks.

Certainly this will disgust you, but it only costs $59 to ride the cog to the top. I am thinking about leaving one car at the Pinkam notch lodge, driving around to the Hotel and skiing the Ravine.

 

[crombie]

Re: Tucks.

Certainly this will disgust you, but it only costs $59 to ride the cog to the top. I am thinking about leaving one car at the Pinkam notch lodge, driving around to the Hotel and skiing the Ravine.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

 

[bvibert]

Re: Tucks.

Certainly this will disgust you, but it only costs $59 to ride the cog to the top. I am thinking about leaving one car at the Pinkam notch lodge, driving around to the Hotel and skiing the Ravine.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

Yes, that is correct during the winter...

 

[skinut]

Re: Tucks.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

Still, it would make the climb easier, wouldn't it?

 

[thetrailboss]

Re: Tucks.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

Still, it would make the climb easier, wouldn't it?

Probably not since the Cog is on the WRONG side of the mountain. :wink:

 

[bvibert]

Re: Tucks.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

Still, it would make the climb easier, wouldn't it?

It might, but its generally discouraged to hike up one side of the mountain a ski down the other. You want to be able to scope out the line you're going to ski down on your way up...

 

[skinut]

o.k.

Actually, I wouldn't do it. When I was in my last days at Dartmouth a group of people I knew went up there. They came back without a gal I knew. A few days later she was released from Mary Hitchcock bandaged head-to-toe. I've climbed to the summit since then but have passed on skiing Tuckerman's.

 

[crombie]

Re: Tucks.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

Still, it would make the climb easier, wouldn't it?

Probably not since the Cog is on the WRONG side of the mountain. :wink:

I read last night about someone using the Cog to get up and over one of Washington's shoulders (can't remember the right term right now) by the Lakes of the Clouds Hut over the past weekend. I think it was on the amc-ski mailing list.

Pretty cool stuff. Sounded like a lot of fun. Wish I was a bit closer, and had some (experienced) friends to go with. I've hiked it solo multiple times, but definitely not in the winter with the cold, the skis, skins, etc.

 

[loafer89]

There was a huge amount of people hiking up into Tuckerman Ravine, and you could see them climbing up the right side of the headwall from Wildcat on saturday morning. Both saturday and sunday were 100% cloudless and warm.

 

[dmc]

Re: Tucks.

Actually I think the Cog only makes it a third of the way up, on the other side of Washington.

Still, it would make the climb easier, wouldn't it?

It might, but its generally discouraged to hike up one side of the mountain a ski down the other. You want to be able to scope out the line you're going to ski down on your way up...

Exactly.. If you come down from the summit and you don't know the terrain... And say - the weather is bad.... You could step right off a cliff..

It happened a year or two ago on Lions Head.. Resulted in a fatality...