Snow?

[mtnclimber]

Welcome to the forum Dave. Hard to tell 10 days from now. But, there is 2-3' of snow on top of the mountains. It's going to be warm for the next couple of days, and rain on Tuesday, so some of the snow will disappear.

[Jon]

Was still 2 ft on top of Sherrill. Just got back. Was really warm though and it was melting a lot and we were sinking with the snowshoes on.

[mike]

We hike Hallcott today. When we started on the bottom there was 1-2' of snow. When we got back there was 6-9" of snow. It is melting very quickly. But, there was 2' on top when we left. Tomorrow it will be warm too. On Tuesday, they are expecting 1" of rain. Will not be much snow left by the coming weekend.

[Jon]

Ha. You were just 1 mtn away. We were looking at halcott the way up sherrill.

I think some serious melt is on the way this week.

[mike]

The rain tomorrow should melt a lot of the white stuff. We should be hiking on dirt by the weekend.

We could see Balsam Mtn and Sherrill Mtn on our hike.

[daveoleary]

Thanks for the reports from last weekend . . . any reports from this weekend? Is there enough snow to need snowshoes up high? Are there many icy spots on the trails?
Looks like more snow is on the way over the next few days especially Tuesday.
I guess I will bring both snowshoes and the trail crampons and see what happens. I plan to be hiking on Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday. Can't wait!

dave

[Jon]

Yah still decent amount of snow above 3500. I just went up to North Dome yesterday (posted a trail report in the Hunter Mtn. forum)

It was warm for about 1 day, and then it went back below freezing. This caused there to be a lot of melt water and then it froze suddenly. The trail I was on this weekend (Devil's Path) Was several inches thick of solid ice. Then there would be patches of snow, but it was mostly ice. I would suggest at least ice-chains or crampons for now.

It's a steep climb, so I wore crampons most of the way because the snowshoes were too wide and not as good for climbing ice and rock. Once I got above the steep pitches I switched to the snowshoes, and it was over 2 feet snow still on the summit at 3,610ft. Other people were there with just ice-chains and crampons, a lot of the trail parts were packed down.

I'm going backpacking sat&sun too. Where you headed?

[mike]

They are calling for 6-12" on Monday night. Winter just will not end.

[TrunksWD]

There goes my plan on getting ahead of my hiking buddies for the winter badge. I was thinking Hunter and SW Hunter, but that is probably a little much with a foot of fresh snow.

[mike]

The mountaintop got about 6-12 inches of snow. Maybe more on the summits. The roads were tough going up to the mountaintop around noon-time. But, they are clear by 5pm. More snow for summits. I think it will be 2-3 weeks before all of it is gone on the summit. Unless we get a warm spell.