| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Mt. Surprise, Mt. Moriah, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Carter-Moriah Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Small dead end with residential homes well plowed and sanded. Parking limited to a handful of cars due to space. There was only a couple cars there today. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow/Ice - Frozen Granular, Snow - Drifts, Snow/Ice - Postholes |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes, Light Traction |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
None |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
About a mile in a snowmobile used the trail just below the open logging section. There is one large uprooted blowdown just above that. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Maya is the best husky I know |
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 | Bugs: |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
Extremely cold day today. Started this morning from Carter Moriah trailhead at 815a with temp at 1 degree. Light winds down low. We begun with just microspikes. Trail well packed and frozen. There is about 4 inches of snow on lower section. We got to some drifts about 1 mile or so in at the logged section. There was quite a bit of snow on tree branches and about a foot or more on the trail. We continued a little way through the drifts thinking they would be short and we would be back to hard pack. The winds were blowing and snow was actively drifting in this area. We saw post holes in the drifts and followed the holes. The drift section was short and we continued on hard pack with spikes.
About two miles or so in we got into soft snow and drifts as we approached Mt. Surprise and we put on our snowshoes. We could have put them on sooner. Great views of Mt. Washington from Surprise. Of course, Washington summit was in a cloud. We broke through the drifts and filled the many post holes in the trail as we continued on. It was easy to stay on trail due to the blue blazes on trees and the well packed and broken non drift sections.
We stayed in snowshoes for the rest of our hike to summit of Moriah. Most of the trail was frozen hard pack snow and the we were protected from wind on most of the trail. There is a lot of snow up there, if you step off hard pack, even in snowshoes you sink to above the knees. I highly recommend snowshoes for the entire Carter Moriah trail to Moriah out and back.
We had five hikers ahead of us chopping up the trail with boots and microspikes. As we approached the summit cone of Moriah, they were descending. None of the five hikers had snowshoes on or attached to their packs.
After we summited, we hiked back down Carter Moriah trail. We tried our best to smooth out the nasty post holes with our snowshoes. The trail is in very good shape but snowshoes keep it fast and fun. We had very fast conditions moving down the trail with our snowshoes. There was no ice at all, just hardpack or loose pack snow. We did see evidence of a snowmobile using the lower section of Carter Moriah trail in the logged section about a mile or so from the trailhead as we descended.
Very cold, windy but not super windy and a lot of fun with Tara, Gypsy Hiker and Maya the husky dog. |
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 | Name: |
Mr. Irrelevant |
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 | E-Mail: |
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| Date Submitted: |
2021-01-24 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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