| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Mt. Chocorua, Middle Sister, First Sister, NH |
|
 | Trails: |
Champney Falls Trail, Champney Falls Cutoff, Middle Sister Trail, Piper Trail, Liberty Trail, West Side Trail, Champney Falls Loop Trail |
|
 | Date of Hike: |
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 |
|
 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
USFS fee lot |
|
 | Surface Conditions: |
Ice - Blue, Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Wet/Sticky, Snow - Spring Snow, Snow/Ice - Postholes, Slush |
|
 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes, Light Traction, Traction |
|
 | Water Crossing Notes: |
All easy although our boots got a bit wet |
|
 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Two blowdowns on Champney Falls Cutoff, one requiring an awkward walk around. One or two on Champney Falls Trail, easy step overs. West Side Trail had 2 or 3 blowdowns, one with an awkward step over. Also WST could use a good trim - lots of branches in the face. |
|
 | Dog-Related Notes: |
|
|
 | Bugs: |
|
|
 | Lost and Found: |
|
|
|
|
|
 | Comments: |
A pretty dusting to 2-3” of new snow overnight. Every branch was coated in the morning! We were able to easily bareboot the well traveled CFT to Champney Falls Cutoff. There, we put on snowshoes and wore them over Middle & First Sister, to the ledges of Mt. Chocorua. Here we switched to spikes, but crampons would have been a better choice given a lot of hidden hard ice.
The summits were spectacular, and there was an amazing, unexpected undercast mostly south of the Sandwich-Chocorua Range with intensely sunny blue skies. So beautiful!!! After celebrating* with Prosecco on the summit, we opted to descend upper Liberty to West Side Trail in order to skip the ice on Piper with our dinky spikes. As we had stashed our snowshoes before Chocorua, we did leave some divots and a few postholes (sorry!), but it didn’t look like this trail sees much winter use.
We visited Champney & Pitcher Falls on the way down. The loop trail was wicked steep & icy. Again, full crampons would have instilled more confidence, but we made do with spikes. Pitcher Falls were awesome!!
* Middle Sister & Chocorua were numbers 51 & 52 of my Single Season Winter 52 With a View list. It is a great list to do in winter, & we found it to be even more challenging than the 48 due to low visitation on many of the peaks. :) |
|
 | Name: |
Snowflea & Fancypants |
|
 | E-Mail: |
|
|
| Date Submitted: |
2022-03-17 |
|
 | Link: |
 https:// |
|
|
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. |
|
