Marshall

February 2, 2019

Katharina and I arrived at the end of Meadow Lane at first light. I was worried about parking, but this was a false worry, as we pulled into completely empty lot. Got the gear sorted, crayonned on some polar wax to the bases of our skis and then started kicking down the trail briskly to warm up. The powdery snow was delightful, and the trail was well broken out with ski traffic from the day before so the skiing was fantastic. In very little time we arrived at Marcy Dam, signed the register which was positioned about knee height in the deep snow and then started the gradual climb up to avalanche camp. We stopped here at a lean-to for a quick break and to tend to a nagging foot blister on Kat's heel, meeting a couple guys from Cornwall who were just finishing up their breakfast after sleeping through a very cold night. Once we were sorted, we put on climbing skins and made quick work of the ski trail up to Avalanche Pass, where we de-skinned and glided down to the lake.

South Meadows ski trail.

Marcy Dam.

Avalanche Pass.

The view, as always here is stunning. Unfortunately a stiff breeze wind was in our faces, and I only managed to get off one photo before the camera decided it was through with this and went back into hibernation. We sped off across the lake to get mercifully into the shelter of the trees on the other side. A bit of a rough trail over to Lake Colden as someone had postholed this section, and then we were fighting the wind again for another kilometer to cross this icy land of beautiful desolation until we reached the dam at the far end.

Pretty girl on Avalanche Lake.

Crossing Lake Colden.

I wanted to get a look at the river so made an attempt of skiing onto the dam across the narrow log bridge. Unfortunately, the wind slabbed snow of the last two lakes had scraped all traces of wax from the bottom of the skis and when attempting to ascend the short rise onto the dam from the log, I lost grip suddenly, my skis sliding backwards onto the bridge. I found myself falling in a somewhat awkward situation. I was two meters above the ground perched on a spine of snow barely wide enough for two skis side by each. Not wanting to tumble into the creek bed below, I did the only thing I could do, and that was to gracefully belly flop myself forward on top of my skis. I lay there a minute, clinging to this narrow perch, trying to figure out how to get myself out of this situation. Standing back up on skis was not going to happen, so I finally got myself sorted by straddling the snow spine au-cheval style, disconnecting my skis, and then finally standing up carefully in my boots.

Excitement over, I scampered onto the dam to take a look at the river to see if it was ski-able. Not a go as there was lots of open water, but also not wanting to ski the rugged hiking trail, I hoped to be able to ski the east side and cross down lower, which is what we did. The incoming Opalescent crossing was easy as this was frozen solid, though there was quite an ice shelf to negotiate. A bit of bushwhacking brought us onto another huge ice shelf along the side of the main channel which we skied, though this was a bit nerve-wracking due to the hollowness underneath. We came to a part of the channel that was frozen across. I crossed first, testing the ice as I went, it was thick and solid but hollow sounding as I tapped with my pole. As I was in the center of the channel, there was a loud whumpf sound and the entire shelf broke off and I felt the ground beneath my feet drop about ten centimeters. Kat screamed, though there really was nothing to worry about. At least the rest of the crossing no longer sounded hollow!

We skied across a swampy area and then were blocked from continuing down the river by a cliff with open water at the base. I spied a nice open ramp into the woods which I skied up to, and promptly felt the ground give away under my feet again, but this time it plopped me into an ankle deep stream. I quickly jumped out, kicked off the skis and frantically scrapped off the slush before it froze solid. Once sorted out again we bushwhacked into the woods away from this nice open ramp and picked up the hiking trail. A quick, but rough ski down here brought us to the lean-to at the base of Herbert brook where we took a lunch break.

As we ate, an older gentleman and his grandson came and joined us. They were also climbing Marshall, and told us that there was a lot of others climbing this mountain today as well. I was glad of this as I did not think Katharina would appreciate a snow wallow up a mountain. Hopefully whoever set the track knows where they are going. It turns out the track up Marshall did take a very interesting route. It mostly stuck to the center of the brook, which made for easy travel, though several areas of thin ice made things somewhat sketchy. I watched another fellow plunge into knee deep water at one point as the ice gave away. He was fine but spent some time scraping frozen guck off his snow shoes. I set a new track around this section. Several other person sized holes were noted here and there, then finally the track left the brook and started heading up the mountain. I could see the summer path on the other side, but we decided to keep to the the broken out trail and see where it led us. It climbed a fairly nice route actually, and before too long we arrived onto the upper reaches of the mountain where we met the first group coming back down. They had set the track, apologizing for the lack of a trail, but claimed that it will get us there so we continued going. It was somewhat crowded on this route as I think everyone and there dog decided on Marshall as the objective for the day. At least it made for a well trodden path and easy travel.

Climbing Herbert Brook.

We met Bill from the ADKHP forum, and then Kat declared she was done. Since we were so close to the top, I scampered the last hundred vertical meters solo, passing several other groups until I reached the tiny summit area where a dog and several others crowded in here trying to share a very limited space. I elbowed my way into a photographic position which one of the fellows graciously snapped a photo of me with the sign, and then I sped back down to Kat who was beginning to curse the bushes. We both headed back down the mountain, snowshoe skiing in the great snow conditions. With all the people on the mountain a few spider paths were forming and we somehow got onto the creek a little early to a dead end trail. Not wanting to go back, we broke out another trail on the north side until we intersected the sketchy creek trail from the ascent route. We stuck with this, Kat managing to put another person size hole through the ice as she fell through. A bit of German swearing occured, and after cleaning off her snowshoes the rest of the descent was uneventful to the leanto and our skis.

A brief view before the storm fogged us in.

Marshall summit.

It was now snowing quite hard, and the wind had picked up to a fairly stiff breeze. We stuck to the hiking trail this time, bootpacking it up the short steep section and down the ladder onto Colden Dam. An eerie, nearly whiteout ski across Lake Colden was actually kind of neat, especially since the wind from our backs pushed us along without us having to do much work. Avalanche Lake was even better, and at times I just spread my arms and allowed the wind gusts to provide the propulsion. The ski down from Avalanche Pass was divine, however the leg muscles sure let us know that we had used them today as they were tensed hard into the corners. At Marcy Dam the headlamps came out and we skied back to Meadow Lane in the darkness and blowing snow. Finished the day after 11.5 hours on the go, had a somewhat entertaining drive back to Keene Farm, almost having to leave the car at the bottom of the hill since the road was very slippery. Ate a bunch of food, struggled through two beers, and somehow managed to fall soundly asleep in a full and noisy hut. Must have been a long day!

Lake Colden in a whiteout.

Sailing across Avalanche Lake.

[Home] [Main]