Giant

December 31, 2022

Eric, Yifeng, and I left Keene Farm early to hit the Giant Ridge trail to climb Giant of the Valley and perhaps Rocky Peak before the lunchtime rain arrived. We started climbing under headlamp up the steep switchbacking trail using microspikes. After passing the washbowl we were able to switch off the lights and enjoy the views. Like yesterday, the conditions were weird and much too warm. The icy scrambles were collapsing as we climbed them, so some caution was needed and at one point we witnessed a small ice avalanche cascade down the face of the slabs. The soft ice between patches of bare rock and rotting snow made microspikes the correct tool for most of the way.

Sunrise from Giant Ridge

After passing the Roaring Brook trail, the snow got deep enough for snowshoes and those worked well all the way to the summit. Yifeng was not feeling a second peak today, so we enjoyed a New Year's Eve summit beer with our second breakfast at 09:30. The descent went slowly as we down climbed the tricky sections with more ice occasionally breaking loose, first in our snowshoes and then back to spikes just above Roaring Brook at the top of a rocky section. The occasional views of the Washbowl were very neat as the lake looked like it was filled with milk from the vantages above.

Snowshoeing up higher on the mountain

Summit of Giant. Happy New Year!

Downclimbing rotten and collapsing snow

A milky washbowl

Upon reaching the trail to the Nubble, we decided to climb this as I had never been there and the rain had not yet started. This turned out to be a fairly straight forward side trip with only one tricky scramble and at the top we found a lovely boulder with bench seating looking out towards the Great Range. We sat down here for a while and ate our second lunch, (or is it third breakfast?) enjoying the view and the warm day. When we turned to go, I noticed that the trail seemed to continue a bit further. We decided to check it out in case there was another lookout, but we joked that any additional view could not be any better than the one we just enjoyed. Boy were we wrong! About 50m further we came to another bouldery area which gave a panaramic of both the Great Range and the impressive slide covered flank of Giant of the Valley. We were very happy that we had taken the time to explore this.

Arriving on Giant's Nubble

The view from the Nubble

From here it was a fairly straight forward walk back down to the car and the weather held out, it starting to rain just as we reached the parking area. A beer at the Baxter Mountain Tavern was followed by a lovely afternoon nap at the hut before the New Year's Eve celebration that went long into the evening.

Hiking time: 7h15m

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