Didn’t want to start a whole new thread, so I’m choosing to tag onto my report from earlier this season. I did get a chance to revisit King Ridge again yesterday, which actually makes it three years in a row that I’ve visited on February 1st. Odd. Last year, it was immediately following a big storm to about 14-16″ of total depth, with 8″ being fresh powder. This time around, the snow depth was more than 2 feet in places. It was the best conditions I’d ever seen there.
It was a beautiful day out - three other cars in the lot. Turned out, two of them were friends of mine of whom we’d end up seeing at the summit. The gate was gone for the first time since I’ve been skiing here, meaning snowmobilers could access the area. I like that they have a place to have their fun, but it was still a bit of a bummer. Thankfully, we only encountered them twice during the day.
It was about 12 degrees and fully sunny when my friend and I left the car. I had just a long sleeve nylon shirt, a tshirt and my rain shell on, and was able to take my gloves off after 5 or 10 minutes of moving. The snow was deep and moved very, very well on the developed skin track. The snowmobile tread honestly just groomed the trail for us, so we weren’t complaining.
This tour took us along the Hominy Pot trail - starts in a nice coniferous forest, then a meadow, then shifts to hardwoods before beginning to climb. One of my favorite trails anywhere. Once we got there, we took the White Rabbit ski trail up the mountain until we got high enough on the hill to see The Walrus through the trees. To save our legs a bit, we traversed through the woods from there, then skied down with our skins on to the base of King’s Hill. It’s a labor to get to the base of the actual climb, given that the mandatory elevation loss, but I find that Hominy Pot is just a much prettier trail than coming in off King Hill Road - worth it.
From there, we ascended Jabberwocky and switched to Brillig’s Run - a nice, steady green trail that makes for easy climbing. Many people just opt to climb Lobster Quadrille, but I find that to be a little silly. No sense it climbing much steeper terrain if you don’t have to. Anyway - the whole way, we had a well packed out skin track, so climbing was a breeze. Before too long, we made it to the top to find my other friend and his brother. They had just wrapped up transitioning, but decided to wait for us to do the same while we chatted so we could take a run down together.
Lobster Quadrille was well skied, but there were still plenty of powder lines to be found, and plenty of tracks to dip into when our speed dropped. The views were wonderful as usual. Many kickers had developed on the trail just from people skiing, which were plenty of fun of hop off of. At the bottom, we were all smiles while transitioning once again. We took the same route back out until we reached the bottom of White Rabbit. Our friends said their goodbyes - only one lap for them - while we continued onto the Nichols trail to check out some of the other side of the mountain. I’ve hiked over there, but never skied it.
Each of the trails is labelled with little wooden carved signs about 6″×8″, with the Nichols trail crossing all of them, running along the same topo line. We wanted to check a few trails to see what was skiable before deciding which to climb. Mad Hatter seemed good - some spots a bit choked, some gladed nicely, some a bit shrubby. We’d come back for it. March Hare appeared to be too overgrown to ski through - many thin, stick-like trees. King’s Run East also looked at least somewhat skiable, and also started out the most mellow of the four trails we’d passed so far. We decided we’d climb it until the private/public property line.
King’s Run East is pretty mellow to begin with, but gets steeper after a few minutes. With steepness, it also grows more choked up, though there were always at least a few paths through. We made a couple wide switchbacks to stay in the most cleared areas, and eventually hit a cliff line that I had never spotted before while hiking. No one had come out to where we were, so there was no tracks to show where to go. We ended up choosing to head left around the base of them where the forest opened up a bit more and the trail became clearer - evidently, it used to run the way we climbed and switchbacked to get over the top of the cliff. We continued climbing, merging with King’s Run and continuing until we were about 10 feet below the property line.
After a quick break, we decided to bushwack through the woods at our contour until we got back to Mad Hatter, and ski down that way instead. It turned out to be a great decision. Mad Hatter has an incredibly wide open view of Mt Kearsarge - it feels like it is absolutely towering over you. Another transition, and we were good to head down. The very initial section was a bit shallow and very deep, so my friend and I alternated a couple times taking the lead, then letting the person behind use the track to gain speed and then press ahead. Once we hit the treeline, it became steeper and we were able to move on our own. The top was a bit shrubby with a couple obvious clear paths to ride through, the middle nicely gladed, and the bottom a bit more dense where we had to choose our path wisely. It was a super fun run, though!
At this point, it was 1:30pm and we didn’t want to stay out too late - this had been my third ski day in a row after skinning Crotched Friday, and visiting Black Saturday. However, we decided to head back to the cliff band to do a half-run before heading out. Once arriving, I stayed at the base to help my friend pick out his line and point out dangers below. He did a great job picking a fun route off it; pictured in the slide show.
It was my turn next, and he stayed below to do the same spotting for me. However, my skins had iced up so I had to stuff them in my jacket and boot up our track to the top of the cliff, hoping they’d warm enough to let me exit after this run. Once on top, I got some help figuring out where the rocks I was looking at from below were, and also where the best landing spots were. I carefully picked my way down; necessitating jump turns due to the snow depth and weight, and chose to leap off a drop measuring 5 feet tall or so, laden with icicles - it was further to the right of my friend’s run, and a bit off picture. I had braced for a much harder impact, but the landing was actually pillowy soft and made it easy to keep riding. The rest of the way down the trail was great - nicely gladed and quick, given that we mostly stuck to our uphill track.
Back at the Nichols trail, I managed to get just enough stick back in my skins to safely re-apply them and had an uneventful exit. We took the scenic route - the Lyon Brook trail - which was much more shaded and peaceful. The brook was fully frozen over, with plenty of deer tracks to be seen crossing it. A very successful and eventful day. Hoping we’ll have a good enough winter to allow me to return and check out a few features off-trail that looked quite skiable in past hiking trips…
