Low Mountain, January 23, 2016
Eric Gilbertson
I drove to the trailhead and was surprised to see 20 other cars parked along the side of the narrow snowy road! I hadn’t realized this was the same trailhead as Franklin Falls, a waterfall a short hike in. I was, unsurprisingly, the only person hiking in to Low Mountain. The trail was initially broken until I reached a small waterfall, and was on my own. I passed through some recent avy slides (safe since they’d already slid a few days earlier), then ascended steep slopes to a snowy ridge. I traversed the corniced and narrow ridge through the trees until getting to within 100ft of the summit by 2pm. At this point reaching the summit required either rock climbing over some gendarmes on the ridge or traversing an avy slope. It had been snowing hard all morning so I was reluctant to cross the avy slope solo and retreated. It turns out I was following the summer route, and perhaps the winter route would avoid these difficulties.
© 2016, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.
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