Boy, I felt like a fool clacking down the Monadnock HQ parking lot in my ski boots this morning. For more reasons than one, Monadnock isn't the ski marvel that the rest of the "Best Backcountry Skiing In The Northeast" book is. Today, the reason was that I was working with a strange rain crust that was suspiciously stable until the sun got a perfect noon angle.
I had drawn out the track last night, which I was thankful for as the network of Monadnock's ungroomed XC ski trails was not on my GPS. After picking up the blazed-well-enough path from behind the HQ campground, I settled into my kick n' glide very nicely. While there were constant ambiguous intersections, I only made 3 notable turns on my journey outward. Using a combination of an unnamed ski trail, Harling, Hinkley, Birchtoft, and Pond loop, I stayed on the skins all day, only regretting that on 3 brief but steep downhills.
As I turned from Harling to Hinkley, trading blue diamonds for yellow rectangles, I could not stop smiling. The sun was out, I had fresh tracks, finally came to terms with the fact that I could still tour without catapulting down shark-infested trails that scared me, and I was in a TANK TOP. While I'm still not ready for the warm weather to kill winter... I enjoyed the tease today.
Hinkley ends at a signed junction with Birchtoft, where a left turn would eventually give you the option to do Spellman- which I'm super psyched to try this summer. I went straight to Birchtoft, which was pretty well-trafficked with hikers today. The variable surface and sharper ups and downs made this my least favorite trail to ski today, but I absolutely cannot complain overall.
Though the book doesn't follow Birchtoft to the pond loop, I never found the blue-blazed ski trail connector on the way in (I did see it from the pond loop though... didn't seem like it was worth finding) and continued to the next marked intersection. I journeyed left first, crossing enough snow to glide up until the dam, which was so beaten by the sun that I had to take my skis off and stomp around in my ski boots for a little bit.
Once there appeared to be enough snow on the trail again, I made a chair of my skis and laid down in the sun to have a 30-minute lunch. As of lately, I never do this anymore. But combine the first warm & sunny hike in 3 months with cold snow on my back... how could I resist!
After finishing up the loop, I retraced my steps on a much denser and collapsible snowpack until the extension of the Hinkley trail that goes to Poole Road. Figuring it wouldn't be any worse than what I did earlier, I went straight to grab the trail for an eventual Monadnock trace.
At the end of Hinkley, I enjoyed the extreme winds bringing in tomorrow's cold front as I road-walked uphill. While I didn't know that would start exactly at 3 pm, I seemed to have timed my ending perfectly. What an unexpectedly beautiful day!
Stats:
6 miles
436 gain
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