Which way is it Up ?

We had an early start and were all up at 0600, breakfasted, and out to Pinkham Notch visitor centre, for our intended climb up Boott Spur (1660 mts) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boott_Spur, which is immediately next to Mt Washington, and only 70 metres higher !

We followed the trail up past the visitor centre, and seemed to be making good progress in cold, crisp snow. As we travelled along we saw ski tracks, however, thinking we were on the right track just continued, ever upward, making good progress, considering the track at times became quite steep, and unrelenting.

By around 11 a.m. ,4 hours after starting, we were climbing a gully, along the tree/snow line up across some snow fields, as a skier came down the trail towards us, stopping, and then informing us we were on the ski trail (which we’d ruined) and were about a mile away from Boott Spur trail, which, because we’d come out of the trees by then, we could then see,on a ridge some distance away…Ooops !  We continued to climb upwards, but the snow became a lot looser, with hard ice underneath, and with only 2 axes between us, we decided to turn around, at 1420 metres ! We were after all on a trail called the gulf of slides !http://www.thesnowway.com/category/trip-reports/reports-by-area/new-hampshire/nh-mount-washington/gulf-of-slides (as we know knew)

We retraced our steps, getting some ‘pleasant’ words from skiers climbing behind us, on the spoiled trail - we all make mistakes -as I told them !

We returned to the car, closely checking the area where we ‘d obviously gone wrong, but couldn’t find any other trail, even though there was one there somewhere !

Ah well, early finish on a glorious day, with the resolve to return for Mt Washington on Friday !

After resting at the cabin we went out for some great steaks at the ‘Red Parka’ in Glen http://www.redparkapub.com/ - lovely and filling, and back for an early night !