April is essentially the most troublesome month to hike the White Mountain 4000 footers and mountain climbing out to The Bonds is likely one of the most troublesome hikes to finish because of the distance and early spring snow situations. This April has been notably troublesome because it snowed an extra 5 ft earlier within the month including to the snowpack and prolonging winter situations.
The Bonds are a cluster of three adjoining 4000-footers together with Bondcliff, Mt Bond, and West Bond Mountain. They’re positioned deep within the Pemigewasset Wilderness Space and very distant requiring both a 22-mile out and again or a 26-mile traverse relying on the route (in winter situations). Most individuals do the route in a single very lengthy day. When you can backpack it, the added winter gear weight would make it much more difficult. That mentioned, it’s a pleasant backpacking journey in hotter climate and I’ve executed it many instances.
With a tough frost forecast in a single day, my pal Karen and I made a decision to go out to the Bonds early within the morning to attempt to summit the peaks earlier than the snow warmed and turned to slush. The wind forecast was reasonable, which is nice as a result of these peaks all have appreciable wind publicity. Karen and I’ve been mountain climbing The Grid collectively for a number of years and she or he’s a strong companion. The Grid includes mountain climbing all 48 of the 4000 footers in every calendar month of the 12 months for a complete of 576 summits. This was to be my twelfth and final hike to the Bonds for The Grid, whereas Karen nonetheless has a couple of extra months to finish.
We met on the Lincoln Woods trailhead and began at 7:18 am. The primary 4.7 miles are alongside the Lincoln Woods Path and Bondcliff Path, that are the gateway to the Pemigewasset Wilderness. The path, which used to help a logging railroad, nonetheless has embedded railroad ties on the floor. But it surely’s a quick and flat stretch of path and we chewed up the gap in 2 hours.
For this hike, we’d every packed winter mountain climbing gear with additional gloves, layers, and much and plenty of meals. We additionally introduced Hillsound Path Crampons and snowshoes, which collectively add about 6 lbs to a backpack load. We each carried about 2L of water however deliberate to resupply in the course of the day on the stream crossings beneath the peaks. I haven’t drunk sufficient water on my final a number of Grid hikes and I used to be decided to devour sufficient on this one.
We began climbing the Bondcliff Path which was dry and snow-free, switching to Hillsound Path crampons at 2400′ for extra traction on the snow. The path is well-shaded by timber down low and the snow was agency sufficient to help us with out snowshoes. After a number of stream crossings and extra climbing, we arrived at a rocky outcrop, generally known as the Hillary Step, on the south finish of the Bondcliff Mtn summit. It’s often a difficult scramble to ascend, however the snow at its foot was piled deep making it a lot simpler to climb up.
The summit of Bondcliff was totally snow-free, so we ducked out behind a boulder out of the wind and had lunch. Two girls approached us from the north as we rested and came to visit to say whats up. Each Karen and I knew Donna and her companion was the mom of one other of my mates! For those who hike within the White Mountains often, particularly on the 4000-footers, you always run into individuals who do the identical factor. It’s one of many charming issues about mountain climbing within the Whites. They’d spent the evening at Zealand Hut and had been mountain climbing the Bonds from the northerly path, the total 26-mile winter route.
We cut up up and continued with our hikes, Karen and I heading to Mt Bond subsequent, which is the tallest of the Bonds. The path to the summit climbs up the west face of the mountain and may get fairly nasty if the wind is blowing as a result of it’s fully uncovered to the climate. We’d lucked out and skilled wonderful climate sunny all day, with low wind.
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Nonetheless, the climb to the Bond summit was a grind over a rocky path after which again into our Hillsounds after we encountered snow greater up. As we headed towards the West Bond Spur, the path our to our ultimate peak, we encountered a closely post-holed path. However the snow was nonetheless chilly sufficient that it held our boots, so we did’nt add to the mayhem that post-holing could cause.
As soon as on the path junction, the place we met one other hiker, named Alan. I’d by no means met him earlier than however we’ve a whole lot of mutual mates and we rapidly put 2 & 2 collectively. We hiked out with him to West Bond and savored the views. It 2:30 and we’d been mountain climbing for 11 miles in 7 hours, virtually constantly, apart from our brief lunch break on Bondcliff. Now it was time to hike again the way in which we’d come.
This concerned submitting Mt Bond and Bondcliff once more, earlier than making our method all the way in which again to the Lincoln Woods trailhead. That took one other 6:30 hours and we had been sporting headlamps on the finish.
However we’d had an amazing hike and I’d gridded out the Bonds. Not solely that, I’d completed mountain climbing all 48 of the 4000 footers in April, leaving solely 5 extra summits to climb in Might to complete the Grid (571/576). It’s laborious to consider that that multi-year effort is about to come back to an finish, and whereas I’ve cherished it and the comradery, I’m wanting ahead to mountain climbing new territory.
Really helpful Guidebooks and Maps:
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