2013 - Tuckerman's Ravine

To kickoff the year of turning 50 (at least for some of us), we finally got around to doing Tuckermans.  Tuck is a bowl on the slopes of Mt Washington, and normally gets over 500" of snow annually.  It's super steep (50-55 degrees), has no lifts, no lodge and you have to hike up 2.4 miles (1800' vertical) just to get to the base - carrying your skis and boots in a backpack.  Each run is anywhere from 500 to 800 vertical feet, and you have to bootpack your way up with your skis on your back.

Mark & I headed up on Sunday April 28, under sunny skies with a forecast of 70 degrees in Boston (temps at Tuckerman were in the 50s).  A 3 hour drive, and 2.5 hour hike got us to the base around 11am, where the party had already started.  About 1800 people made it up that day, and we determined that at any point in time, 49.9% of them were watching, 49.9% were climbing and maybe 1 person was skiing to loud cheers from the crowd.  We got 2.5 runs in - one all the way up left gully, and 1.5 up on right gully.  Overall, it was 6 hours of driving, 3.5 hours of hiking and 2.5 hours of climbing for about 25 minutes of skiing (including the 10 minute ski out - saving an hour of hiking).  But worth every minute!   Scary moment - witnessing a basketball sized rock go pummeling down the trail we had just climbed up.  Fortunately, no injuries.  Could become an annual tradition...