Hiking in the White Mountains: Bondcliff

Showing posts with label Bondcliff. Show all posts

Sarge's Winter 48 Finish on West Bond

Date of Hike: 3/10/21

Lincoln Woods / Bondcliff Trail / West Bond Spur: 22.8 miles, 4,700' elevation gained

Trip Report:

- Over the past few winters when Sarge isn't heading into Tuckerman Ravine for "Bowl Pawtrol," he has, unbeknownst to him, been slowly picking away at his Winter 48 - 4000 footers of New Hampshire.

- On Wednesday morning we headed to Lincoln Woods for an out and back of the Bonds. With weather forecasted to be above freezing we got an early start, 6:30AM, to be able to get up and down before the snow started to get soft and sloppy, and hopefully have the whole ridge to ourselves.

- Trail conditions were the best I can recall for an out and back of the Bonds, all trails were completely packed down, with only minor drifting between Bond and West Bond, even the ridge walk between Bond and Bondcliff, which is usually wind blown with rock-snow-ice had complete snow cover.

- We made good time up to Bondcliff, making it there by 9AM under abundant sunshine and zero wind. I took a few pics of Sarge and gave him some water, but he was more interested in eating ice chips and crunchy snow, so I put some ice in the water and he slurped it right up.

- From Bondcliff we made the beautiful trek up to Bond along the exposed ridge before dropping back into the trees again on our way to West Bond.

- Along the way we enjoyed views into Hellgate Ravine, across to Owl's Head and Franconia and Garfield ridges, Guyot and South Twin, along with Redrock Ravine.

- I was happy we got the early start as it was getting pretty warm along the ridge as we made our way back across Bond and over to Bondcliff. Sarge enjoyed himself running up ahead of me and eating ice and snow chunks as I caught up to him.

- We took one last break at Bondcliff taking in the views and eating snacks before the long trip back to Lincoln Woods. On the way down, the top part of Bondcliff trail started to soften up so we nailed the timing perfectly making it to the super packed portion after the highest water crossing and not having any issues with chewing up the trail or postholing.

- After fifteen miles of having the trails to ourselves we started seeing a handful of hikers about two miles before the Camp 16 turn, still it was relatively quiet as we saw only ten hikers heading in on the Bondcliff Trail and amazingly only another six people walking the Lincoln Woods Trail.

- It was a great day in the Bonds with Sarge, and I was happy he finished his winter 48, and he was happy to get a bunch of extra treats for the occasion!

Early morning on the Lincoln Woods Trail just past Camp 8 clearing

Sarge makes his way to Bondcliff

Bondcliff summit

Sarge charges up towards Bond with Bondcliff behind him

Summit of Mount Bond

Hiking between Bond and West Bond

West Bond Spur, it's a real treat in late winter hiking through here with high snow depth

Summit of West Bond with Redrock Ravine and South Twin in view. If you know where to look you can see Bear Pond!

Lincoln and Lafayette off in the distance

Sarge makes his way back to Bond

Presidential Range, everyone was up there today so it made things quiet over here!

Back on Bond

One last climb back up to Bondcliff

Owl's Head and Franconia Ridge behind Sarge. Happy dog!

Cloud Show . . . Hale - Zealand - Bonds Traverse

Date of Hike: 1/9/21

Zealand Road: 2.6 miles / Hale Brook Trail: 2.2 miles / Lend-A-Hand Trail: 2.6 miles / Twinway: 4.2 miles / Bondcliff Trail: 0.6 miles / West Bond Spur: 1.0 miles / Bondcliff Trail: 8.2 miles / Lincoln woods Trail: 2.9 miles

Total Miles: 24.1 / 5,909' elevation gained

Trip Report:

- Saturday morning Sarge got the day off because it was going to be a big mile day traversing through the Pemigewasset Wilderness with the trail running group (Kristina, Nate, Rem, Rich, Todd, & Vic). The weather leading up to the hike called for clear skies and decent wind speeds with temps in the twenties, however in the morning the weather changed to mostly cloudy. Even with the cloudy forecast we held out hope for some undercast or breaking clouds by the time we reached the Bonds in the afternoon, and lucky for us we caught a break and got a pretty sweet cloud show.

- Conditions once again were pretty tame for a Hale-Zealand-Bonds traverse, a 1000X easier than my last HZB traverse in early December of 2018 through feet of snow and bent over trees (click here for report).

- Zealand Road and Hale Brook Trail were well packed, Lend-a-Hand Trail was packed but a little soft, Twinway to Zealand was well packed, Twinway and Bondcliff to Guyot and the West Bond Spur were packed but soft, and the rest were well packed. This made for an easy day to maintain a solid hiking pace and to be able to finish before it got dark.

- Thick clouds and no views was the theme until Guyot, which made the first ten miles quite the grind, but soon after we started to see blue skies above us, and by the time we reached West Bond the clouds slowly started breaking away and the views kept expanding as we hooked around to Bond and down Bondcliff Ridge.

- Overall, trails were very quiet for a Saturday, as we only saw a handful of hikers, including Ryan and his friend, Will, attempting a Winter Hut to Hut Traverse.

- It was the first twenty mile day I had since November and I felt good for most of the day, only feeling wonky in my head a few times, which has been a recurring theme since the pandemic started, but luckily I have been able to get a better hold of this over the last few months, however feeling comfortable while doing consistent big mile days are still a long ways away, but I'm hopeful that over time I can get back to where I was last year when I was working on my snow season triathlon 48.

Breaking above the trees on the Twinway

The Gang heads towards Guyot

Follow the leader

On West Bond looking towards South Twin

Bondcliff

Bond

Mount Washington playing peek-a-boo

Heading to Bondcliff

Sun makes its first appearance!

Bondcliff clears off for good

Layers of clouds made for a pretty cool scene

Approaching the summit of Bondcliff

The slides of West Bond

Hellgate Ravine

West Bond and Bond

Guitar Slide and the Monster Slides of Hellgate Ravine

The iconic Cliffs of Bond

Views starting to open up to the north

One last look at the clouds before heading home

Triathlon + NH 48 4000 Footer Finish

Date of Hike: 2/23/20

Lincoln Woods Trail, Bondcliff Trail, West Bond Spur: 22.2 miles (5,236 feet elevation gained) Suunto Ambit Peak watch

Trip Report:
- On Sunday I finished my Triathlon + NH 48. Over the past two "snow seasons" of November through April, I have been heading to the Royalty Inn Athletic Club at 5AM for an indoor triathlon. I start with a one mile swim (70 laps), followed by an uphill climb on the stationary bike (level 15, 12.5 miles, 2K+ elevation gain), ending with a 5K sprint on the treadmill (zero incline). After completing the triathlon, I'd head home, eat breakfast, pack up the Jeep, and go hike a 4,000 footer or two, most of the time bringing Sarge with me!
- It was an extremely fun endurance project that really pushed me physically, and just like my Grid finish in 2016 it was bittersweet as it came to an end.
- During the triathlon portion, I really enjoyed the swimming the most, followed by the bike, and the 5K was a distant last as I'm not a fan of running indoors, so I'd just turn up the speed and get off of it as fast as I could.
- Hiking after a triathlon was interesting but always enjoyable. My legs were heavy but 99% of the time I felt as fresh as one could considering what I was putting my body through. I fueled/hydrated as I would during one of my summer 40+ mile trail runs/hikes and that kept me from cramping or having to stop from getting too weak.
- I had a tremendous finishing hike of the Bonds, it felt like mid April and was one of the easier winter hikes of the Bonds I had experienced. The only downside was the warm temperature made the snow sticky so I had to leave Sarge at home since his hair is velcro with the snow. Luckily, I ran into a few familiar faces and was able to share some trail time with them at different points during the day.
- Now that this project is over I will focus on my remaining RUNNH 48 peaks when the conditions warrant, then I will look forward to the snow free months for some interesting ultra routes I've been mapping together for solo runs and runs with my trail running friends.

Below is the chart and a few of my favorite pics from the past two years of doing this. Enjoy!