Presidential traverse end of February

[Natlife]

Hello,

35M from Montreal. I'm looking for a partner to do a presi traverse including two nights camping above treeline. The pace can be anywhere from two short half days plus a full day, to three full days depending on partner pace/weather. We can also include side trails.

I have three young kids and my better half wont let me to do it solo

PM me if interested or reply here with tips and pointers especially regarding good spots to camp along the way.

[peakbagger]

If you haven't checked this site out its the best reference http://www.chauvinguides.com/presitr...presiguide.htm

The real world is that if you pick a specific 3 day stretch in February, you might have a 1 in 3 chance of having 3 good days of weather. Frequently stringing together 2 good days is possible but getting that third day is tough. A good reference on why you need to be very careful in picking the weather conditions is http://www.amazon.com/Not-Without-Pe.../dp/1934028320. You have to be prepared to postpone as late as the morning of the hike as weather can and will change overnight. Many folks have figured out that if the conditions are right they do it as a one day traverse, this allows them to go far faster and far lighter then carrying the extra gear required for overnights.

[Natlife]

Thanks for the references. The chauvin pages are indeed good and that book is on my list. The best lessons often do come by looking at what others did wrong.

I'm actually looking forward to less than perfect weather. But i have hard weather forecast limits for go/no go/bail out and want to keep my options open. That's why so far I'm planning a night near Madison hut and a second at Edmand's path junction.

[Feral Bill]

I've tried this and failed three times, in my younger days. Be careful and don't be shy about bailing. As Peakbagger notes, you can get a couple of good days. When that happens it's fabulous. And interview potential partners well, a bad one may be worse than none.

[Slo-go'en]

This is a serious undertaking. Do you have any White mountain winter experience? If the answer is no, you need to get that first in smaller dosages. A good way to start is to spend some time at the RMC Gray Knob cabin, located just below tree line on Mt Adams. With it's wood stove and caretaker (I am a former Gray Knob winter caretaker), it is a safe base camp to gain above tree line experience.

Edmands col is like a wind tunnel. There is no way your going to camp there. Camping exposed above tree line (while legal if there is 2 feet of snow) is not recommended and would likely be life threating. 20-30 mph winds up there is a calm day. Madison hut is similar. You may find a sheltered spot, maybe not. Sheltered spots are where the snow drifts are.

[DawnTreader]

Hello,

35M from Montreal. I'm looking for a partner to do a presi traverse including two nights camping above treeline. The pace can be anywhere from two short half days plus a full day, to three full days depending on partner pace/weather. We can also include side trails.

I have three young kids and my better half wont let me to do it solo

PM me if interested or reply here with tips and pointers especially regarding good spots to camp along the way.

There are a couple of good Facebook groups for hiking the 4Ks. Lot's of winter info to be had as well as possible partners. Very knowledgeable folks in both groups. 'The 4,000 footer club-climbing and hiking in New Hampshire, and 'Hike the 4000 footers of New Hampshire!'

[Sarcasm the elf]

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to make another attempt this winter, it will probably be a few years before I get back up there for a multi-day trip.

I tried this same hike in early March of 2014, as well as one attempt to summit Washington in late December a couple years ago. Both times I had to bail when the weather changed, on the Presi trip it went from 35*(f) to -20*(f) in the course of about six hours. Both times I had an awesome trip and was glad I got to go. As other have mentioned, camping above treeline on the Presi route in winter is generally considered unsafe regardless of what gear is used. We planned to loosely follow the Chavun guide route and drop to treeline to camp. We ended up dropping down and camping at Valley Way? campsite on Madison and was glad we chose to do so.

If you have winter/mountaneering experience I would recommend you post that as well, doing so may make it easier to find an appropriate partner for the trip.

As an example I have attached a photo of the daily conditions board at the Visitor center from last time I went (apologies if the photo loads sideways.)

image.jpg
.

[Natlife]

This is a serious undertaking. Do you have any White mountain winter experience? If the answer is no, you need to get that first in smaller dosages. A good way to start is to spend some time at the RMC Gray Knob cabin, located just below tree line on Mt Adams. With it's wood stove and caretaker (I am a former Gray Knob winter caretaker), it is a safe base camp to gain above tree line experience.

Edmands col is like a wind tunnel. There is no way your going to camp there. Camping exposed above tree line (while legal if there is 2 feet of snow) is not recommended and would likely be life threating. 20-30 mph winds up there is a calm day. Madison hut is similar. You may find a sheltered spot, maybe not. Sheltered spots are where the snow drifts are.

Thanks for the tips. Logic has it that snow settles in low pressure areas. I want to clarify I was talking about Edmands path junction near Eisenhower for the second night. Madison hut has the appeal of falling back to the valley way campsite since i would have just started.

I've been atop Washington in the single digits with 80 mph winds and little visibility, albeit just at the summit as the wind was coming from the NW and I went up Tuckerman. I know how that feels like, i know it can often get way worse, and I wouldn't do it under those conditions. I've stayed at hermit lake in the winter and I have some winter camping experience under 0, just not above treeline. I've also been on Mansfield a few times in the winter under various conditions. I don't have tons of above treeline winter experience, but I strive to be well prepared.

[Slo-go'en]

Okay, we did have to make sure you had some idea of what you were getting into.


I'm not too familiar with the trail south of Washington, but all the cols tend to act like wind tunnels. You also don't want to get too close to edges of the ravines due to the risk of avalanche, especially on the lee side where a cornice can form. There are very few places at which you can get out of the wind. It really is the wind which makes this trek so difficult. It's a rare winter day when the winds aren't howling and it doesn't stay that way for long.

[Natlife]

So as I am finishing up reading not without peril, it confirmed what I already knew that the vast majority of fatalities are due to proper lack of planning and bad decisions in the field. I'd be interested in reading also about people who were in bad situations and who made it out if you have any good suggestions.



I am dialing in my planning. I used the typical 30 minutes per mile plus 30 minutes per 1000 feet of elevation gain and added a 25% safety factor to my segment times.



Now I am curious about the circumstances under which meeting these times would be difficult. I have some reference points. Typically on a hard packed winder day hike with microspikes and a daypack I will do 30-35 minutes per mile at 1000 feet gain per mile and 20 minutes on the flats. Bushwacking in very dense flat boreal forest with snowshoes and thigh deep snow I will do 1h30 per mile. Snowshoeing on open flat terrain with knee deep show I will do 50 minutes per mile. Mind you this is without any energy conservation or sweating concerns.



What I don't have good reference for is wind. What is the impact of going upwind at 40-50-60-70 mph?



Now regarding bad decisions in the field. In order to make good decisions one must have good information at hand. I am hoping to be able to access higher summit weather forecasts as I go along the ridge. I will be carrying a cell phone and external battery with a 5dbi external antenna and baseplate mounted on my pack. Any feedback on deadzones along the ridge? Phone is unlocked GSM so I can get a SIM from any carrier. Any carrier with exceptionally good or bad reception record in the area? If all else fail at every escape route junction we will be evaluating weather and what we might see coming in.



This brings me to go/no go decisions. I'm trying to figure out what is the reasonable threshold for no go or bail out based on wind forecast. Right now I'm thinking about high wind forecast above 65 mph or peak gusts above 90 mph.



Thanks

[egilbe]

Google Kate Mastrosova for lessons on what not to do.

[4eyedbuzzard]

What I don't have good reference for is wind. What is the impact of going upwind at 40-50-60-70 mph?

Now regarding bad decisions in the field. In order to make good decisions one must have good information at hand. I am hoping to be able to access higher summit weather forecasts as I go along the ridge. I will be carrying a cell phone and external battery with a 5dbi external antenna and baseplate mounted on my pack. Any feedback on deadzones along the ridge? Phone is unlocked GSM so I can get a SIM from any carrier. Any carrier with exceptionally good or bad reception record in the area? If all else fail at every escape route junction we will be evaluating weather and what we might see coming in.

This brings me to go/no go decisions. I'm trying to figure out what is the reasonable threshold for no go or bail out based on wind forecast. Right now I'm thinking about high wind forecast above 65 mph or peak gusts above 90 mph.

Thanks

I think 65, 90 gust is pushing it way past reasonable safety limits, and if you encountered such conditions you had better in a position to bail below treeline. Especially since you are not just peakbagging doing a one day up and down where your ascent and decent would be more sheltered. 90 can lift you right off your feet. Definitely not reasonable conditions for a prolonged traverse trying to make any miles. 45 sustained, with maybe 70 gusts is the most I would have considered in my younger years, and even then, I would be hesitant and looking for a forecast with decreasing winds throughout the hike, and definitely not considering hiking into the teeth of it either. A following or quartering wind would be easier, though not necessarily for balance. Always remember that wind force acting on a surface (your body) increases as the square of velocity. Walking into a 70 mph wind requires 4 times more effort than walking into a 35 mph wind. Typically, walking into anything above about 35-40 mph sustained at the surface is going to be strenuous. At 50 mph, you are going to start losing your balance more frequently. At 60 mph you will likely lose your balance and fall more often. At 70+, you may wind up crawling. Over 80 starts getting really dangerous - you can get blown off your feet. Here's a thread from the vfft forum with photos and a video you should watch. Note the photos of 55 sustained w/65 gusts, and the video of 86 mph gusts.

http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?46399-How-Windy-is-too-Windy-Mt-Washington/page2

Google Kate Mastrosova for lessons on what not to do.

Sadly, this ^^^^. Overestimating human abilities. It's not a personal thing about toughness or ability. It's just physics.

[Slo-go'en]

I got blown over the summit of Mt Adams once - thankfully I landed in a snow drift on the other side! If the wind starts gusting over 30 mph, your not going to make much of any headway. Walking into a stiff wind is brutal, especially if it makes the wind chill go off the bottom of the chart and picks up all the loose snow at tree line and causes white outs or sand blasts your face with ice particles.

When I was winter caretaker at Gray Knob there were many days in a row where going above tree line simply was not possible due to the wind. I had one 7 day stretch were the winds were 100+ mph without let up. I also had a brutally cold winter with temps regularly around -20F and three foot snow storms every weekend. It was intense. Good thing I was able to stock the cabin with a lot of wood for the stove, but even so it was rarely above 35 in the cabin.

Watch out for weather fronts, their either coming or going most days. The winds really kick up when a cold front pushes through and it takes a good day, sometimes two, for the winds to subside to "reasonable" levels. Then you have one day of what passes for calm up there before the next front kicks up the wind again. Doing a full winter traverse takes an incredible amount of stamina. (and some really good mountaineering gear and a lot of luck) To make it worse, there really aren't any safe places to bail out to. Going into one of the ravines would be certain death.

Personally, I'd wait until early March to try a traverse as usually the weather is a little less extreme and you have somewhat more daylight.

wintergear2.jpgHere I am trying to make some headway in a typical white out above tree line.

[Natlife]

Thank you for the feedback. It's all very useful. It got me thinking more and researching the wind on the presidential range and its impact on a hiker.

I wanted to get a better understanding of what I could be facing so that I can better plan for it. I grabbed the daily data for the months of Jan-Feb-Mar of the last 5 years and generated this table:

Wind speed and direction.jpg

Now going back to my question about the impact of facing the wind on travel speed I started playing with drag, wind gradient and other fun equations.

I went with 1.1kg/m³ for air density on the presidential range. A Cd of 1.15 for the hiker. I measured my clothed frontal area as being 0.85m².
I wanted to translate wind measurements taken at 10m above ground on the instruments to hiker level. So using the wind speed extrapolation power law with a Hellman/wind shear exponent of 0.12 (snow covered mountain tops are pretty smooth) I worked out wind speed to be reduced by 33%. Easy rule of thumb to remember!

If we take a 50 mph wind measured at 10m, we get a reduced to 39 mph at hiker level. Now, I will need to lean into the wind to offset the force from the wind while staying balanced. Estimating that my center of rotation factoring in wind shear over the length of my body is at the same height as my center of gravity factoring in my pack, I end up with 11 degrees (note: If you run the calculation don't forget that leaning 11 degrees your effective frontal area is 81% of what it is standing straight up). 11 degrees is pretty much 1000ft over a mile . So thinking about standard book times maybe we have another rule of thumb here that walking straight into a reported 50 mph wind you should plan for an additional 30 minutes per mile.

[4eyedbuzzard]

...So thinking about standard book times maybe we have another rule of thumb here that walking straight into a reported 50 mph wind you should plan for an additional 30 minutes per mile.

Does this apply to the hiker or the rescue party?

[peakbagger]

The big problem with wind is generally not the velocity its the variation. During hurricane season, standard filler on TV is the TV personality standing in a wind tunnel facing various wind velocities. The wind is steady and they can lean into the wind sometimes up into the 80mph range. Unfortunately, the wind on the presidential is rarely steady at the surface. As high winds encounter rough elevated terrain, the air is not laminar (flowing in steady layers) like in a wind tunnel its turbulent. The turbulence can be visualized as swirls of air, therefore one moment, the wind is coming from the NW at one speed and the next its coming in 180 degrees in the opposite direction. When in windy conditions, the point where most folks get blown over is when they are leaning into the wind and the wind stops or shifts backwards, so the hiker falls into the wind. Frequently this also increases their "sail" area exposed to the wind leading to even more problems. The sections along the ridgeline also can be exposed to vortex shedding where the wind is roughly laminar on the upslope side of the ridge and then separating from the terrain at the top of the ridge. In these cases the velocity is even more variable. Think of walking in whitewater versus in fast current. I have been thrown around in reported 30 MPH wind. Of course the next challenge is that where are you getting the wind readings from. The wind velocity at the obs is on a raised tower well off the ground with fairly smooth terrain up slope. That speed is inherently averaged and not indicative of instantaneous gusts.

The reality is any forecast over 30 mph sustained winds is probably a reason not to head out if it the wind are expected to increase over this amount, its time to use locate a bail out route. at 30 MPH your progress will be slowed and your energy and water input will go up exponentially. This is a perfect opportunity for hypothermia and remember the first symptom of hypothermia is diminished thinking which sets up self fulfilling opportunity for bad things to happen.

Mt Washington is used by climbers as a training ground for much higher mountains as its weather tends to be far more variable despite the far lower elevation. Thus skilled folks occasionally underestimate it leading to tragedies like last winter.

[colorado_rob]

The big problem with wind is generally not the velocity its the variation.

Agree, this is what sucks the most energy, IMHO.

Still, I like your nerdy calculations, Natlife. Something I like to do, though I realize I'm fooling myself given all the other variables involved (like the wind variation thing). I do not get your frontal-area calculation though... the cosine of 11 degrees is very close to 1 (.981), so your frontal area really doesn't change enough to be significant when leaning. In fact your Cd probably goes up because you're probably bent a bit making a nice little wind-cup shape.

[Slo-go'en]

Yep, being knocked around by the wind drains a lot of energy.

[T.S.Kobzol]

I would say you only go if the forecast is great, with winds sub 40 mph. This still does not guarantee it will end like this and winds could rise and cause trouble.

[T.S.Kobzol]

The trail after Eisenhower has some sheltered and deeper spots that might offer some wind protection. Any high winds could seriously damage your shelter, fray guy lines, rip fabric and break poles. You probably know that already but it sure sucks if you get suck there.