The last day of winter was sunny, chilly and windy. The snow had set up pretty solidly for bushwhacking and my plan was to bushwhack to the big SW Slide on Mt. Osceola, starting off Tripoli Road. But I punched through a couple of times on a little test run off the bottom of Tripoli. I didn’t want to chance breaking through every so often going solo on a long whack. While I was considering my options, a friendly Waterville police officer was there at the Road Closed barricade. He told me someone had driven up the closed road.
Within a minute, here come two SUVs with NY plates down the road. I figured they were tourists following their car GPS, but it turned out they were two lady hikers, each in their own vehicle, who had driven up to the trailhead and bagged the Osceolas early in the morning (this was 10:30). One of them got stuck up near the trailhead and had to be pulled out. Amazingly, there was little evidence of their passage on the groomed ski trail. I asked one of the hikers about the trail and whether it was postholed. She said the trail was solid and there were postholes, but they didn’t last long. The Waterville officer - himself a hiker who's done 30+ of the 4000-footers - couldn’t give them a ticket because it’s a USFS road, but he took down their info and will be turning it over to the Forest Service. The two women were then heading to Grafton Notch to hike Old Speck in the afternoon. Hardcore!
Based on the report from the NY hiker, I decided Mt. Osceola would be the plan for the day. I had always wanted to snowshoe the Mount Osceola Trail from this end in winter, with its countless angular rocks buried in snow. So I made the 2.9 mile slog up the groomed Tripoli Road to the trailhead.
Livermore/Waterville Valley town line.
Where one of the NY hikers got stuck.
With the road walk it's a 12-mile round trip for Osceola, and 14-mile if East Osceola is added, so this is a much less popular trailhead in winter.
Cliffs on Breadtray Ridge.
As reported, the first part of the trail was a disaster of frozen postholes, but mercifully the perpetrator(s) only went for about 0.3 mile before turning around.
Beyond the postholes the old track was crusty and uneven but manageable, with a few awkward sidehills. I wore my MSR Evo Ascents throughout for their stability and traction.
About halfway up I bushwhacked to a ledge on Breadtray Ridge with an unusual view over a trailless basin to the village of Waterville Valley and the western end of the Sandwich Range.
Looking towards Mt. Tecumseh.
Down-look.
Blowdown patch along the Mount Osceola Trail.
Ramp-like section of the trail.
The slanting ledges that the trail crosses on the upper switchbacks were well filled in with snow.
View to the SW from one of the switchbacks.
Moosilauke.
Chopped up track in some new snow above 4000 ft.
Trekking pole handle went in below the surface of the snow.
Drifts along the summit ridge.
The NW outlook, right behind the true summit, has gotten restricted by scrub in summer, but with a solid four-foot drift it was a spectacular open perch, and by this time the north wind had subsided somewhat. From this spot alone I could spot 36 White Mountain 4000-footers; 5 more could be seen from the main summit ledges.
Great angle on the western Pemi Wilderness, featuring the broad trough of the Franconia Brook valley and Owl's Head lurking in the middle.
Franconia Ridge.
South Twin, the Bonds and Zealand behind Mt. Hitchcock.
The Presidentials behind Mt. Carrigain.
Beaver pond on Cheney Brook, not far from the East Pond Trail.
The main summit ledges were mostly out of the wind and almost balmy.
From the edge of the summit cliffs is the dramatic view down into the Osceola Brook valley with Tripyramid beyond.
The open part of the Osceola Brook slide. Doesn't look steep from this angle, but up close it certainly is.
Osceola has a terrific view of Tripyramid's North Slide. A couple of remnant slide patches in Avalanche Ravine can be seen on the left.
Mid-afternoon sun highlights the remarkable high elevation flume cut into the K1 Cliff on the west side of Mt. Kancamagus.
Nathaniel Goodrich, notable Waterville Valley tramper and AMC trail-builder, once visited the snow patch seen here on a spur of East Osceola and called it the "bare spot," noting its impressive close-up view of Mt. Osceola.
The classic Osceola vista, with dozens of peaks beyond a nearby nub and flat-topped East Osceola.
I spent an hour and a quarter between the two summit viewpoints and had the place to myself the entire time.
Before heading out I dropped a short way down the trail towards East Osceola for another northern vista.
North Hancock and the Arrow Slide.
On the way down I made a short foray into a fir wave for a close look at Middle Osceola.
I enjoyed snowshoeing down through open firs to shortcut a couple of switchbacks (not appropriate in summer).
Only a few of the trail's burly rocks were showing, but they are lurking beneath the snow, waiting to emerge and torment hikers' feet and knees.
I took another off-trail shortcut to avoid the postholes at the bottom of the trail, wandering through some nice glades on the floor of Thornton Gap.
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