Boghollow dropped us off at the end of Zealand Rd early in the morning, with just enough daylight so that we didn't need headlamps. This would be the longest hike we had planned for the winter, and we had dropped vehicle at Lincoln Woods the day before. We made our way down Zealand Rd to the Hale Brook trail-head. We had considered hiking Hale separately, but adding it to the Zeabonds traverse was only an extra 1.5 miles and 1000 feet of elevation.
Early morning view of Mt Tom and the Zealand River as we walked along Zealand Road
The temperature was 0 to start the day, but we had no wind along Zealand Rd. The climb up the Hale Brook trail warmed us up a little as well. With no view from the summit of Hale, we stopped only for a moment before starting down the Lend a Hand trail. The trail was in mostly good shape with some fresh ski tracks and the occasional post hole.
Frosty trees on the Lend a Hand trail
When we reached the junction with the Twinway, we found a message in the snow for us - Boghollow had passed through less than 15 minutes prior. He didn't need Hale, so he had skipped it and taken his time getting to this point. We made the climb up to Zeacliff, and caught up with him at the junction with the view point loop. He started towards Zealand while we went to check out the view and have a snack.
The view to the south from Zeacliff
We were hoping for more sun and less clouds on this day. The forecast had been for full sun and light winds - ideal conditions for the exposed ridge between Bond and Bondcliff. We continued toward Zealand with hopes that it would clear up. At this point we could see that Boghollow had been breaking trail through a decent amount of snow. Until this point, we had been on packed trails. We didn't catch Boghollow until we got to the summit of Zealand. We were in a cloud on the summit, so there were no views through the trees. After a quick break, we continued on. We continued with trail breaking, and started encountering deeper drifts as we neared treeline on Mt Guyot.
Crossing Mt Guyot, with Mt Bond in the clouds on the left and West Bond just below the cloud line on the right
Once we out of the trees on Guyot, the wind was strong and the clouds were low. We tried to make the crossing quick and get back into the trees to the south. We made our way to the junction with the West Bond spur trail, and headed to the summit.
Boghollow breaking trail as we climb to the West Bond junction
We had a bit of a view on West Bond, with some sun trying to break through the clouds. The wind was a little lighter here. We made our way back to the Boncliff trial and up to the summit of Bond, which was in a cloud, so we continued on.
Looking over at Bondcliff from West Bond
When we reached tree-line and the open ridge, we were hoping that the winds wouldn't be too bad for the crossing. We layered up for the wind and started across.
On the side of Bond about to cross the ridge to Bondcliff
Initially, the wind was strong, but OK. When we got to the middle of the ridge it was strong enough to push us around. We continued as fast as we could, occasionally having to stop and wait out gusts. When we got to the summit of Bondcliff, we didn't stop. The wind wasn't quite a strong on the summit, but with limited views, we weren't stopping. We continued into the trees and began the long walk to Lincoln Woods.
The last view on the descent of Bondcliff before the long hike out
We were a little disappointed to not have better views and conditions for the Bonds. We had been looking forward to this hike and the open ridge on a nice day. The hike was still nice and the trail breaking gave us a little unexpected challenge. It was also nice to complete a longer mileage hike, since most of our NH hikes have been shorter than the typical Adirondack hike.