Gracepoints and I met Rbalbs at the Stony Brook trail-head early Saturday morning. Our goal was to hit the six summits between Wildcat D and Moriah. Combining the Wildcats and Carters wasn't going to be a big deal, but the Carter Moriah trail between the Imp trail junction and the Stony Brook trail junction probably doesn't see much use in winter. With winter having returned in the previous two weeks, we expected a good amount of snow on the ridge. The good news is that the portion of the Carter Moriah trail that we expected to break out is mostly downhill for 2.6 miles.
We left a vehicle at the Stony Brook trail-head and drove to the Wildcat ski area, where we would start our hike up the Polecat ski trail (the dedicated uphill route). It was cold and windy, with summit temperatures foretasted for 0, and windchills in the -15 to -20 range. We normally would have done a shorter hike in these conditions, but with the logistics of Rbalbs being in the area, the car spot, more legs to break trail, etc, we went for the bigger hike. The groomed ski trail provides easy access to the Wildcat ridge. We saw a couple of others on the ski trails, as well as some groomers out getting things ready for skiers to arrive.
Once at the top of the ski area, it's a quick walk on the hiking trail to the summit of Wildcat D, and it's wooden platform. Despite being across the valley from the Presidentials, we had no views in that direction on Saturday morning. We could see some orange on the horizon to the east through the trees. The Wildcat ridge had a little new snow over the most recent tracks, with the occasional drift. When we made it to Wildcat A, we had a bit of a view to the east, and down into Carter Notch.
The view from Wildcat A to the east
We continued down into Carter Notch, where we didn't see any evidence of hikers having come up the Nineteen Mill Brook trail that morning. After a quick break, we started up Carter Dome. Trail conditions stayed the same through the Carters. We were all focused on staying warm, and kept stops to a minimum.
Gracepoints on the summit of Carter Dome
Continuing north through the Carters
Further north, looking at Mt Moriah, which was in and out of the clouds
We passed the Imp trail and continued to North Carter. Based on trip reports that we had seen, we didn't think anyone had been north of North Carter for a couple of weeks. We continued on, breaking trail, but finding a solid base under the new snow. We got off trail a few times, but mostly found our way back onto the trail pretty quickly.
When we reached the junction with the Stony Brook trail, we found that no one had been there. We had been hoping that someone would climb Moriah using that trail earlier in the day. We had kept a good pace, and despite not having a more packed trail to Moriah, and out, we figured that we could still make it to Moriah and down Stony Brook before we lost daylight.
Rbalbs along the way to Moriah
When we reached Moriah, we had no view, but we found that plenty of people had been there earlier in the day, leaving a packed route down the Carter Moriah trail. We expected this, but had chosen to leave the vehicle at Stony Brook, giving us a bail out point prior to Moriah, if we should need it. We made our way back to Stony Brook for the hike out. The trail probably hadn't been used in a week, but the gradual downhill made packing down the new snow not so difficult.
Other then the people that we saw in the ski area first thing in the morning, we didn't see anyone else all day. When we drove by the Nineteen Mill Brook trail-head after the hike, there were plenty of cars there. I guess other hikers opted for a later start in hopes of the temperatures being a little warmer.