Trek4DM has been working on the winter Whites and asked if I'd be interested a hike there Saturday, a one day out and back from Saratoga County. The forecast was for moderately high winds and below zero wind chills. So we packed gear accordingly. Several layers , mittens, goggles. Trek4DM had done a couple hikes with LittleBrownMushroom and after reaching out the recommendation was to go from North to South across the ridge. That turned out to be the way to go. A bit of a crosswind but mainly at our backs.
The Old Bridal Path trail was pretty well packed out. We passed about 10 people descending including 3 or 4 trail runners that had gotten a early start to traverse the ridge S to N. One fellow and a dog had turned back due to the winds.
It was very windy at the top of Mt Lafayette. I crawled up onto the summit rock. Trek4DM just touched it. As we descended off the summit the wind really died down. And with wind at our back we made it a point to take a leisurely walk across to Mt Lincoln and Little Haystack. Most of the groups yesterday were going S to N but we were very glad we were not. Winds were high in-between on the tops of bumps and on Mt Lincoln. The most wind and strong gusts was across the last of the traverse between Mt Lincoln and Little Haystack.
The descent on Falling Waters trail starts out pretty steep. And there was more snow there. It was a bit if a skating exercise in our Hillsound spikes. After most of the descent and we got to the waterfalls, in the areas with lot of sun we had corn snow on which to slip and slide down.
Don
Mount Lafayette
Mount Lincoln
The Presidential Range