Hey there all. Sierra Nevada ice climber here just curious as to when Mt Washington's ice is in its best shape. Also curious in particular as to what kind of temperatures to expect end of December up there? Approach distance over snow, etc.

WML wrote:Hey there all. Sierra Nevada ice climber here just curious as to when Mt Washington's ice is in its best shape. Also curious in particular as to what kind of temperatures to expect end of December up there? Approach distance over snow, etc.

End of December it should be in. Temps can be anywhere from 30 above to 30 below. Most likely is low teens with 40mph winds. Approach to Huntington Ravine is about 3 miles (not sure, takes about 90 min). You are mostly on snowcat packed wide trail, then up snow covered talus. Here's a great way to check conditions.
http://www.tuckerman.org/photos/huntington/

We climbed the Tucks headwall the first weekend in December last year, and it was plenty fat by then. Dunno about the Huntington side, but as bird notes, you'd almost certainly have good ice by late December. (I'd guess even earlier, though.)

Even the first week of December is usually good for at least some routes. This is O'Dell's on Dec 2, 2007. Enough exposed rock that we used some rock gear (we were woefully short of screws anyway), but plenty of ice for climbing. And the avvy danger was nil, not counting the ice debris from the party above us.

Just got back from doing the Great Range Traverse in a day in ADK. Encountered frost on the trees and patches of ice - soooo stoked about the ice season!

Here is the approach to the false summit of Basin on Sep 19:

fantastic! thanks for the help guys. I'll be back on this end of the forum come November-December looking for partners for a trip up there from Connecticut.

WML wrote:fantastic! thanks for the help guys. I'll be back on this end of the forum come November-December looking for partners for a trip up there from Connecticut.

FYI -- when the time comes, you may also wanna post a partner request over on NEice.com, as it's a bit more specific to ice climbing.

FWIW, I climbed Pinnacle last year the weekend before thanksgiving (11/19?) Ice took screws, was 6 below zero with 50mph winds, running water under the ice. Awesome!