Working on my winter 46ers. Looking at the topo, the first 5-6 miles of the trail to Allen look relatively flat. Any experience with skiing this portion of the trail. Looking to make this long approach as painless as possible.

I've never done Allen, but it's on my list and I love to XC ski, so your post caught my interest and got me searching. Everything I came across makes it sound like the approach is extremely flat, and even on roads at points. I managed to find a promising piece of info from the website of a guy that has done what he calls "extreme cross country skiing".

"Several weeks ago, before the thaw, I did another great x-c loop, following the trail from the Tahawus parking lot around Mt. Adams and north along the Upper Twin Brook River. From the turnoff to the Allen Mountain trail, you head up a three-mile climb to Hanging Spear Falls and Flowed Lands."

That's really all the site said about it. Hope it helps!

Contact MudRat... he skiied it a couple years ago. http://www.summitpost.org/users/mudrat/16842

I think it would be skiable with good snowcover. I was in the area last week and I doubt it is skiable now though. I'm not sure if the boards across Lake Jimmy were repaired after Irene or if some are missing, you might want to look into more recent reports because it may not be frozen enough to cross the ice. Also not sure on the Hudson crossing.

Very skiable. Just did it Sunday. Highly recommend skiing in to cut the ten mile walk each way in half.