This weekend Eli and I hiked and skied tuckerman’s ravine!
On Sunday, we got up at 4:45am. We ate breakfast, packed our bags, and got out of the house around 5:45am. We arrived at Pinkham Notch around 7am.
Eli was so excited to do Tuckerman’s!
As we started to make our ascent we quickly shed off our outer layers. The temps must have been in the 50’s at the base. About a mile in Eli put on his Yaktrax and I put on my crampons.
At about 11am, we reached the Hermit Lake Shelters. This is about 2.5 miles from Pinkham Notch. From here we could finally see Tuckerman’s! The view below is of some of the trails to the left of Tuckerman’s.
From the shelter, it was about 0.7 miles to the base of the ravine. We started to get a glimpse of the Left Gully on the hike up.
Almost there. We heard to avoid the lunch rocks this time of year, where there are giant ice falls the size of cars.
We made it to the base of the ravine! Eli had a huge burst of energy and at this point and could tackle anything.
This is the famous Tuckerman’s photo. If you look closely on the left you will see a person climbing up.
We agreed to go half way up Left Gulley to the ice fall and ski down from there. We quickly changed out of our hiking gear and into our ski gear. I’m not sure I’ve seen him this excited before.
We started our ascent of Left Gully. Eli did a great job of digging into the snow and making sure he had good footing. If you make one mistake here you are falling all the way to the bottom.
As we were ascending one of the people above triggered an avalanche that was headed right towards us! We quickly moved to the side (not trivial since we were on a steep incline). After most of the avalanche came through I snapped a pic and video.
Now we had no pre-made footholds and Eli had to dig in with each step since he was leading the way. He was really reaching the end of his energy at this point.
So, we found a decent place to strap in. I got Eli all geared up and then he waited for me. Some of the dots at the bottom are people.
Eli and I both made it down to the bottom in a minute or two. I found it a lot more challenging on the snowboard with the heavy pack. There really wasn’t a ‘dryrun’ to see what it was like with all the weight.
At the bottom we had some snacks. You can see some people hiking up in the left side of the pic. The right side was filled with waterfalls and crevasses.
We skiied the line on the left starting at the waterfall.
We took a quick break, put our hiking stuff back on, and headed back to the shelter.
At the shelter we transferred back to our skiies and got to ski down the Sherburne Trail for about a mile. At that point we had to transfer back our hiking gear again and walk down to the bottom.
At the bottom we saw an awesome waterfall. 
Once we got the bottom we had an amazing dinner at Moat Mountain Brewery, ice cream at Friendly’s, then drove home.
Overall I was so proud of Eli today. He didn’t complain the entire trip, and was so determined to make it to the top. I’m sure we will both remember this trip forever.
