November 16, 2024

Start/End: North Twin Trailhead

Peaks: North Twin (4,761'), South Twin (4,902')

Elevation Gain: 3,710 ft

RT Mileage: 11.03 mi

Duration: 8 hours, 11 minutes

Rock Difficulty: Class 1

Snow/Ice Difficulty: Grade I

After a month away, though it felt much longer, I was back in the Whites the day before National Hiking Day. It was forecasted to be a mediocre day in the mountains, so we went with a mediocre set of summits, the Twins.

Waking up at 3:45 AM, we left the house at 4:30, and arrived at the trailhead at 6:50. Although I hadn't been up here in a month, I knew a warm streak earlier in the month had melted most of the snowpack and there hadn't been much new snow since then, so I decided to leave the spikes in the car. I was to regret this decision just a little later today. Anyway, we started out on the trail just after 7:00, making quick progress as the trail gently meandered alongside the Little River.

After 1.9 miles of following the river, it came time to cross it. I remember this being a fairly tough crossing last time I hiked the Twins, and I'd had to take off my boots and wade across. The water was far too cold for that now and parts were even beginning to ice over, but luckily the river was running much lower and we were able to rockhop across a little upstream. Shortly after the crossing, the trail finally steepened as it began to ascend the northeast slopes of North Twin.

Around this time, we began to see patches of snow on the sides of the trail. Before long, there was snow on the trail too. As we ascended the snowpack unsurprisingly became deeper, though never surpassing 2", and we fared just fine without spikes. Above 4,000 ft we started to be able to hear the wind howling above the tops of the trees, and I was glad most of our hike was below treeline. Speaking of which, the trail briefly broke out of the trees just below North Twin, offering the first views of the day.

From this spot it was just a few minutes further to the summit, and we summited just after 10:30. Last time I was here I had skipped the outlook just west of the summit, so this time I decided to check it out. The outlook offered a different angle of South Twin as well as views south and west into the Pemi Wilderness, and I figured it was worth getting my camera out.

After a short break on the summit, we began making our way over to South Twin. This is when our lack of microspikes first began to become a problem, with a couple of sections of pure ice on the descent to South Twin. We sat down and awkwardly slid across these sections on the way down, but I was concerned about how we would make it up on the way back. For the moment, though, we put aside our worries and continued on our way to South Twin.

The second half of the descent to the col thankfully was again mostly snow, and so was the entire ascent to South Twin, so it was just two short sections that would be tricky on the way back. We broke treeline around twenty vertical feet below the summit of South Twin and subsequently summited just before noon. It was rather windy above treeline as suggested earlier, so we didn't linger long, but I did get out my camera again.

After just a few minutes on the summit, we dipped back below treeline and began making our way back over to North Twin. The descent to the col was easy, as expected, and so was the first half of the ascent back to North Twin. Before long, we had made it back to the two icy sections. For the first, and trickier, one, we decided to avoid the trail altogether and bushwack around the first half, then join back up with the trail and scramble up some dry rock. For the second one, we pulled ourselves up along the side of the trail using tree branches as support. And that was that; we were back on North Twin.

The remainder of the descent was smooth sailing, although there was another icy section below North Twin that hadn't seemed so difficult on the way up. We sat down and slid across most of that one too. The snowline had moved up during the day as temperatures had risen to the 40s, so we didn't get back to the river crossing until a little later than expected. The crossing was even easier than it had been in the morning since any ice on the rocks we used had melted. From there, it was an easy walk in the woods back to the trailhead, and we were back at the parking lot just after 3:30 PM.