May 23, 2025

Start/End: Pinkham Notch Visitor Center

Peaks: N/A

Elevation Gain: 1,855 ft

RT Mileage: 5.35 mi

Duration: 3 hours, 14 minutes

Rock Difficulty: Class 1

Snow/Ice Difficulty: Grade I

Memorial Day weekend is usually the beginning of summer in the Whites, but a late-season snowstorm had it looking more like winter this year! After an otherwise abysmal year for spring snow, I decided I had to go check it out. My plan was to car camp at Pinkham (illegally) the night of the snowstorm and hike up to the base of Tuckerman Ravine early the next morning, but it turned out just getting to Hermit Lake was enough.

I left Lexington at 5:30 PM on Thursday after a miserable day of 40s and rain. I ended up in rush hour traffic most of the first part of the drive, so I didn't arrive at Pinkham until around 9:15. Once there, I noticed the rain was a lot lighter than it had been for most of the drive, and sure enough on radar it looked like the notch and the eastern side of the Presis were in the rain shadow of the Wildcat-Carter range. I turned off the car and went to sleep in the back hoping the rain shadow would be overcome overnight.

The rain shadow was, in fact, overcome, and I woke up at my planned start time of 3:00 AM to pouring rain. Now I had the opposite problem as I needed the precipitation to lighten up before starting. Thankfully this didn't take too long, and we were back to a drizzle by 4:30. I quickly got dressed and started out just as enough predawn sunlight had begun to filter through the fog for me to be able to leave the headlamp in the car. The lower elevations had begun to green up a little early this year so the landscape looked like summer heading out from the TH, with no signs of the winter wonderland just 1,000 feet higher.

I was a little worried the snowstorm had completely busted as I ascended higher, especially as occasional glimpses of higher terrain seemed to reveal no snow coating the coniferous trees as I would have expected. I was reassured when light rain changed to snow around 2,700 ft, although the freezing line was still falling at this point so there was nothing on the trail yet. This changed slowly over the next few hundred feet as patches of snow began to appear alongside the trail, then on the trail, and finally on surrounding coniferous trees as I broke into coniferous forest. There was enough snow on the trail for me to put the spikes on above 3,100 ft.

After this, the amount of snow on the trail began to increase rapidly, and I regret not using my Insta360 to film a hyperlapse on this section. An inch of snow became two, then three, then four, then five, then six by the time I reached 3,600 ft. By now, summer had turned fully to winter, and it felt surreal to be breaking trail in fresh, untouched powder at 6:00 AM on May 23.

I really took my time and savored the experience of the last two hundred vertical feet to Hermit Lake, arriving just before 6:45. To my surprise, it wasn't fully socked in, and there were faint views to be had of Boott Spur, Tuckerman Ravine, and Lion Head from the lake.

It had been lightly snowing during my whole ascent, but it began to fall at a heavier clip as I was descending. The freezing line had also continued to fall, and wet snow was falling all the way down to Pinkham by the time I got down. Near the bottom, I encountered a boarder heading up to ski Tucks in the fresh powder. He probably had the time of his life that afternoon. Meanwhile, I had to drive back home in the morning and return to daily life. All in a day's work I guess!