Averill/Lyon, 06Apr2006

[randomscooter]

What a difference a few miles makes. It's springtime and sunny in Keene, and still winter with 2500' ceiling in Lyon Mtn. Snow is deep at higher elevations, probably 3' or more, with about 4-6" of new snow from yesterday's coastal storm.

I had done these two peaks a number of different ways: 1- as two separate hikes from their respective trailheads, 2- Lyon first, then my partner drove around to meet me at the Averill Peak trailhead while I through hiked, 3- Averill first, with a second car positioned at the Lyon trailhead. Today I was solo and didn't much feel like doing method 1 again, so I decided to try something a bit different. The plan was to climb the Averill trail to around the 3400' elevation, then contour across to the Averill-Lyon col, then up Lyon. I would then return on my same track, finish up Averill, and be home for lunch (hee, hee).

I set out from the Averill trailhead, really the base of the power line and maintenance road to the transmission tower, at 6:30 this morning. There was a bit of old snow still in the road, and about 4" of wettish powder on top. I don't especially like carrying snowshoes, and I knew I would need them higher up, so I decided to just put them on from the start. Not a problem; there was enough snow so it wasn't too rough on either me or the gear.

As I ascended I kept a watchful eye on the forest cover to my left, the direction to the col. I knew from previous visits that much of the forest here is open, but I wasn't sure how high up the mountain I'd get before the woods closed in tighter. I hoped for 3400' but figured I'd settle for something a bit lower if necessary. Well, I hit the first tight area at around 3000' and began to worry. But rather than head into the woods towards Lyon at that point I decided to keep going up. Maybe the forest would open up again. Sure enough, at 3200-3400' the forest opened. On went the goretex shell and I headed into the woods, 7:30am.

The contouring was a breeze. I wound my way around widely spaced trees,only occasionally having to knock snow off boughs with my poles. I picked up 50' or so, gently angling up toward the NW end of the col. Half an hour later the uphill on my right side started flattening out. I was approaching the col. And it started getting a bit thicker. Yeah right. The worst stretch of thicket I had to contend with lasted about 50', and there were only a few other shorter sections. But for the record, this was in the col and it would be a lot worse without snow, as I was passing over a lot of old blowdown mixed in beneath the new growth. Just past the center of the col the woods opened wide and I continued with ease over to the toe of Lyon, up the steeper slopes to the summit rim. A couple months ago Neil and I had stumbled onto a marked path that went from the rim to the summit road, then from the road to the tower. I had it waypointed at the edge of the rim and hit it dead on. The summit was covered in dense clouds and the tower remained invisible until I was practically on top of it, kinda spooky, 8:50am.

Thanks to yesterday's storm I had an excellent track to follow back and made short work of the return trip to the Averill trail (9:45am), finished the last several hundred feet ascent to the summit (10:10am), and cruised back down to the Jeep 11:00am. This was just way too easy, just the way I like it. And yes, I did get home for lunch, 12:10pm

[Neil]

Excellent idea. Very creative. Nice to see that the Avery-Lyon col is being used! Great report too.

[Prino]

Thanks for that report... you make it sound so easy.
I'll have to get up there sometime soon.

[randomscooter]

Originally Posted by Prino

Thanks for that report... you make it sound so easy.
I'll have to get up there sometime soon.

This was my fourth trip up these peaks, and the easiest to date. I just moved along at a steady but unhurried pace, and I didn't have to stop every 2 minutes to wait for Neil while he played with his gps. [No Neil, I haven't forgotten ST2 ] The snow conditions were the best I've had yet. They've all been good hikes, but normally there was a sizable stretch that was slow, difficult, tedious, etc. I think it was a matter of combining the experiences and observations from previous trips to come up with an improved route. I think next time I will try to skirt below that blowdown section in the col. I'm closing in on a blowdown free, thicket free experience!

[Neil]

Originally Posted by randomscooter

This was my fourth trip up these peaks, and the easiest to date. I just moved along at a steady but unhurried pace, and I didn't have to stop every 2 minutes to wait for Neil while he played with his gps.

Yeah, but I got an all-time high score in Waypoint Bomber! It was bumping into trees that slowed me down.