Huntington To Route 17 December 15

[Lynn Fisher]

Carse Road (Huntington) via Huntington Gap to Battleground Condominums (route 17), Saturday December 15. Me & Cathy Hunter.

Up 1200' and down 1300' and for probably stupid reasons (wanted to get a good workout?) we never put our skins on. Temperature stayed in the single digits. There is tons of snow and the only tracks were at the trail heads.

We got confused when descending because there's an unmarked junction with an attractive and inviting right turn. Cathy skied down it, spied a blaze, so we went ahead turned right and believed we had narrowly avoided skiing VAST route 17 into the netherlands. It turns out though that either route would have sufficed (I'm guessing we got the steeper, funner one) because the routes join back up again further south, where the choice is clearly marked. More signage at the north end would be great.

The views are spectacular from both sides of Hemlock Hill.

Photos are of (a) the ridiculous amount of work going up and (b) the reward.

[Nick Branch]

Looks like mid winter conditions to me. How much base is up there?

[Lynn Fisher]

Originally Posted by Nick Branch

Looks like mid winter conditions to me. How much base is up there?

Hi Nick, oh yeah it's winter. I sank my pole in a good 20" near the top. I'm not sure how much - if any - of a frozen base there is under the powder. Cathy did hit a rock down closer to route 17. Also, there were numerous stream crossings in the Phen Basin but we managed them all with skis on.

After today's storm though I think one would have to dig far to find a rock.