Church to Church - 3/09/26

Mar 09, 2026

Skating on a firm Ellis River trail this morning was speedy and beautiful with a pink Mount Washington glowing in the background. Once we got to Avalanche Brook it was another story. Slushy, unsupportive, collapsable snow made for very slow skinning despite my best efforts to put in a skin track yesterday. I've never post-holed up to my waist with skins on before. Spirits were improved once we hit Pinkham. Up the TRT, up right, then wrapped around to the east snowfields to get out of the wind. Tagged the summit and skied perfect snow on the eastern snowfields into a very enjoyable Right Gully. Walked down the TRT to a very enjoyable Sherb. The skiing was so good that not even Avalanche Brook could kill our vibes. Now that we had tracked out AB a bit more, it was much faster, dare I say fun, on the final descent, but still plenty of down-skinning face-plants. Skating out on skimo skis on manky slush was not the most fun skate skiing I've ever done but in the name of skiing off the summit in perfect conditions from town and back, it was worth it. The Avalanche Brook skinner is in good shape now so people should go and do this while its in. Its a super cool route for a great all around adventure.

Creeping up at the shop around 6:20AM. The boys enjoyed a nice stay at the hotel across the road.