Lincoln's Beard - Crust Party and Dancing with Sharks - 11/25/25

By Kyle Husto

I met Lucas, Zan, Connor, and Colby at the Falling Waters trailhead at 7am. We were all prepared for a long hike and, if we were lucky, mediocre conditions. We put on skis and started skinning from the lot. After about 0.7 miles, we made it to to a river crossing, and the skis came off our feet, and onto our packs, where they would remain until it was time to ski. Crampons were essential to climb the Falling Waters trail, although lower down, we found ourselves stepping on plenty of rocks. Fortunately, my crampons are on the older side, so I didn't feel too bad about giving them the opportunity to increase their dullness. I guess they are "rock crampons" now! As we gained elevation, the snowpack improved.

About 3 miles and 2.5 hours later, we reached the summit of Little Haystack and were greeted with some moderate wind—but nothing too intense. Overall, a pleasant grey-bird day to walk the ridge and enjoy the views. After another mile on the ridge, we went up and over the summit of Mt. Lincoln to reach our objective for the day, a slide we refer to as "Lincoln's Beard". 

We noted the thin cover, keeping in mind it is still November, but identified plenty of skiing that could be done down the slide. We decided to try and ski the skier's right side of the slide, as it appeared to have better coverage and fewer rocks to avoid. We also noted the center of the slide had somewhat of a defined gully that also appeared to have decent coverage, but would be a bit more difficult to get to with a band of trees at the top.

Once we made our way into the slide, we started noticing a breakable crust layer, about 1-1.5" thick. This would make skiing difficult and unenjoyable. We began making our way down the slide, avoiding rocks and hoping the crust would disappear, but to our disappointment, it did not. At one point, Lucas's ski got caught in the crust layer, and released before flying down the slope. Luckily, it stopped a bit below where I had posted up, so I was able to retrieve it. Major crisis averted. This was certainly the fastest I've ever seen a Blizzard ski go! 😎 Lucas put on crampons and walked down a short ways, meeting me halfway at a safe spot to put his ski back on.

Connor began making his way toward the center of the slide, where we had noticed some more open skiing - we were really hoping the snow would improve here in order to salvage the day and our efforts. As I made my way over, I could immediately tell this snow was of a much higher quality. The group let me lead the charge down this section. The turns were smooth and chalky with minimal rocks to avoid. I skied down a couple more hundred feet, then the rocks became too common and we decided to stop there. The slide could use a lot more snow to ski the full runout, but this was an awesome ski for late November—definitely one of the coolest early season days I've had!

Colby set most of the booter up the side to regain ridge and we decided to complete the Franconia Ridge Loop rather than backtrack toward Falling Waters trail. Once we reached the summit of Lafayette, Zan, Connor, and Colby put skis back on and made a few more turns until they reached treeline and Greenleaf Hut—Lucas and I decided to walk. Once below treeline, we all "enjoyed" the long walk out and agreed on how awesome it was to ski something outside of the Presidential Range this early in the season.