Texas to Tucks, First Run of the Year- 11/23/25

Guest Blog by Jake Melone, Rachel Melone, Greg Melone, Josh Allessio

Our brother Greg planned a ski trip for all the siblings coming home from thanksgiving. I came from Texas, Rachel came from Washington state and neither of us had skied yet this year. We spent days debating which backcountry terrain to hit and made a last minute decision to come to Mt Washington based on a facebook post we read Saturday night. 

Greg and Josh were set as this is their life, but Rachel and I have only been horseback riding and wakeboarding, respectively, for the last few years. We were once again struck by the difficulty of touring as we progressed up towards the bowl on our yearly ascent of Tuckerman Ravine. Greg introduced us to backcountry skiing. He either drags us up to Tuckerman Ravine—the East’s rowdiest, most consequential terrain—or we ski Wachusett, the little “mountain” outside Boston that barely clears hill status. 

We were hoping to skin almost all the way up to the bowl but after a few too many slips we put our skies on our backpacks. We carried our skis for several minutes before giving in and fully transitioning and even putting on crampons. The narrow trail was a little chaotic with the mix of people skiing down, skinning up, and boot-packing, but we managed. We still had a little ways to go after that but we were all appreciative of the crampons. 

Next, we climbed chute in crampons, which provided solid footing the whole way up. It was still scary though! I took pictures, but the reports from the rest of the group included "You are insane for doing that," "I don't want to look up or down," and "This is the scariest thing I have ever done." I agreed that some of the steep sections were pretty sketchy.

From the top, we skied back down chute. The first section was hard packed and slightly windblown but relatively smooth riding. Going down the chute it was pretty tracked out, somewhat choppy riding, but there was still grab to the snow. Down past the chute it got soft and allowed for some nicer linked turns.

SHERB EXIT: the first 2/3 of the way down the Sherb was in, but if you like your skis, probably only 1/3 to 1/2 in reality. Past that it was very exposed and rocky. We took our skis off with about a mile left to go, and put them back on for the last 1/8 mile (30 seconds).