The Bonds is a gaggle of three adjoining 4000+ foot mountains – Bondcliff, Mt Bond, and West Bond in the course of the Pemigewasset Wilderness. They’re normally hiked together with Zealand Mountain as a 23-mile traverse when the forest service highway resulting in their northern trailhead is gated closed. Mountain climbing them in winter (normally completed as a single day hike) is especially difficult as a result of there aren’t any bailout factors alongside the way in which as there are on a Presidential Traverse or a Pemi Loop. Once you consider chilly temperatures and excessive winds, the variety of good days to do a winter traverse is few and much between.
You may hike the 4 peaks from the north-to-the-south, as I did in December 2022, ranging from the Zealand Lot on Rt 302 outdoors of Twin Mountain, NH, or from the south-to-the-north which I did this time, ranging from the Lincoln Woods Trailhead outdoors of Lincoln, NH. I used to be accompanied on this hike by two outdated mates, Lynn and Hilde, who like me are engaged on The Grid, which entails climbing every of the 48 of the White Mountain 4 thousand footers at the least as soon as in every calendar month of the yr for a complete of 576 summits (48 x 12). We had been additionally joined on the final minute by a pal of Lynn’s named Wendy, who hikes with the native pace demons often called The Wednesday Group.
This was my eleventh calendar month out to the Bonds group, with solely the month of April remaining. I additionally accomplished my twelfth and final calendar month hike to Mt Zealand, an achievement often called “gridding out a peak.”
BondsZ Traverse South to North
The size of this hike, which may take wherever from 12 to 18 hours to finish requires good bodily conditioning. However the stakes get loads increased in winter once you want to have the ability to make selections about protected and unsafe climate circumstances to time a protected and satisfying hike. For instance, we’d initially scheduled this hike for Saturday, however moved it to Sunday to keep away from excessive winds.
You additionally need above treeline winter expertise, since this route has a number of miles of open publicity, as well as, to expertise
- layering and delayering your clothes so that you don’t perspire and grow to be chilled
- fueling an arduous winter hike with large quantities of meals and water
- utilizing traction aids and flotation like full crampons and snowshoes
Final, however not least, you need reliable and skilled companions who will stand by you selflessly if you happen to falter and also you for them. That’s the method.
Chronology
A Bonds-Zealand Traverse is a protracted hike that begins earlier than you begin climbing and continues even after you end. Right here’s a chronology of the entire expertise.
- Go to Mattress: 9:00 PM (day earlier than)
- Get up: 3:00 AM
- Breakfast and Boiling Water: 3:15-4:15 AM
- Go away Residence: 4:30 AM
- Meet shuttle automotive at Zealand Lot off Rt 302: 5:00 AM (northern terminus)
- Shuttle arrives at Lincoln Woods Trailhead (southern begin)
- Begin hike: 6:00 AM
- Bondcliff Mtn: 10:15 AM (starting of peak sequence)
- Zealand Mtn: 2:00 PM (finish of peak sequence)
- Zealand Hut: 4:00 PM
- Zealand summer time trailhead (closed): 5:00 PM
- Zealand Lot off Rt 302: 6:30 PM
- Drive again to Lincoln Woods Trailhead to retrieve shuttle automobiles: 7:30 PM
- Drive Residence: 8:30 PM
- Go to Mattress: 9:00 PM
Journey Temporary
Our complete hike time for the 23-mile route was 12:30 which is sort of quick for a hike of this magnitude, however one solely made potential by the truth that a number of different events had damaged path within the days main as much as our traverse. With out their efforts, path breaking would have added hours to the hike.
We began at nighttime, climbing by headlamp down the Lincoln Woods Path, passing the Pemigewasset Wilderness signal, and persevering with to the underside of the lengthy gradual climb that brings you to Bondcliff Mountain. We began out naked booting, earlier than switching to Hillsounds. I’d switched to snowshoes to reap the benefits of the televators at 2700′, however my mates had stayed in Hillsounds despite the fact that it was tougher work to climb within the unconsolidated snow. Scrambling up the “Hillary Step” on the southernmost level of the Bondcliff Mtn ridge, because it’s recognized, was difficult with out sporting full crampons. I wanted I’d introduced an ice axe for a 3rd level of contact with the bottom and to drag myself up.
The wind was blowing about 25 mpg on high of Bondcliff, which is a protracted open ridge. Many of the snow on high had a shiny rain crust on high that might have been harmful if you happen to’d slipped. We crossed the ridge and began the climb as much as Mt Bond. We had been rather more uncovered to the wind throughout this climb and hunkered down with the hoods up on our winter shells. I ended on the summit of Bond and ate a bunch of energy as a result of I may really feel myself beginning to bonk. I’d introduced a variety of meals on this journey and had been snacking repeatedly, however apparently not sufficient.
We headed down Bond to the West Bond Spur, dropped our packs, and hiked out to the summit. West Bond has a shocking view of Bondcliff, Franconia Ridge, and all of the peaks within the Pemigewasset Wilderness. This was Wendy’s first day trip to the Bonds in winter and he or she was clearly in awe of the expertise.
We hiked again to the Bondcliff Path, donned our snowshoes, and headed towards Mt Guyot, a bald dome that’s not on the White Mountain 4000-footer record (there are various lists) despite the fact that it’s increased than 4000 toes. It was additionally lined in shiny rain crust.
We turned onto the Twinway Tr and headed towards Zealand Mountain, our final peak of the day. This part of path is an actual chore to snowshoe if you happen to hike the route from north-to-south, because it fills up with snow and should be damaged out as you hike uphill. However we flew down it, even in snowshoes, heading from south-to-north this time. Gravity is good when it’s in your facet.
We hiked out to the Zealand summit after we arrived on the spur path after which continued down the Twinway towards Zealand Hut. After a meals break on the high of Zeacliff, the towering 1000′ cliff above Zealand Hut, we descended steeply to the hut, refilling our bottles with the recent water which is heated on the hut range in winter.
From there it was one other 3 miles out the Zealand Path to the summer time trailhead after which 3 extra down a closely post-holed Zealand Rd to succeed in our parked automobiles on Rt 302. We began by headlamp and that’s how we completed.
Wrap Up
This was an excellent hike, however a really tiring one. I’m fortunate in that I used to be capable of do it with good mates and that we had such improbable climate. I’ve two extra Grid peaks to complete this February, Mt Adams, and Mt Madison, and hope the climate cooperates so I can get them completed and grid out the month.
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