Hillman’s Highway
May 3rd, 2008.
Cloudy and Rainy
After all this time on this forum, I have finally had my first Mount Washington skiing experience. If it weren’t for awf170 I would have most likely have put it off until next year, but he insisted; and I am glad he did.
I woke up at around 4am
Met up with awf170 at around 6
Got to the visitor center at around 9:15
Original plan was to hit up GOS, but due to the rain that we drove through on the highway and the fact that it was starting to look pretty gloomy, we decided to go with Hillmans instead.
Made it up to Hojo’s by around 10:30 or 10:45, the hike was tough with a 40+lb bag (yes I over-packed) but it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be, but still motivation to get in better shape next year. Saw RR and Tig on the hike up, and cbcbd on the way down.
We booted up at the Hillmans Avalanche Rescue Cache and then we were on our way.
The higher you hiked, the crappier the weather became and the worse the visibility got. Despite the weather, I can say with honesty that it was one of my best days of skiing this season. Just a ton of fun overall; the whole experience was great. Hillmans was awesome and so were the Lower Snowfields, never skied anything like it before.
Now for the fun part, aka the pictures.
“The Sign”
No doubt about it, Wildcat had much better coverage last year. Cannon seemed to have really good coverage when we drove by it. I would say that Wildcat could have still opened as the Wildcat trail and Catapult trail and Bobcat seemed to have really good coverage.
awf170 getting ready to head up to Hillmans
The first view, of Cathedral and Dodge’s Drop in the clouds:
awf170 begins the hike
Looking up:
A skier stands above The Lower Snowfields. While I was eating lunch here I saw someone take a fall and take a slide, luckily stopping before hitting some small trees.
I thought this looked pretty cool:
Me somewhere on Hillmans, starting to get steep:
Carvé Diem! 
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