Am I nuts?

[Addicted]

Can anyone tell me if I'm crazy for wanting to hike Garfield this Saturday? I hate the 'inbetween' season, waiting for snow, and getting stuck with half and half hikes, running into snow halfway up. I've tried finding recent reports for Garfield and can't find anything within the last couple days.

I like to give myself a very conservative time frame when I hike. I plan on 1 mile per hour. Sometimes it's much less, but we're not speed demons. I know that we're starting to burn daylight now, and don't want to get myself in a sticky situation. We plan on making a 'turnaround' time once we see how the trail looks and how we do for time on the beginning section.

So, I guess my questions are, how bad is it really right now? Is there a lot of snow on the higher summits, is the Garfield Trail as reasonable as it sounds to put us ahead of our conservative schedule? I'm not a novice, have done half the 4K's and have hiked year round. Did Jackson and Pierce with completely different outcomes and conditions on consecutive weekends, so I know I could be in for anything.

Probably more worried than I should be, just looking for some opinions if anyone has been 'up high' this week.

[freighttrain]

Yes you are crazy but in a good way! I think we are all a little crazy to want to go out in cold wet conditions week in and week out. I work in concord nh and its raining hard off and on hear as it was all day yesterday. last time i was in the whites was oct 21 and snow started at 3500ft. My thoughts are that you will be fine you are hiking a trail that is gentle 90% of the way there and back. I'm going out sunday to do either triprymids or the kinsmans and my plan is gaiters and boots and micro spikes if needed. staying dry tomorrow should be your greatest challenge of the day. water levels are going to be high! If you check the views from the top forum there is a galehead twin report you may find usefull. best of luck and hope you have a blast !!

[Addicted]

Hey, I work in Concord too! We made it up and back Saturday with no real issues. My feet got sweaty and therefore got really cold on the summit, but warmed up soon on the decent. The mud was actually the worst part. Just another case of having a healthy dose of respect for the mountains and always thinking it will be worse than it is! Great day, no views though : (

[freighttrain]

Glad you had a good trip Addicted. I went out sunday and My gf and I attempted The Kinsmans. We started at lafayette campground and took the lonesome lake trail to fishin Jimmy and made it to north kinsman but had to turn around due to a late start and my gf fell on fishin Jimmy and hurt her knee. it was a little muddy but once you passed the lonesome lake hut it got pretty icy. I saw two groups of people ascending and decending the fishin jimmy without any traction aids!! It was bitterly cold and rime ice formed on my goatee. Also like yourself my hike had no views

[Addicted]

I have enough trouble staying on my feet without traction, I def dont' leave home without the spikes this time of year!