Late on a Thursday evening at the end of February, I got a call from my friend, Rob Fox: “The slide is ready. You in for tomorrow?” Within a few minutes, I was packing for New Hampshire. I pitched the mission to my old friend and Meathead Films backcountry veteran Stacey Rachdorf, who welcomed to opportunity.
February 2015 was one of the coldest and snowiest months on record in New England. The deep snowpack afforded passage into backcountry zones that have long been sought after. One of them is a slide on the lesser-known, east side of NH Route 16 in Carter Notch that Rob—and few others—had been scouting for years.
The tour consisted of an eight-mile trip culminating in a 1,400-foot descent of a slide torn by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Our ski began with 350 feet of naturally gladed tree skiing, and as the pitch steepened and the trees thinned, we approached a massive, funnel-shaped chute. Protected by three stages of ice bulges, the chute tightened to 30-feet wide, surrounded by imposing walls of granite. But once beyond the choke, the pitch gradually subsided and gave way to nearly 1,000 feet of deep powder that had settled in the playful drainage.
What is the avalanche risk on this slide?
This slide is avalanche prone and the level of that risk is entirely dependent on the snowpack. The Mount Washington Avalanche Center forecasts for nearby terrain, but their range does not extend to the Carter ridge.