Places · New Hampshire, USA
TUCKERMAN RAVINE
The Headwall on Mount Washington: spring skiing on foot from the road
The place
Dartmouth students John Carleton and Charles Proctor first skied the Headwall on 11 April 1931. In the 1939 American Inferno, summit to Pinkham Notch, Toni Matt meant to make a few turns, went over the lip committed and straight, and won in about 6 minutes 29 seconds. Skiers still climb to it every spring, from early April.
Off-piste White Mountain National Forest and open to all, but no ski area: no patrol, no grooming, no markers.
- 14lines to start
- ON FOOTno lifts: skin or boot up
The lines
Every line here, with how hard it is.
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Lunch Rocks
■■■■■The bowl's floor, where the crowd sits to watch.
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Pinkham Notch
■■■■■The road, 620 m.
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Left Gully
■■■■■The usual way up as well as down, one of the easier lines off the Headwall: about 40°, in a real slot, with a steep top.
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The Chute
■■■■■An hourglass between two cliffs, close to 50° at its steepest.
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Center Gully
■■■■■Steep chutes in a maze of rock and ice in the middle of the Headwall.
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The Lip
■■■■■Open, and steeper the further you go, 50–55° by the guides.
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The Sluice
■■■■■Steep, about 50°, with a tricky double fall line at its entrance.
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The Icefall
■■■■■About 55°, with cliff drops of up to 25 ft.
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Right Gully
■■■■■Sustained at about 35°, the Headwall's gentler side.
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Lobster Claw
■■■■■On the far right wall, on moderate snow.
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Lion Head Gully
■■■■■The far right wall's other gully, on moderate snow, and the climbers' way down in winter.
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Hillman's Highway
■■■■■The long one: 420 m off the Boott Spur shoulder, outside the ravine itself, about 30° with steeper pitches.
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The John Sherburne Ski Trail
■■■■■The way out: 3.4 km through the trees from under Hermit Lake to the road at Pinkham Notch, cut for skiers in the 1930s.
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The Inferno
■■■■■The American Inferno, summit to Pinkham Notch, 1933–39, from just under the summit's buildings: over the Headwall, down the Little Headwall and out on the Sherburne, 5 km and 1,290 m.
