The first time I hiked the Ammonoosuc Ravine trail in early November, the parking lot at the base was 45 degrees and sunny. At Lakes of the Clouds, an hour and a half later, it was 19 with a 40-mile-an-hour wind coming across the ridge. Same day, same mountain, twenty-six degrees of difference.
That’s shoulder season in the White Mountains. April and May, then late October into November, the mountains run a completely different program from the valleys below, and the people who get in trouble are the ones who packed for the parking lot.
Dress for the ridge, not the trailhead
The rule I’ve settled on after too many cold hours above treeline: assume the summit temperature is 20 to 30 degrees colder than the valley, and assume wind. In November the summit of Washington averages around 10 degrees with a 50-knot wind, and that’s an average, which means some days are far worse.
So the layer system matters more in shoulder season than in summer or winter. What I wear and carry:
A synthetic or wool base layer, no cotton anywhere on me. A fleece midweight, mine’s a decade-old R1 style grid fleece that still does the job. A puffy jacket, synthetic fill, because down collapses when it gets wet and in April everything gets wet. A real hardshell jacket and pants, the kind with a hood that cinches over a hat. A warm hat and a pair of gloves, and in November a second pair of gloves because the first pair will be soaked by the time you’re above treeline.
That whole kit is maybe four pounds in the pack. It’s the difference between a long day and an incident report.
Traction
Shoulder season is ice season above 4,000 feet. Not always, but often enough that I stopped gambling.
Microspikes go in the pack from mid-October through mid-May on anything with exposure or a north-facing slope. The cone on Tuckerman Ravine holds ice into June some years. The Gulf of Slides headwall holds it too. Even the Jewell Trail and the Ammonoosuc get a glazed surface that’ll put you on your back at the worst possible spot.
I carry microspikes and, on anything that goes above treeline in April or November, an ice axe that I actually know how to self-arrest with. If you don’t know how to self-arrest, the axe is a liability, so take the course at Pinkham Notch or the Highland Center before you carry one. Crampons are overkill for most shoulder-season day hikes in the Whites. Microspikes handle the glare ice you’ll actually meet.
The rest of the pack
The standard day kit, with shoulder-season adjustments:
Headlamp with fresh batteries. In November the sun is down by 4:30 and you will be tempted to push one more summit. Everyone who’s been benighted on Carter Notch said the same thing.
A paper map and compass, and the knowledge to use them. The ridge between Mount Eisenhower and Pierce turns into a cloud factory most shoulder-season afternoons and the trail vanishes in rime ice.
Food, twice what you think. Cold burns calories and an extra hour on the ridge is common in April.
A thermos of something hot. This is the one luxury I stopped feeling guilty about. A liter of hot cocoa at the summit in 20-degree wind does more for you than another energy bar.
A space blanket, which weighs nothing. And a headlamp, which I already said, and I’ll say it again because it’s the item most often left in the car.
Water, at least two liters. People dehydrate in cold weather without noticing, and the streams are either frozen or running too cold to want.
What I’ve learned the dumb way
Two mistakes, both mine. The first was treating a bluebird April day as an easy hike and packing only a windbreaker. I turned around at the treeline sign on the Jewell Trail with my hands numb and my ears ringing, and I’ve never done it again.
The second was the opposite: assuming shoulder season means empty trails and no one around. In November the Whites are quieter, true, but the people you do meet above treeline in bad weather are often in over their heads. I’ve walked a shivering teenager down from the ridge above the Alpine Garden in a borrowed jacket. Carry a little extra and expect to be the one who has it.
The Whites are my favorite place to be in late October, when the birches are bare and you can see forty miles and the whole ridge is yours. Just go packed for the worst two hours of the day instead of the best one.