Change Peak, Mount Washington — Saturday, Apr. 3, 2021

If you head to Change Peak, bring snowshoes. The snow is rotten anywhere that gets sun shining on it, and we spent a long time postholing along FR-5010 while two groups with snowshoes zipped past us. We were consistently penetrating 6-12 inches and sunk down to thigh-deep snow a few times. 
This was the first time we ran into other people after taking the Great Wall trail away from Mt Washington trail. The first group we met was doing a loop up from Hall Creek area. They said the path to Songbird was too sketchy to attempt, even with crampons and axes. The other person we saw went up to Change Peak’s summit, so there is a recent track as of 4/3. 

Mt Washington: the trail was surprisingly dry given that it resembles a stream for most of the winter. Snow is intermittent starting near the Owl Spot, then consistent from the stream crossing after the Great Wall trail junction. There is a boot path that stays to the left of the stream, but the actual trail crosses it, just FYI. We used microspikes since we were hiking down the Mt Washington trail - they helped a lot with gripping the slushy snow. There were also a few short glissade chutes that people had made from 3800’ to 3600’. They were quite fun to slide down if you know how to properly self-arrest.