Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

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DArcyS
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Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by DArcyS »

d_baker gave this link on the winter 14er finishers http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepor ... ki=Include . The articles note that they finished the 14ers in astronomical winter that runs from approximately December 21 to March 21.

My question is whether anybody has completed the 14ers in meteorological winter that runs from December 1 to the end of February. I know SarahT would be close as indicated on LOJ, as she only summited a handful of peaks in March.

Oh, so what's the big deal about meteorological and astronomical winter? There have been a few comments that this winter 14ers "game" has become a little too easy (a proverbial fecal storm to paraphrase the comment of one finisher, as I recall). This is one way to push the bar a little higher -- knock out that time period when one can take advantage of a relatively high sun that can make the conditions seem downright balmy. Yeah, I know your grade school teacher told you when winter starts and ends, but in terms of pursuing a goal in mountaineering, maybe what your grade school teacher taught you isn't best for demarcating a superior mountaineering achievement.

If it were me -- and I'll make clear it isn't because I'm not chasing this goal so perhaps my input should be minimized by those who have climbed all of the 14ers (or other noteworthy 13ers) in "winter" -- I'd climb all of the 14ers between December 21 and the end of February to satisfy both definitions of winter. This is a higher standard of accomplishment, in my opinion. But outside of my opinion, it is what it is -- a summit in March is a summit in March, and a summit in January is a summit in January. Call it what you will using the adjective of astronomical or meteorological, but on average one tends to pose more challenging conditions than the other.

Some of you may remember I made a Hitler parody that spoofed the difference of ascents made in March and whether they're winter ascents. That parody has been removed from the Internet, but all joking aside, ascents made in the heart of winter tend to be harder than ascents made at the beginning of meteorological spring. Or am I off route? :)
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Cool Hand Luke
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by Cool Hand Luke »

On some peaks a December ascent can lower the chance of avalanche danger compared to a March ascent with the greater snowpack.

http://14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.ph ... ki=Include

Interesting topic, but "spring" conditions up high do not begin until late April at best most years.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by jrbren_vt »

There are numerous definitions of winter, all peak bagging clubs I am aware of choose the calendar definition, I can only guess for its simplicity. Reality & nature usually have different ideas of when winter starts and ends, which is different each year. My favorite definition of winter is find a body of water, like Joe's pond in Vermont. Maybe twin lakes in CO ? https://www.joespondvermont.com/iceout.php
Put a cinder block on it once the ice is thick enough to support it, winter starts then. When the block falls through, its spring. My second favorite definition is Thanksgiving through tax day. The worst thing anyone can do to try to climb through storms the week of March 20 to hit an artificial man made deadline. The moral of the story is, why does anyone care ? Climb for you, not a club or patch.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by Chicago Transplant »

Well from my experience, December is typically the worst month to climb in. I find it colder and windier on average than the other "winter" months, and the loose unconsolidated snow is really annoying. To be fair, I have also had a few easy December days if the winter blast arrives late, we had a great day on Atlantic a few years ago where I never put more than a light fleece jacket on. You can also access more "summer" trailheads in early December than you can in March.

If you did an item by item "pros and cons", I think you would find March is more pleasant to climb in than December, but the climbs would be longer and more in line with the heart of winter as far as access. I tend to avoid big days in December because its just unpleasant to be out for long periods of time in my opinion. Maybe that is because its colder, or maybe its just that by March I am more used to it, but I always find December to be a tough month to get my peak.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by justiner »

Interesting topic!

I want to say that "Winter" season climbs in the Himalaya use Meteorological Winter for whatever reason - perhaps because of the proximity to the equator? Hmm, seems to be for all sorts of reasons, but generally, "To make climb more Russian"

http://www.russianclimb.com/urubko_true_winter.html
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by AyeYo »

Chicago Transplant wrote:Well from my experience, December is typically the worst month to climb in. I find it colder and windier on average than the other "winter" months, and the loose unconsolidated snow is really annoying.
This. At least for this area of the country. The snow is there to be annoying rather than helpful and climbable.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by TomPierce »

D'Arcy,

Are the dates for "meteorological winter" agreed, i.e. any debate about them being fixed dates? Just curious. At least for Colorado, IMO mw is far tougher. March is usually so balmy here it seems like spring to me; I usually camp then with the door of my tent unzipped. Noticeably more daylight hours too. December...ugh, challenging snow, breezy (read=gale force winds) and often legit nippy (read=sub-zero) air temps. At least in my experience. But character building! :lol:

-Tom
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by SnowAlien »

justiner wrote:Interesting topic!

I want to say that "Winter" season climbs in the Himalaya use Meteorological Winter for whatever reason - perhaps because of the proximity to the equator? Hmm, seems to be for all sorts of reasons, but generally, "To make climb more Russian"

http://www.russianclimb.com/urubko_true_winter.html
Just fyi, Russians follow meteorological winter for all seasons, i.e. Fall starts on Sept 1, Spring on March 1, and Summer on June 1st.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by justiner »

Well in Soviet Russia, Meteorological Winter follow YOU!


sorry, I'm really like 11
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by Monster5 »

Eh my initial thoughts are early December is more difficult but less risky whereas March is riskier but less difficult. Unconsolidated low sugar vs more consolidated but high avy. In general. Varies by year. I've done more relatively difficult objectives in early to late December than in early March.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by DArcyS »

TomPierce wrote:Are the dates for "meteorological winter" agreed, i.e. any debate about them being fixed dates? Just curious.
Not that I really know of, but I'm hardly an expert. But I can go to Wikipedia for seasons ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season ), and I found a few will vary their definition of a meteorological season off of something other than the calendar, such as temperature.
jrbren_vt wrote:There are numerous definitions of winter, . . .
Yeah, that's why if I were to counsel a young one who's just starting out, I'd suggest climbs only between Dec 21 and Feb 28/29 for the peaks where you significantly care about it being characterized as a winter ascent. By any definition, the climb is a winter ascent.
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Re: Any Winter 14er Finishers in Meteorological Winter?

Post by SchralpTheGnar »

DArcyS wrote: Yeah, that's why if I were to counsel a young one who's just starting out, I'd suggest climbs only between Dec 21 and Feb 28/29 for the peaks where you significantly care about it being characterized as a winter ascent. By any definition, the climb is a winter ascent.
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Actually, according to my definition of winter this would not necessarily count. My definition of winter has nothing to do with dates and everything with the weather and conditions encountered. According to my standards, to claim a a winter ascent, you must encounter temperatures below 10 degrees, winds above 20 mph and snow depth of at least 18" for at least 50% of the duration from the time at which you leave the trailhead to the time that you return.

The best part of this system is that it attempts to nullify the people who cherry pick winter ascents only during prime weather conditions that are such a source of consternation amongst the winter finishers and it can be measured 100% accurately with simple weather and snow depth sampling data collected from GPS and satellite data.
Last edited by SchralpTheGnar on Fri Dec 30, 2016 10:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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