Cabot, The Bulge, The Horn 5/29/2015

Today's the day. I finally put plans together to hike Mt. Cabot. This peak is the northern most 4,000 footer in New Hampshire which puts it at about a 3 hour drive from my house in Southern Maine. I have a general rule that the hike should last longer than the drive. This hike is borderline for sure as book time is exactly 6 hours and I generally beat the book by an hour or more. Perhaps a loop is in order?

I woke up a little earlier than normal. 4:45am. I figured I would attempt to hit the trail by 8 as soon as the fish hatchery gate opened up. I hit the roads before 5AM and after a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts for my morning pick-me-up I arrived at the trailhead and hit the trail at 8:15. 

I made good time on the York Pond Trail and hit the Bunell Notch Trail in no time. The only issue I had was that the trail was very wet and the trail was fairly grown in so I got pretty wet pretty quickly.  I made good time though to the Kilkenny Ridge Trail. 

I continued on to Cabot Cabin.

This is my type of cabin. 

I continues on to the summit of Mt. Cabot. #42 in the books. 

At this point I had made pretty good time so I opted to make a loop out of today. 

I made the summit of The Bulge and then  took the side trail to The Horn where I took the panoramic photo below. 

I kept on going to Unknown Pond. 

Today I saw a lot of flowers. Trillium were everywhere and I even saw some White Lady Slippers. 

Today was a great day in the mountains. I bagged 3 peaks on the 100 highest list over 11.5 miles. 

Until next time. 

Family Tourist Day 5/24/2015

Today Shelby and I decided that it would be a good idea to play tourist in the White Mountains.  We woke up, got ready and hit the road.  Max was pumped as we've been telling him for a week that we are going for a hike. 

We took off and headed north.  We made stops for Gas, Dunkin Donuts and then hit the Kancamangus Highway (112) across to Lincoln.  We arrived at the Flume Visitor Center and hiked the 2 mile loop around the gorge.  Max was even more excited when we showed him his camelbak backpack that he would carry today.  Uncle Lucas gave this to him at Christmas.  Thanks Lucas.

There were a lot of bridges on the trail and water pretty much showing somewhere the entire hike.  Max loves watching running water.  For some reason he can stare at it for a long time without getting bored.  I'm thinking of installing a waterfall in our living room.

We walked over the covered bridge and came to a huge rock.  Of course, Max posed for a picture.

We then hit the trail and took lots of pictures along the way.  There were a lot of people out today being a holiday weekend. 

After finishing the Flume we stopped for lunch at the Flume Visitor Center.  Max got a slice of pizza the size of his head. 

We then made the 2 mile drive to the Basin where we walked to the Baby Flume and to the Basin itself.  Max did not want to leave the Basin.  I did play around with my iPhone a bit taking a panoramic photo of the Basin.  I'm loving my new phone.  I can see the potential in it for sure. 

We then hit the road taking the scenic route home down 93 and then to lake Winnepesauke and Route 11 where we stopped at Johnson's for a "small" Ice Cream. 

We continued home and got home just before dark.  

Stay tuned. Next week I will be hiking Mt. Cabot on Friday for an attemp at #42 of the 4,000 footer list. Here's to a great start to the summer. 

Plans

This summer my dad and I will be backpacking again for the third year in a row. We are going to complete another section of the AT. We have 3 sections that we are looking at. 

Route 3 in New Hampshire to gale river road via the Garfield Trail. 

Route 302 to route 16. 

Lastly is route 16 to route 2. 

I am so excited that I have already started to think of meal plans. My dad doesn't want to carry a stove but for me, half the fun of backpacking is the dinner each night. There is just nothing like a hot meal at the end of a long day of hiking. I have always taken care of the cooking while backpacking with my dad. 

Hopefully I can convince him to eat hot food. 

Updates to come. 

Baldface Knob and Eastman Mtn. 5/15/2015

Today I took a vacation day to get out into the woods.  I woke up at 5:00AM, assigned work for my employees from home and then hit the road.  I started on the Baldface Circle Trail at 8:00AM.  The trail was easy going for quite a while.  I made great time to Circle Junction and to the Emerald Pool Spur.  I hiked the Emerald Pool Spur.  There's a nice little gorge here ending with a pool that is in fact emerald.

Then I hiked up further finally hitting a little bit of a tougher section but still not very steep.  I took a left at the second junction with the Chandler Gorge Loop and dropped my pack in the woods.  I circled the entire loop back and then ran up the trail to grab my pack.The Chandler Gorge is a little gorge and a long smooth stream.  The trail was sort of tough to follow but if you pay attention, you can certainly get through it.  I won't do this loop again.  It was interesting but compared to other streams in the Whites I found it lacking.

I continued on to the Baldface Shelter.  There was a group of 7 there that looked like they spent the night and were doing some outdoors training together. I stopped at the shelter for a few minutes and ate a snickers bar.

Immediately after the shelter, the trail got steep.  When I say steep, I mean it.  I would never ever want to go down this section.  I had to put the poles away a few times to climb up and the trail was wet in places so I had to really stretch the legs on some areas to manage the steep steps.  I didn't take a picture from the bottom to show but trust me, it was steep.  There's a reason this hike is on the Terrifying 25 List.

Below is a view towards Baldface Knob from the upper ledges. 

 

Below is a view into Maine from the ledges.

 

About 1/2 way up to the summit, the trail looses its steepness and becomes easier again and not the chore it was using all 4's climbing.  I realized that I forgot my sunscreen and the day was beautiful so I hurried along this section to get back into the trees.  I touched the summit of Baldface Knob and continued on towards Eastman Mountain.

I hit the Eastman Mountain Trail and dropped my pack in the woods.  I saw some pretty cool things on this trail.  There was a lot of deadfall in the trail but it was all manageable to get around.  There were also tons of dead birch trees.  It's like the tops of the birch trees were just snapped off in a storm.  There were also a lot of moose droppings in the trail.  Additionally, there were at least 7 trees that I saw that had moose scrapings on them. 

 

There was also a lot of Trillium in the trail.  Red, Painted and one that looked like a hybrid.  It was more painted with a darker pinkish hue.  The Trillium were on the trail until about half way down the Slippery Brook Trail.

 



 

I finally hit the summit of Eastman Mountain and had great views all around.  I could see into Maine and to Mt. Washington.  I think I could actually see Chocoroua as well.  I sat down for a minute and ate my almond butter and jelly sandwich. 

Views into NH and Chocoroua.

 

Views of Washington (Barely)

 

After finishing my sandwich, I headed back to the junction to grab my pack. I then headed down the Slippery Brook Trail to head back down and heard something in the woods. To my surprise, it was a grouse. It didn't flush or anything, it just walked away. It was just far enought that I could not identify whether it was a spruce or ruffed. It did spook a little so I would guess ruffed. I then continued down the trail to the car eating my last snickers bar on the way. 

I arrived back at the car about 1:35PM and drove back home.  Total for the day and the year is 9.8 miles.  Off to a good start. 



Jackson Failed Attempt 3/13/2013

This year I have plans to really get some hiking in.  I want to concentrate on the 4,000' peaks because I want that patch.  Most of the 4k's I need are far away or best done during a backpack so today I thought I would attempt a 4k I had done before for training. 

I attempted Jackson and got about 1.1 miles up to the trail and hit a stream crossing that was not bridged or passable.  The snow was so deep in the area due to some winds recently and some recent snows that I saw no feasable way across.  I decided where I was hiking solo, that I would not chance the crossing so I turned around.  I did hit the trail to the elephant head here which has decent views out over route 302 in Crawford Notch. 

While today was not a waste of a day it was disappointing to only hike a little over 2 miles.  Off to a bad start to the year.