Great Range, 7/29

We did our (8th? 9th?) annual Great Range traverse on Saturday. We always go Rooster Comb parking through to the Garden, as it's more aesthetic to finish on the highest peak.

We hit the trail about 5:30 AM. Conditions were quite good, with almost no bugs and just enough light to make good time without headlamps.

We stuck with our usual water plan, about 1/2 liter each to start, and carry a filter. While it's unglamorous, the biggest single climb on the Range trip is the first one, from the parking lot, past Rooster Comb and up Hedgehog. It pays to travel light there. My wife also had some 50/50 water/gatorade in a separate bladder, which was beneficial as the day went on.

The trail up RC is really solid, having been newly built, and properly routed and drained. We made good time up RC and Hedgehog. The Hedgehog trail is very discouraging at the start, being basically a streambed that needs to be rerouted, but if it's not actively raining, it's not too bad, and after a couple hundred yards it improves. Most of Hedgehog is soft pine woods trail, and very pleasant.

We filtered water at Deer Brook, just past the W. A. White trail.

LWJ/UWJ were fun, as usual, with many rock scrambles adding to the hike. We met our first people in the WJ Notch, a group of lads with a couple leaders, who must have gotten a nice early start; they were headed to LWJ, and then across UWJ, Armstrong and Gothics.

After UWJ, the trail just got muddier and muddier, with many undrained bogs that have seen no maintenance at all. It's a remote area, and volunteer crews can only do so much.

Armstrong was fun as always. The big ladder is still solid. (Still can't believe Cav Dog jumped that wall.) We successfully negotiated my favorite obstacle, the Potato Shaped Rock, which looks very innocent but especially bedevils shorter hikers. The herd paths around it are a testament to its annoying nature.

From Armstrong down to the Beaver Meadow trail col was very slow, with extensive swamps in the trail. Gothics was easy as it always seems to be from this direction. Met a nice group of folks on the summit of Gothics. After the summit of Gothics, the trail became fairly crowded, and we met all sorts of nice people.

Much of the trail from this point on was heavily grown in, and has seen no sidecutting. Some sections were so grown in it was hard to see your feet.

Down the cable trail was the slipperiest its ever been. I had trail runners, and I usually stick quite well with those. I was actually slipping in some spots (and it hadn't even started raining yet). Folks with hard sole hiking boots were just struggling, dragging themselves up hand over hand

We rolled over little Saddleback and had a nice run down the rocks, whcih went very quickly this year. The paint blazes have really faded, and unless you know the trail, you really have to look for them to go the best way.

The first showers of the day started when we were in the Saddleback Basin col, which is my favorite spot. It's a fairy land of flowers and grasses, and no marked trail comes up into it, so it has a nice remote feel.

Basin is huge, but my wife got her second wind and we rolled over it fairly quickly. Again I ran ahead to filter water at the old Snowbird Lean to site, and then we pushed for the last couple climbs. Met a big family with a bunch of nice kids, pushing over Haystack, Basin and Saddleback. (Ran into them again at JBL later. Good job by the young people doing some tough peaks!)

Views of Haystack from the ridge were great. The trail down the ridge was a river (no waterbars at all, just a couple waterbars would divert that).

No views at all from Marcy around 3:45 PM, as the weather had begun to close up. We tagged the summit and headed down immediately. Chatted with the Ranger, who was helping out a young man with a couple pulled muscles right at the base of the rock cone. Long walk out; I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable!

The trail from Marcy down to Slant Rock was really a mess. Rotted out bridges, rivers running wholesale in the trail, chunks of blowdown thrown in for steps. It didn't improve until we got down to the series of rock staircases near Slant Rock.

At which point, the skies opened. The last few hours from Slant Rock out were mostly in a torrrential downpour and thunderstorm. It was raining extremely hard and lightning was less than 1/2 mile away when we got to Bushnell Falls. We stopped for a couple minutes, and considered whether we should pull out the space blankets and just stay there for the night, but then the lightning abated, and we decided to march out. On the way from Slant Rock to Bushnell, we said hello to a gentleman with two fairly small kids, who were good naturedly hiking INTO the wilderness in a lightning storm at 6 PM. Smiling! Those kids are going to grow up tough.

The rain was only light when we got to JBL, but on the way out to the Garden a second storm rolled through, and we just gave up trying to stay clean or dry.

We didn't catch a ride down from the Garden, so our car to car trip was about 25.5 miles, 9K of vertical.

We have a place in Keene, and it was a real pleasure to take hot showers and make it to Baxter Mtn. Tavern in time for some food!

Overall, it was a great, scenic trip, as it always is. Definitely the toughest and wettest Range trip we've done.

Commentary: The first time I hiked the range in a day was 1992. The condition of the trails has really gone downhill tremendously, even with usage being down. The only trail that's improved is the new RoosterComb trail, vs. the old one from the Garden road. (And of course, the replacement cables on Gothics.) Partly, it's these two most recent very wet years. But also, the amount of maintenance is really down. I do volunteer trail maintenance, but volunteer crews can only do so much. I would like to see the State allocate a little more money to professional trail crews. I'd also like to see the professional crews authorized to use power tools. It's crazy for a professional maintenance crew to be chopping blowdown with axes. I know it's a Wilderness, but we have to make up our minds whether we want trails or not. I also know trail maintenance doesn't buy a lot of votes, but it's a shame to see these trails deteriorate the way they have.

Still love the Range Traverse! One of my favorite hikes.

TCD

Wow. What a tremendous hike.

Did it seem to you that going down Gothics was slipperier than before?

How tough is it between Haystack and Marcy? That's the only part my wife and I haven't done yet.

We'd like to try your route but it seems too daunting right now. Lot of respect for what you did.

Thanks!

Yes, going down Gothics was noticeably slipperier than in the past. I think the couple of wet years have allowed lichen to really flourish, even in the areas that are heavily walked on. Also, even though it wasn't yet raining, it was already very humid, and I think some of that lichen is hygroscopic. I was surprised when I slipped a couple of times, because with trail runners, I usually don't slip.

We don't actually go out to Haystack (I always try to talk my wife into it, but it's a hard sell). But from the Haystack trail junction down to the Phelps trail isn't too bad. The trail is in fairly good shape,mostly rock and gravel. There are a couple sections where there is a lot of water running on the trail, and if you try to go too fast, the gravel can roll out on you, but not bad.

Once you are on the Phelps trail, it's pretty solid. It's 1.3 miles and 1244 feet of vertical from the Phelps trail junction up Marcy, but it's mostly gentle grades. Quite a bit of hopping on larger rocks in the lower sections. Once you break out on the rock cone of Marcy, you can gain height quickly, because it's all open with good footing. I think "end motivation" helps at that point, also.

The Great Range is kind of like an entry level "Mega Hike." I first talked my wife into it about 9 years ago. We do a lot of other long hikes earlier in the season to help her train for it, so she can enjoy it. The keys to enjoying the hike are training, trail runners (I'd hate to do it again in heavy boots), water filtration, very light packs, an early start, and if you are lucky, a cool day.

I hope you get to take the hike. Give it a run! A good thing about the Range is that you can quit any time you want. You can drop down the Wolfjaws Notch trail, Orebed Brook trail, even the Shorey Short Cut and go right down to the Garden.

Have fun!

TCD

Trail maintenance

TCD,

We too have noticed that trail conditions have worsened considerably the last two years and that rock surface everywhere are more slippery, even getting "green" and "brown" in many places. It seems that no matter when one goes on the trail water is running if not gushing down the path! Oddly dryer conditions have only prevails in the spring.

This past winter saw three different storms (wind and ice in November, February and April)) hitting the high High Peaks area, consequently zillions of tree tops are litterring the trails and it has been a huge job for the Rangers, the volonteers and the trail crews the last 2 months to just clear the most important trails. We need more volonteers and/or to make donation to cover for trail work crew. In the meantime if each one of us clear a bit here and there as we climb it will be a great help.

Christine

Trail Conditions

I have to disagree. I think it depends on when you go. We do our Great Range Hike around the Summer Solstice. This year (June 23) conditions were great - hardly any mud and pretty good trail conditions. I remarked at the time that conditions were the best in years. We started from the HPIC and ended at the Rooster Comb trailhead.

If we had gone after a recent bout of rain, or in the rain, I think I would be singing a different tune. Of course, the tune I was singing at the end of the hike was more like a combination of wailing/moaning as my calves were cramping up!