grouseking
Well-known member
Did a spur of the moment hike up Mt Cardigan on Saturday, from the state park side. I was supposed to do Mt Monroe but my friend's back hurt so we were unable to. This more than fit the bill.
Normally I wouldn't say the trip down the mtn was uneventful, let alone the trip up. But as far as trails go, the West Ridge Trail is pretty ho-hum in my book. Actually, the most entertaining part were the 100 people that we conga-lined with all the way to the summit. It was ridiculous actually, but what do you expect on a labor day weekend, even if the weather is questionable? Anyways, we were at the summit in about 40 min and were rewarded to great views despite the overcast, and some awesome winds. I knew they'd be strong, but I didn't think they'd be over 50 mph! That was according to the guy up in the firetower. So basically, I got a taste of the Presidential weather at a lower elevation with warmer weather. (Mt Washington was stuck in the 30s all day Sat) Views were awesome. We could see from Ascutney and the Greens in Vt, to Kearsarge, Ragged, Newfound Lake, the Lakes region in general, the Whites all the way to the Presidentials, over to Franc. Ridge, the Kinsmans, Moose, Smarts Mtn etc etc.
After a good 20-30 min playing around in the wind, we headed down. Instead of taking the West Ridge superhighway, we took a more scenic route, the Clark trail to South Ridge trail....much steeper than the ascent by the way. AND MUCH MORE SCENIC!! Actually, it was beautiful. Everytime I looked back I saw Cardigan with the firetower just below some dark clouds. It was quite neat to see the clouds racing just above the summit. Views down towards Mt Gilman south to Kearsarge were great, as well as views over to Newfound Lake. Then Matt turned around and saw another conga line forming on the trail heading towards us. When we reached the junction of the Skyland Trail at Rimrock, I was very tempted to head over to Mt Gilman. It was only a mile and looked quite remote for the area. But sadly, it was time to head down. Oh well, next time.
Portions of South Ridge Trail were narrow, rocky and quite steep. I even got my boot lodged between two rocks somehow (I do have size 13 shoes, but it still surprised me.) This trail was beautiful, and I was sad to see it end when we reached the junction of the West Ridge superhighway once again. So we let about 35 people go ahead of us, and then continued on our way
.
We were back at the bottom in 10-15 minutes, a nice hike with some fun weather and cool people that we met at the summit. Matt laughs at how I take so many pics, so he dared me to take 150 pics on the hike. It was a tough go considering it was only a 3.6 mile hike, but I basically pulled it off (141) . But not to worry, many of them didn't make the cut and I posted about 85 of them on webshots. Here are the pictures .
grouseking
Normally I wouldn't say the trip down the mtn was uneventful, let alone the trip up. But as far as trails go, the West Ridge Trail is pretty ho-hum in my book. Actually, the most entertaining part were the 100 people that we conga-lined with all the way to the summit. It was ridiculous actually, but what do you expect on a labor day weekend, even if the weather is questionable? Anyways, we were at the summit in about 40 min and were rewarded to great views despite the overcast, and some awesome winds. I knew they'd be strong, but I didn't think they'd be over 50 mph! That was according to the guy up in the firetower. So basically, I got a taste of the Presidential weather at a lower elevation with warmer weather. (Mt Washington was stuck in the 30s all day Sat) Views were awesome. We could see from Ascutney and the Greens in Vt, to Kearsarge, Ragged, Newfound Lake, the Lakes region in general, the Whites all the way to the Presidentials, over to Franc. Ridge, the Kinsmans, Moose, Smarts Mtn etc etc.
After a good 20-30 min playing around in the wind, we headed down. Instead of taking the West Ridge superhighway, we took a more scenic route, the Clark trail to South Ridge trail....much steeper than the ascent by the way. AND MUCH MORE SCENIC!! Actually, it was beautiful. Everytime I looked back I saw Cardigan with the firetower just below some dark clouds. It was quite neat to see the clouds racing just above the summit. Views down towards Mt Gilman south to Kearsarge were great, as well as views over to Newfound Lake. Then Matt turned around and saw another conga line forming on the trail heading towards us. When we reached the junction of the Skyland Trail at Rimrock, I was very tempted to head over to Mt Gilman. It was only a mile and looked quite remote for the area. But sadly, it was time to head down. Oh well, next time.
Portions of South Ridge Trail were narrow, rocky and quite steep. I even got my boot lodged between two rocks somehow (I do have size 13 shoes, but it still surprised me.) This trail was beautiful, and I was sad to see it end when we reached the junction of the West Ridge superhighway once again. So we let about 35 people go ahead of us, and then continued on our way
.We were back at the bottom in 10-15 minutes, a nice hike with some fun weather and cool people that we met at the summit. Matt laughs at how I take so many pics, so he dared me to take 150 pics on the hike. It was a tough go considering it was only a 3.6 mile hike, but I basically pulled it off (141)
. But not to worry, many of them didn't make the cut and I posted about 85 of them on webshots. Here are the pictures .grouseking
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