sli74
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Dates: Feb 21 – Feb 25, 2007
Peaks: White Cap, North Kennebago, Snow COP, and East Kennebago (one or more each)
Conditions: DEEP, FLUFFY powder on the trails and unbroken roads
Gear: BIG Snowshoes, poles, skis, Imodium AD
Notes: This trip report is a rambling story in my usual long winded fashion; feel free to skip it if it is too much to read. Others will post pictures, hopefully.
This trip began in the wake of a failed attempt to plan a winter Baxter trip which fell victim to multiple scheduling conflicts. Frodo and I finally got our act together and invited a group totaling 12 to join us for an aggressive attempt of the peaks in Maine termed the 6-pack. Our group of 12 dwindled down to 8 in the final day/hours leading up to the start of the 5 day trip. I was at a cancer research conference in Santa Fe and arrived back home at 1 am on Wednesday Feb 21 and spent almost 3 hours cooking and packing for our trip. Then a thoroughly exhausted Brian and I drove up to Eustis to meet up with the rest of the gang. I was pretty nervous about the trip considering the Western Maine peaks had received almost 3 feet of snow in the huge snowstorm of the previous week and a scouting trip by Frodo and Sir Edmund/Jeffery 3 days earlier indicated that we’d be heading into vast unbroken terrain.
When the other 6 hearty souls arrived at the general store in Eustis near the campground, we loaded my sled and Brian’s backpack and ourselves into their cars/trucks which were AWD vehicles and left my 2WD car parked at the general store (very generous and kind folks). We got to Tim Pond Road around 11:45 to find it plowed and thankfully wide enough to drive up. Along the way we had a few hairy but successful passes with the logging trucks and finally arrived safely at the turn off for Kennebago River Rd road where we dug out spots for the 4 vehicles, got fully geared up and loaded our sleds to get a start on Phase 1 of the trip. The group of 8 consisted of Donna, Meri, Sean, Hamtero, Jeffery, Frodo, Brian and I . . . with all of us but Hamtero skiing and most except Hamtero and Brian pulling sleds.
Luckily for us the road had seen snowmobile traffic and the 5 to 6 mile ski into our camp for the night was mild and took me under 4 hours. We set up a nice campsite on snowshoe flattened areas and even had a comfy “kitchen” area, where we got to see the hanging of tarps by the very acrobatic Sir Edmund. Once our tents were set up and latrine areas dug out, we proceeded to melt snow for water and eat our meals before retiring early for what was for me the first real sleep I had gotten since leaving Santa Fe 36 hours earlier. Exhausted from my travels I slept through the night waking finally to Brian’s gentle nudging at 5:30am. Finally at 7:30am, our eager group got on the trail headed towards our peaks for the day. We had a mighty ambitious list on the menu for the day and I pretty much knew I would be happy to get 1 of the 3. The original plan was to get North Kennebago, Whitecap and Boundary. Early on we stayed together mostly and the going got pretty slow with trail-breaking beginning within a mile or so of our camp.
I knew from my pathetically short stint at the lead that the group would soon be leaving me behind. After a short misstep, the stronger hikers did indeed get ahead of us, leaving us the lucky recipients of a broken trail. Sean, Brian and I brought up the rear of the group. The going was pretty good until we got the point where the “bushwhack” began up WhiteCap. We saw a couple of sets of poles left at the start and proceeded to follow the tracks into what became Spruce Trap Hell. Given how many times we got trapped . . . it is hard to imagine the efforts of the trailbreakers. I just know it must have been a gargantuan job. Occasionally I’d hear a string of curses behind me as Sean kept experiencing the pitfalls of the wrong size snowshoes. After crawling into and out of spruce traps, between narrowly spaced trees, into and under “hobbit” trails, we FINALLY began to see a light at the end of the tree tunnel.
Unfortunately, I got an icky feeling that this wasn’t the summit as I could see another summit slightly to our North through the trees. However, there was a maze of footprints all over the summit-like area and just to be sure we didn’t miss the canister, if this indeed was the summit, Brian and I went exploring. There must have been a couple of dozen intertwining trails in every direction. The snowshoe prints made it clear which way the other had headed out, but Brian and I performed and exhaustive search of the other 2 dozen options, just in case. Finding nothing canister-like, we finally decided that the “other” peak to the north must be Whitecap. So, with Sean following closely behind, we dropped into a small col and headed back up, following in their tracks. About a quarter mile from the summit, we saw the rest of the crew descending from tagging the peak. We had a short discussion about the route for the descent that wouldn’t take us back over that false peak. They left us to climb Whitecap, knowing we might head back to camp after that, while they went onto North Kennebago. Sean, Brian and I soon got to the summit, signed the register, and ate a snack making the FAST descent off the peak. The last register entry before our group of 8 was back in October of last year.
Within 20 minutes we were at the start of the bushwhack to North Kennebago. They had left us an arrow in the snow, pointing us back in the direction of camp. However, I was really psyched to head up NK and so convinced Brian to join me. The trip from there back to camp was very straightforward on an old road, broken out for almost the whole way and Sean was motivated to get back to camp to start a fire and begin the party phase of the trip so we said our goodbyes and he headed back to camp while we continued on towards the second summit of the day. A few trips and falls later, we were making pretty good time up and eventually ran into Frodo coming down towards us. He was surprised to see us since we weren’t sure we’d make the 2nd summit. We told him that Sean had headed back, thanked them for breaking trail for us and went up as they went down. Tagging the summit was easy in comparison to getting into that darned canister. Finally after signing the register, we booked it off the summit, making it back to the old road just in time to pull out headlamps and head back to camp. We were exhausted when we arrived back at camp so I can’t even imagine how the trail breaking machines felt.
We spent the evening eating, melting water, warming ourselves by a campfire and chatting about our day. I felt really good to have tagged both summits and know I could have never made it without my wonderful hiking friends who broke out all those trail miles. Thanks guys. I went to bed with every intention of joining the group for the “side trip” up Cupsuptic Snow on our way out to the cars. However, morning brought a late start, with stove issues and with Brian feeling unmotivated, we decided that we’d skip the peak and head out with Sean. Jeffrey headed out early since he had to get back home, and Donna, Meri, Hamtero and Frodo went to bag the peak. By the time we moseyed our way back to Sean’s truck, it was 2pm on Friday and we were a little surprised to find all the vehicles except Sean’s gone . . . we were like “WHAT happened”. Soon we realized they must have decided against the summit and headed out. The way we felt, with every little bump feeling like a mountain, who could blame them for not wanting to break out another trail. We met them back at the Maine Roadhouse for the second phase of our trip.
Continued . . .
Peaks: White Cap, North Kennebago, Snow COP, and East Kennebago (one or more each)
Conditions: DEEP, FLUFFY powder on the trails and unbroken roads
Gear: BIG Snowshoes, poles, skis, Imodium AD
Notes: This trip report is a rambling story in my usual long winded fashion; feel free to skip it if it is too much to read. Others will post pictures, hopefully.
This trip began in the wake of a failed attempt to plan a winter Baxter trip which fell victim to multiple scheduling conflicts. Frodo and I finally got our act together and invited a group totaling 12 to join us for an aggressive attempt of the peaks in Maine termed the 6-pack. Our group of 12 dwindled down to 8 in the final day/hours leading up to the start of the 5 day trip. I was at a cancer research conference in Santa Fe and arrived back home at 1 am on Wednesday Feb 21 and spent almost 3 hours cooking and packing for our trip. Then a thoroughly exhausted Brian and I drove up to Eustis to meet up with the rest of the gang. I was pretty nervous about the trip considering the Western Maine peaks had received almost 3 feet of snow in the huge snowstorm of the previous week and a scouting trip by Frodo and Sir Edmund/Jeffery 3 days earlier indicated that we’d be heading into vast unbroken terrain.
When the other 6 hearty souls arrived at the general store in Eustis near the campground, we loaded my sled and Brian’s backpack and ourselves into their cars/trucks which were AWD vehicles and left my 2WD car parked at the general store (very generous and kind folks). We got to Tim Pond Road around 11:45 to find it plowed and thankfully wide enough to drive up. Along the way we had a few hairy but successful passes with the logging trucks and finally arrived safely at the turn off for Kennebago River Rd road where we dug out spots for the 4 vehicles, got fully geared up and loaded our sleds to get a start on Phase 1 of the trip. The group of 8 consisted of Donna, Meri, Sean, Hamtero, Jeffery, Frodo, Brian and I . . . with all of us but Hamtero skiing and most except Hamtero and Brian pulling sleds.
Luckily for us the road had seen snowmobile traffic and the 5 to 6 mile ski into our camp for the night was mild and took me under 4 hours. We set up a nice campsite on snowshoe flattened areas and even had a comfy “kitchen” area, where we got to see the hanging of tarps by the very acrobatic Sir Edmund. Once our tents were set up and latrine areas dug out, we proceeded to melt snow for water and eat our meals before retiring early for what was for me the first real sleep I had gotten since leaving Santa Fe 36 hours earlier. Exhausted from my travels I slept through the night waking finally to Brian’s gentle nudging at 5:30am. Finally at 7:30am, our eager group got on the trail headed towards our peaks for the day. We had a mighty ambitious list on the menu for the day and I pretty much knew I would be happy to get 1 of the 3. The original plan was to get North Kennebago, Whitecap and Boundary. Early on we stayed together mostly and the going got pretty slow with trail-breaking beginning within a mile or so of our camp.
I knew from my pathetically short stint at the lead that the group would soon be leaving me behind. After a short misstep, the stronger hikers did indeed get ahead of us, leaving us the lucky recipients of a broken trail. Sean, Brian and I brought up the rear of the group. The going was pretty good until we got the point where the “bushwhack” began up WhiteCap. We saw a couple of sets of poles left at the start and proceeded to follow the tracks into what became Spruce Trap Hell. Given how many times we got trapped . . . it is hard to imagine the efforts of the trailbreakers. I just know it must have been a gargantuan job. Occasionally I’d hear a string of curses behind me as Sean kept experiencing the pitfalls of the wrong size snowshoes. After crawling into and out of spruce traps, between narrowly spaced trees, into and under “hobbit” trails, we FINALLY began to see a light at the end of the tree tunnel.
Unfortunately, I got an icky feeling that this wasn’t the summit as I could see another summit slightly to our North through the trees. However, there was a maze of footprints all over the summit-like area and just to be sure we didn’t miss the canister, if this indeed was the summit, Brian and I went exploring. There must have been a couple of dozen intertwining trails in every direction. The snowshoe prints made it clear which way the other had headed out, but Brian and I performed and exhaustive search of the other 2 dozen options, just in case. Finding nothing canister-like, we finally decided that the “other” peak to the north must be Whitecap. So, with Sean following closely behind, we dropped into a small col and headed back up, following in their tracks. About a quarter mile from the summit, we saw the rest of the crew descending from tagging the peak. We had a short discussion about the route for the descent that wouldn’t take us back over that false peak. They left us to climb Whitecap, knowing we might head back to camp after that, while they went onto North Kennebago. Sean, Brian and I soon got to the summit, signed the register, and ate a snack making the FAST descent off the peak. The last register entry before our group of 8 was back in October of last year.
Within 20 minutes we were at the start of the bushwhack to North Kennebago. They had left us an arrow in the snow, pointing us back in the direction of camp. However, I was really psyched to head up NK and so convinced Brian to join me. The trip from there back to camp was very straightforward on an old road, broken out for almost the whole way and Sean was motivated to get back to camp to start a fire and begin the party phase of the trip so we said our goodbyes and he headed back to camp while we continued on towards the second summit of the day. A few trips and falls later, we were making pretty good time up and eventually ran into Frodo coming down towards us. He was surprised to see us since we weren’t sure we’d make the 2nd summit. We told him that Sean had headed back, thanked them for breaking trail for us and went up as they went down. Tagging the summit was easy in comparison to getting into that darned canister. Finally after signing the register, we booked it off the summit, making it back to the old road just in time to pull out headlamps and head back to camp. We were exhausted when we arrived back at camp so I can’t even imagine how the trail breaking machines felt.
We spent the evening eating, melting water, warming ourselves by a campfire and chatting about our day. I felt really good to have tagged both summits and know I could have never made it without my wonderful hiking friends who broke out all those trail miles. Thanks guys. I went to bed with every intention of joining the group for the “side trip” up Cupsuptic Snow on our way out to the cars. However, morning brought a late start, with stove issues and with Brian feeling unmotivated, we decided that we’d skip the peak and head out with Sean. Jeffrey headed out early since he had to get back home, and Donna, Meri, Hamtero and Frodo went to bag the peak. By the time we moseyed our way back to Sean’s truck, it was 2pm on Friday and we were a little surprised to find all the vehicles except Sean’s gone . . . we were like “WHAT happened”. Soon we realized they must have decided against the summit and headed out. The way we felt, with every little bump feeling like a mountain, who could blame them for not wanting to break out another trail. We met them back at the Maine Roadhouse for the second phase of our trip.
Continued . . .
. . . Some time after I had headed to bed; the plans took a turn to include hiking Boundary the next day since the road was rumored to be plowed. So, the next morning we drove to the road to find it was plowed but had 2 LARGE signs that forbade the use of the road without permission. Being unwilling to take the risk, we went back to our original plan of Snow COP. Our group had grown to 11 hikers this morning as Arm, MEB, Steveo, JC and GO joined us for this hike. We strapped on skis and made our way down the gorgeous trail for some fabulous skiing. This is the best snow conditions in almost 2 years.
