All 4 Huntingtons in a day (Whites)

[SpencerVT]

Since I learned last week that Jefferson Notch Road was still closed, we decided to wait on Millen Hill and Mt. Dartmouth. Instead my wife and I headed up the Kancamagus Pass to attempt to the hike the 4 Huntington Peaks above 3000'. Tough thick Class 4 bushwhack 90% of the entire day. I am starting to think that everything off of the upper part of the Kanc between Lincoln and Conway is just brutally uncompromisingly thick. We got a nice early start of 12 Noon and headed up to do the easternmost Huntington first since it is the most remote. The last hundred yards to the top of the nubble were extremely thick prison bar cripplebush that was like nature's violence against hikers.
There is a little clearing at the summit and we signed in at the canister. Next we hit the two Main Huntington peaks both ~3700'. Took a long time to get from the easternmost Huntington to the first main peak. Still a good amount of snow in the shadows at that elevation. However, the easiest part of the day was hiking between the two main Huntington Peaks - the distance is so short it must just barely meet the requirement as a separate peak. Took only like 25 minutes or so to get from one to the other. By this time it was getting late, but despite the intense whacking we decided to push ahead to the westernmost Huntington with the main cliff face. Going along the ridge towards the westernmost Huntington was another brief respite from the spruces of doom, but then soon as we started to drop over into the col it became an all out conifer attack again the rest of the day.
We had to be careful descending off the westernmost Huntington so that we didn't hit the cliffs, but we pretty easily backtracked down to the col and around the cliffs. We did encounter an enormous slide we had to go around on the way back to the Kanc. Made it back to the road at 8:45, nearly 9 hours after commencing the hike. No black flies! A great day - cloudy but not hot, overall nice weather.

View from above the slide on Huntington West looking out towards the Kancamagus.

At the summit of Huntington West 3393'. Averaged less than 1 mile an hour all day.

This water channel in the granite of the slide coming off of the westernmost Huntington was pretty fascinating. It must've take so many millennia for that tiny amount of water to carve a nearly perfectly straight water channel through the granite.

 

[TJsName]

My understanding is that that crack isn't from water erosion (as you're right it would take a super long time), but is actually a band of a softer basalt that intruded into cracks in the granite. I'm willing to bet someone can explain it better here though.

 

[SpencerVT]

That's interesting. I know next to nothing about geology, so that very well could be right. Very cool to encounter though and definitely unusual.

 

[TomK]

Is it possible that the channel fills with water, freezes, and the expanding ice expands the channel? Still a looong time to create the channel that is there now....

 

[TJsName]

That's interesting. I know next to nothing about geology, so that very well could be right. Very cool to encounter though and definitely unusual.

A fun fact about lava is the longer it takes to cool, the harder it gets. When it cools quickly it can be soft and brittle, vs the hard granite domes that slowly cooled while insulted by the surrounding early. Geology is neat - tells a story.

 

[TEO]

My understanding is that that crack isn't from water erosion (as you're right it would take a super long time), but is actually a band of a softer basalt that intruded into cracks in the granite. I'm willing to bet someone can explain it better here though.

These intrusions are called dikes, or dykes if you're from Britain. Most dikes are basalt, but not all. Often times the dikes are softer than the surrounding rock & wear away more quickly. But sometimes the dike is harder than the rock that it intrudes into & when the softer rock wears away the dikes form ridges. But of course, it is weathering by water, wind, ice, etc. that wears away the softer rock.