SpencerVT
Member
My wife and I camped in the car Friday night 43 million miles down the Cedar River Rd so we could get an early start Sat AM since it gets dark by like Noon now.
Being hunting season I was more orange than our President. Google Earth could probably pick up the orange in Sat. images I was so blindingly bright. I looked like a moving construction zone.
Anyhow we biked down the Otter Brook Rd / Bike path about 4 miles where there was a horrible brook crossing. Fortunately we didn't need to cross the brook but could bushwhack east towards Beaver Pond Peak. This whack was joyously open and easy, so open you could like juggle a live baby and the baby wouldn't hit anything.
In fact, I did.
Summit of Beaver Pond had some cool views - you could readily see the Pillsbury firetower. This was a cool peak!
We whacked back down to the Otter Brook rd/trail and began the ascent of Manbury. Manbury was steep and annoying. Both Little Moose and Manbury have these sloping glacial notched/sluices. Meaning, as you're going up the south side, you are always coming upon a nearly horizontal western sloping sluice for water drainage. You'd be climbing up, plateau where a drainage sluice went off to your left, have to go down into the gully and then resume ascending. It was a pain in the ass.
The episodes of somewhat open forest were punctuated by periodic spots that were chokingly thick. It was hellacious. I felt like a white dove for peace caught in the barbed wire of war, dying.
Finally made it to Manbury and then followed the ridgeline about 1 mile to Little Moose. This was the same; some open spots which frequently gave way to a black cauldron of doom. A dense fog of conifers, like being in Stephen King's the mist, but the monster was worse.
Made it to Little Moose Mountain in an hour and 15 mins from Manbury. The descent off of Little Moose was like rolling a beach ball down Tuckerman Ravine. Super steep, cliff bands, the works. The water levels are so high right now, it is actually pretty dangerous. My wife could not cross the brook on the way back to our bikes, but had to walk 1/4 mile down the brook and shimmy across on a large tree that had thankfully fallen across.
In hindsight, I would not recommend Manbury and Little Moose from the southern approach. The only reason I did it from the east is because I could pair these mountains with Beaver Pond peak on the Otter Brook side. Ordinarily I think approaching from the Cedar River side on the north is better.
Took almost 11 hours with stops. Made it to the Ambrosia diner in Queensbury which made me understand how Nelson Mandela felt when he got out of prison.
Cool boulder that was balanced in such a way you could see under it on Beaver Pond Peak:
Being hunting season I was more orange than our President. Google Earth could probably pick up the orange in Sat. images I was so blindingly bright. I looked like a moving construction zone.
Anyhow we biked down the Otter Brook Rd / Bike path about 4 miles where there was a horrible brook crossing. Fortunately we didn't need to cross the brook but could bushwhack east towards Beaver Pond Peak. This whack was joyously open and easy, so open you could like juggle a live baby and the baby wouldn't hit anything.
In fact, I did.
Summit of Beaver Pond had some cool views - you could readily see the Pillsbury firetower. This was a cool peak!
We whacked back down to the Otter Brook rd/trail and began the ascent of Manbury. Manbury was steep and annoying. Both Little Moose and Manbury have these sloping glacial notched/sluices. Meaning, as you're going up the south side, you are always coming upon a nearly horizontal western sloping sluice for water drainage. You'd be climbing up, plateau where a drainage sluice went off to your left, have to go down into the gully and then resume ascending. It was a pain in the ass.
The episodes of somewhat open forest were punctuated by periodic spots that were chokingly thick. It was hellacious. I felt like a white dove for peace caught in the barbed wire of war, dying.
Finally made it to Manbury and then followed the ridgeline about 1 mile to Little Moose. This was the same; some open spots which frequently gave way to a black cauldron of doom. A dense fog of conifers, like being in Stephen King's the mist, but the monster was worse.
Made it to Little Moose Mountain in an hour and 15 mins from Manbury. The descent off of Little Moose was like rolling a beach ball down Tuckerman Ravine. Super steep, cliff bands, the works. The water levels are so high right now, it is actually pretty dangerous. My wife could not cross the brook on the way back to our bikes, but had to walk 1/4 mile down the brook and shimmy across on a large tree that had thankfully fallen across.
In hindsight, I would not recommend Manbury and Little Moose from the southern approach. The only reason I did it from the east is because I could pair these mountains with Beaver Pond peak on the Otter Brook side. Ordinarily I think approaching from the Cedar River side on the north is better.
Took almost 11 hours with stops. Made it to the Ambrosia diner in Queensbury which made me understand how Nelson Mandela felt when he got out of prison.
Cool boulder that was balanced in such a way you could see under it on Beaver Pond Peak:
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