Bill and Sheep
New member
Given the beautiful weather yesterday, it seemed like the perfect at add another hike to the "difficult approaches to easy peaks" series. This time I decided upon a big loop over the Carters from the Wild River Campground. Last year, I had done a similar hike covering Moriah and Shelburne Moriah and found the sense of isolation out there unique and wonderful. So, off it was to Wild River. I drove up on Friday night. After the over 4 hour trip from work, Sheep and I quickly got ready to sleep. I must say, that with all of the seats folded down, my Honda Element is not much less comfortable than my bed at home. Adding in the views of the night sky through the sun roof actually gives the edge to the Element.
After a good night's sleep, we woke up around 6:45 and hit the trail around 7:10am. The morning air was very cold- likely a bit below freezing, so hat and gloves were a necessity at the start of the hike. The initial walk on the Wild River Trail was easy and a nice warm up. It's an old forest road of some sort so it's generally easy going. The river crossing near the site of the old "spider bridge" was easy to do with dry feet and soon we were on the Black Angel Trail. This trail was a typical Wilderness trail- occasionally a bit narrow, hard to follow at water crossings and most importantly for me, totally devoid of people. I love being able to go out on a weekend day and get hours of solitary hiking. It just gives me that much more connection to the world around me.
For the most part, the Black Angel Trail was moderate and not too rough. As we approached the upper end, there were a few really cool scrambles. One in particular, I would not have wanted to attempt in wet or icy conditions. Others reminded me a bit of the scrambles on the Blueberry Ledge Trail to Mt. Whiteface. Soon we were above those scrambles and at the junction of the Crater Moriah Trail. After the narrow confines of the Black Angel, the CM Trail was like a superhighway. It even had a fair amount of human traffic to navigate through. We took the quick half mile jaunt over to Carter Dome and words could not describe the beauty of the day. Views were endless and the day was warm enough for short sleeves even on the summit. We took a well-deserved breakfast break, soaked in the views and chatted with folks joining us on the summit.
After seeing the views on the Dome today, I was very excited to get to Mt. Hight. The walk from Carter Dome to Mount Hight is easier than it deserves to be. One should have to work harder for the rewards this peak offers. Once we arrived, the views did not disappoint and it was impossible to do anything but sit down and take them in. I had planned to move over the peaks pretty quickly as we had an over 20 mile day planned, but time passed quiclky until I realized I had spent over an hour taking in the beauty of these two peaks. Reluctantly, we moved on.
The scramble off of Mt. Hight was as rugged and steep as I remembered by the hard part was over quickly and the trip down to Zeta Pass went by quickly. From here, it was time to climb again. I had never hiked South and Middle Carter outside of winter so this was like a brand new hike to me. While parts of this hike were pretty steep, we made it to the summit pretty quickly. Pausing only for some quick photos, it was onward towards Middle Carter.
The hike to Middle and North Carter was much more beautiful than I remembered. I had previously covered this ground on a view-free winter day so I was amazed at the number of viewpoints giving us access to spectacular views. Middle Carter has a number of false summits and fatigue was starting to set in so we began taking breaks a little more regularly here. Finally, we took a longer break and chatted with some other hikers at the North Carter Trail junction.
At this junction, I reunited with a hiker I had first encountered at Carter Dome. His name was Brian and we was considering a traverse from Nineteen Mile Brook to Gorham today. He would be our company for the next 3 miles or so. As much as I enjoyed the solitude of the early morning hiking, Sheep and I enjoyed having a hiking partner on the way to the Stoney Brook Trail junction. The descent from North Carter was steep and occasionally treacherous. It seemed to go on forever reminding me a bit of coming down off of East Osceola. Eventually it flattened out a bit and we made our way to the Stoney Brook junction. Here, Brian left us as he decided to bail out leaving Moriah for another day. Sheep and I continued on to the nearby Moriah Brook Trail and began our return to civilization.
We had a little over 6 miles to go and I was hoping for a relatively easy sprint back to the campground. The upper reaches of this trail left no room for sprinting as they were rocky, moss covered, muddy messes with lots of slightly annoying stream crossings. The first hour of descent took a lot of concentration as there were never more than 10 predictable steps. Not that this is a difficult trail, I had done it previously going up- it's just that fatigue can make a trail like this much more of a challenge than it normally is. Finally we made it past the roughest section and were on our way. That is we were one our way but the trail suddenly vanished. We backtracked several times but still could not find the trail. Finally, it was time to pull out the GPS and ask for help. I set a waypoint for a few hundred feet down the trail and followed it- still no trail. After trying this a few more times, we eventually reconnected with the trail about 1/4 mile past the point we lost it. It seems we had somehow followed a herd path away from the brook. Thank goodness for GPS maps with accurate trail markings!
From here on out we were truly in death march mode- just pounding our way down the trail hoping to hear the Wild River ahead of us again. The 5.5 miles down the Moriah Brook ended up taking about 2.5 hours. The last crossing on the Moriah Brook trail is a bit tricky and I slipped off of a wet rock and soaked one foot, but I was pretty proud that I had kept my feet dry for 19 miles. Finally, we hit the Wild River Trail junction and made our way to the truly spectacular suspension bridge (located a small distance outside the Wilderness region) and back to the campsite. We made it back at around 6:10pm for an elapsed time of 11 hours for the 20.5 mile loop. We packed away our stuff and even made it back to route 2 before dark.
Despite my sore legs today, this will be a trip I'll remember for a long time. The contrast of the solitude of the east side of the range and the beauty and business of the ridge is striking and the challenge of a 20+ mile hike always brings memories of its own. If you haven't explored the Carter Range from the East, I highly recommend giving it a chance. There's a totally different feel to the whole range when you approach from this side.
I'll have photos of this hike up later today at: http://www.sheeprocks.com
After a good night's sleep, we woke up around 6:45 and hit the trail around 7:10am. The morning air was very cold- likely a bit below freezing, so hat and gloves were a necessity at the start of the hike. The initial walk on the Wild River Trail was easy and a nice warm up. It's an old forest road of some sort so it's generally easy going. The river crossing near the site of the old "spider bridge" was easy to do with dry feet and soon we were on the Black Angel Trail. This trail was a typical Wilderness trail- occasionally a bit narrow, hard to follow at water crossings and most importantly for me, totally devoid of people. I love being able to go out on a weekend day and get hours of solitary hiking. It just gives me that much more connection to the world around me.
For the most part, the Black Angel Trail was moderate and not too rough. As we approached the upper end, there were a few really cool scrambles. One in particular, I would not have wanted to attempt in wet or icy conditions. Others reminded me a bit of the scrambles on the Blueberry Ledge Trail to Mt. Whiteface. Soon we were above those scrambles and at the junction of the Crater Moriah Trail. After the narrow confines of the Black Angel, the CM Trail was like a superhighway. It even had a fair amount of human traffic to navigate through. We took the quick half mile jaunt over to Carter Dome and words could not describe the beauty of the day. Views were endless and the day was warm enough for short sleeves even on the summit. We took a well-deserved breakfast break, soaked in the views and chatted with folks joining us on the summit.
After seeing the views on the Dome today, I was very excited to get to Mt. Hight. The walk from Carter Dome to Mount Hight is easier than it deserves to be. One should have to work harder for the rewards this peak offers. Once we arrived, the views did not disappoint and it was impossible to do anything but sit down and take them in. I had planned to move over the peaks pretty quickly as we had an over 20 mile day planned, but time passed quiclky until I realized I had spent over an hour taking in the beauty of these two peaks. Reluctantly, we moved on.
The scramble off of Mt. Hight was as rugged and steep as I remembered by the hard part was over quickly and the trip down to Zeta Pass went by quickly. From here, it was time to climb again. I had never hiked South and Middle Carter outside of winter so this was like a brand new hike to me. While parts of this hike were pretty steep, we made it to the summit pretty quickly. Pausing only for some quick photos, it was onward towards Middle Carter.
The hike to Middle and North Carter was much more beautiful than I remembered. I had previously covered this ground on a view-free winter day so I was amazed at the number of viewpoints giving us access to spectacular views. Middle Carter has a number of false summits and fatigue was starting to set in so we began taking breaks a little more regularly here. Finally, we took a longer break and chatted with some other hikers at the North Carter Trail junction.
At this junction, I reunited with a hiker I had first encountered at Carter Dome. His name was Brian and we was considering a traverse from Nineteen Mile Brook to Gorham today. He would be our company for the next 3 miles or so. As much as I enjoyed the solitude of the early morning hiking, Sheep and I enjoyed having a hiking partner on the way to the Stoney Brook Trail junction. The descent from North Carter was steep and occasionally treacherous. It seemed to go on forever reminding me a bit of coming down off of East Osceola. Eventually it flattened out a bit and we made our way to the Stoney Brook junction. Here, Brian left us as he decided to bail out leaving Moriah for another day. Sheep and I continued on to the nearby Moriah Brook Trail and began our return to civilization.
We had a little over 6 miles to go and I was hoping for a relatively easy sprint back to the campground. The upper reaches of this trail left no room for sprinting as they were rocky, moss covered, muddy messes with lots of slightly annoying stream crossings. The first hour of descent took a lot of concentration as there were never more than 10 predictable steps. Not that this is a difficult trail, I had done it previously going up- it's just that fatigue can make a trail like this much more of a challenge than it normally is. Finally we made it past the roughest section and were on our way. That is we were one our way but the trail suddenly vanished. We backtracked several times but still could not find the trail. Finally, it was time to pull out the GPS and ask for help. I set a waypoint for a few hundred feet down the trail and followed it- still no trail. After trying this a few more times, we eventually reconnected with the trail about 1/4 mile past the point we lost it. It seems we had somehow followed a herd path away from the brook. Thank goodness for GPS maps with accurate trail markings!
From here on out we were truly in death march mode- just pounding our way down the trail hoping to hear the Wild River ahead of us again. The 5.5 miles down the Moriah Brook ended up taking about 2.5 hours. The last crossing on the Moriah Brook trail is a bit tricky and I slipped off of a wet rock and soaked one foot, but I was pretty proud that I had kept my feet dry for 19 miles. Finally, we hit the Wild River Trail junction and made our way to the truly spectacular suspension bridge (located a small distance outside the Wilderness region) and back to the campsite. We made it back at around 6:10pm for an elapsed time of 11 hours for the 20.5 mile loop. We packed away our stuff and even made it back to route 2 before dark.
Despite my sore legs today, this will be a trip I'll remember for a long time. The contrast of the solitude of the east side of the range and the beauty and business of the ridge is striking and the challenge of a 20+ mile hike always brings memories of its own. If you haven't explored the Carter Range from the East, I highly recommend giving it a chance. There's a totally different feel to the whole range when you approach from this side.
I'll have photos of this hike up later today at: http://www.sheeprocks.com
