Canisters/bottles along Scar Ridge

[fmgate]

I am looking for confirmation on the number of canisters/bottles present along Scar Ridge. I summited West over the weekend, but want to eventually get to each of the others peaks with canisters. Of the 8 peaks that basically make up the ridge, this seems to be the list with canisters/bottles:

Canister located on West Scar/West Peak (elev. 3774)
Canister located on West Scar/East Peak
Canister located on East Scar/West Peak (elev. 3620)
Canister located on East Scar/East Peak

Am I missing any, or is my information incorrect?

By the way, the ascent from Little East Pond to West Scar was a beast. If you have ascended Scar Ridge by at least a couple of the four "popular" routes (Little East Pond, Loon, Big Rock, and height of land at East Pond Trail), is it correct to state that the route via Little East Pond is currently the toughest?

 

[bigmoose]

Add Middle Scar to your list.
And Scar from Little East Pond is the masochist's route.

 

[Raymond]

It took me three attempts to gain the summit of East Scar Ridge. The first two tries, I only made it to Southeast Scar Ridge. The Southeast peak’s canister is (was then, anyway) a Nalgene water bottle with a blue cap. There was a regular, albeit small, white PVC-type on the East Scar summit. It was a lot tougher — a lot tougher — to get to the East summit than it was to reach the Southeast summit. Which reminds me: If you or anyone else should find the top knob (cork) and strap (black) from my hiking pole while you’re in the vicinity, I’d love to have them back.

Four years ago, John Swanson said that the best route he’d found up Scar Ridge was to go west from Little East Pond to the prominent ridge that extends south from the main summit, and climb it. I tried to do that, but headed up too soon and ran into some cliffs. Eventually I stumbled onto a herd path which led me to the canister, which in those days was the only canister on the Hundred-Highest peak. I may or may not have made it to the true, at-the-time uncanistered summit 15 months earlier, when I’d forgotten that the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Four Thousand Footer Committee had not placed its canister on the actual high point, which could have explained why I couldn’t locate one.

The other explanation would be that I hadn’t gotten to the true summit. It certainly seemed like it should have been the high point; flat and broad, relatively open woods, with a herd path running along its middle. There was even an anchovy tin under a blowdown across the herd path. (Does any of this ring any bells with anyone?)

But while descending toward the Discovery Trail parking lot, I dropped off onto the western side of my ascent ridge (at least that’s what it felt like). There was a narrow slide with a long, steep stream flowing from it, which I hadn’t seen during my climb up and which I had to cross, which took me even further west. But I ended up at the sandpit (by the picnic tables) just off the Kanc, which, by the evidence of my map, would indicate that the drainage I had descended is the one that is between the two summit peaks, so if I went to the west from the summit into that drainage, I must been at the summit with the canister, not the true summit. But I found the canister in September 2006, and it was definitely not where I’d been in June 2005. And I don’t think it could have been the Middle peak that I had climbed, either, so I don’t know where I was. Aargh.

Another one of those hikes on which I wish I’d had a GPS, just so I would know where the heck I’d been.

Scar Ridge! Let us speak of it no more!

 

[Raymond]

... and, so much for that dictum.

I forgot to mention that you definitely don’t want to get into the col between the West and Middle Scar Ridge peaks. That way lies madness.

 

[John H Swanson]

Yep. The route from Little East Pond is actually easy providing you do not go directly from the pond area, but rather jog to the west near the outlet of the pond for a 0.2ish miles and then go for the peak.

 

[andrewb]

The more often we talk about specific locations of canisters, the more quickly they seem to disappear....

My rule of thumb is to never expect to find one, that way I am pleasantly surprised if there is one. Also, sometimes they are not actually on the summit, so finding one does not mean you are "there" necessarily, anyways.