Double Bow
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- Apr 29, 2005
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Not having had quite enough fun with Caribou Valley (Pond) Road, Shamie and I headed back down there on Labor Day to give doing these three a try. The day was cool and beautiful with clear skies, perfect hiking weather! Once more, we navigated all the holes, dips,and pits on CVR and got to the AT crossing.
Like on Sugarloaf the day before, the climb up was steep yet gentle. I've found these sections of trail to be softer than most trails in the Whites. We soon reached the spur for the Crocker Cirque Campsite but, didn't take the side trip. I didn't want to tack anything else on as I knew that getting Shamie to try the "herd path" over to Redington from South Crocker was already pushing the envelope.
Instead, we continued up until we hit the summit of South Crocker (Shamie's "48" of the 67), which I mistakenly thought was supposed to have views. We had some great views on the way up but not from the summit. We saw quite clearly where the "herd path" starts as we pushed right on by towards Crocker after a short break. We had decided that Crocker and Redington would be where we would take our longer breaks.
On Crocker, we bet a NoBo ATer named Happy Song or something like that and we talked for awhile. He was very nice and very happy to be getting near the end. He shared some great stories and we gave him the latest weather report and advice on where in town to go for suplies (he needed to restock). On an interesting note, he said that he had been wearing trail runners at one point but, had switched back to boots because of "the principal of the whole thing". You don't hear of too many switches like that!
After awhile, we parted ways and Shamie and I headed back to South Crocker. Once there, we got ready for the "herd path" and headed in. The beginning took us to a nice viewpoint and really was like any other trail in fairly open woods. Sure enough, as we went along we passed the AT corridor and numerous blowdowns before reaching the clearing. I was happily suprised. It was much easier than I thought it would be!
Once at the clearing, we took a hard left and walked toward Redington looking for the logging road. I thought it might be faint and hard to find. Boy, was I wrong! It would have been nearly impossible for us to miss the logging road. It even had a cairn in the middle of it and tape flagging it, as if you needed either of them! We stopped for a moment and admired the view before heading up the road a short ways. One note, take caution when going through the clearing as it is full of poison ivy!
We saw a couple of possible ways into the woods from the logging road but, there was one that definately looked more traveled than the others and that's what we took. It went along pretty steadily we soon found ourselves on a contour of the mountain. Unfortunately, we followed this contour a little too long and missed where it turned uphill at first. We soon realized our mistake and headed back. On the way back, I found it and as soon as I turned onto it I noticed flagging. DOH!
Back on track, we climbed steadily in more open woods and eventualy joined up with the orange blaze trail which brougth us out to the summit area and the wreckage of the wind tower. We took a break there and read (and signed) the register in the canister. As we were finishing our snack, we saw the dogs we had seen the day before on Spaulding. A little bit later, their owners arrived. We chatted again and then Shamie and I headed back down the trail, this time following the orange blaze trail to the logging road.
Although we had brought the directions from Mo's web site to follow in reverse, we never needed to look at them, thanks to the nature of the road and the log arrows and cairns that Mike P and others put in place (thanks!). After the road smoothed a bit, we changed into our trailrunners which we brought based on the suggestion from Bob&Geri (thanks!). This allowed the couple with the dogs to catch up to us and the four of us continued the rest of the way down to CVR where they continued up the road and we went back down to our car, passing lots of "interesting" bridges. Back at the car, we cracked open a couple of cold ones and toasted to a job well done and to #57 (for me) and #50 (for Shamie) of the 67.
Like on Sugarloaf the day before, the climb up was steep yet gentle. I've found these sections of trail to be softer than most trails in the Whites. We soon reached the spur for the Crocker Cirque Campsite but, didn't take the side trip. I didn't want to tack anything else on as I knew that getting Shamie to try the "herd path" over to Redington from South Crocker was already pushing the envelope.
Instead, we continued up until we hit the summit of South Crocker (Shamie's "48" of the 67), which I mistakenly thought was supposed to have views. We had some great views on the way up but not from the summit. We saw quite clearly where the "herd path" starts as we pushed right on by towards Crocker after a short break. We had decided that Crocker and Redington would be where we would take our longer breaks.
On Crocker, we bet a NoBo ATer named Happy Song or something like that and we talked for awhile. He was very nice and very happy to be getting near the end. He shared some great stories and we gave him the latest weather report and advice on where in town to go for suplies (he needed to restock). On an interesting note, he said that he had been wearing trail runners at one point but, had switched back to boots because of "the principal of the whole thing". You don't hear of too many switches like that!
After awhile, we parted ways and Shamie and I headed back to South Crocker. Once there, we got ready for the "herd path" and headed in. The beginning took us to a nice viewpoint and really was like any other trail in fairly open woods. Sure enough, as we went along we passed the AT corridor and numerous blowdowns before reaching the clearing. I was happily suprised. It was much easier than I thought it would be!
Once at the clearing, we took a hard left and walked toward Redington looking for the logging road. I thought it might be faint and hard to find. Boy, was I wrong! It would have been nearly impossible for us to miss the logging road. It even had a cairn in the middle of it and tape flagging it, as if you needed either of them! We stopped for a moment and admired the view before heading up the road a short ways. One note, take caution when going through the clearing as it is full of poison ivy!
We saw a couple of possible ways into the woods from the logging road but, there was one that definately looked more traveled than the others and that's what we took. It went along pretty steadily we soon found ourselves on a contour of the mountain. Unfortunately, we followed this contour a little too long and missed where it turned uphill at first. We soon realized our mistake and headed back. On the way back, I found it and as soon as I turned onto it I noticed flagging. DOH!
Back on track, we climbed steadily in more open woods and eventualy joined up with the orange blaze trail which brougth us out to the summit area and the wreckage of the wind tower. We took a break there and read (and signed) the register in the canister. As we were finishing our snack, we saw the dogs we had seen the day before on Spaulding. A little bit later, their owners arrived. We chatted again and then Shamie and I headed back down the trail, this time following the orange blaze trail to the logging road.
Although we had brought the directions from Mo's web site to follow in reverse, we never needed to look at them, thanks to the nature of the road and the log arrows and cairns that Mike P and others put in place (thanks!). After the road smoothed a bit, we changed into our trailrunners which we brought based on the suggestion from Bob&Geri (thanks!). This allowed the couple with the dogs to catch up to us and the four of us continued the rest of the way down to CVR where they continued up the road and we went back down to our car, passing lots of "interesting" bridges. Back at the car, we cracked open a couple of cold ones and toasted to a job well done and to #57 (for me) and #50 (for Shamie) of the 67.
