poison ivy
Well-known member
Saturday morning, I was up bright and early and hoping to put my last two weekends of bushwhacking behind me in order to make a fresh start. My last two attempts to bushwhack (one with company, one solo) ended without me reaching a summit and it was a trend I was hoping to break with a second attempt to hike 3,782-foot Cupsuptic Snow. Thankfully, Big Earl was not scared off by my tales of woe and agreed to join me for a weekend of ‘whacking in Maine.
Before meeting up with Big Earl in Oquossoc, I stopped the car for a turkey and a moose crossing the road (no, not together) As we headed down Route 16 to the logging roads, we saw a ton of snowshoe hares. Fortunately, navigating down the logging roads was pretty easy since I had been here a couple of weeks ago so we didn’t have any trouble with the directions.
About 1.5 miles from the traditional parking area there, a big pine tree is blocking the road. Earl attempted to pull it out of the way but his rope had a small fray in it and came apart quite quickly. Satisfied that we at least tried to get rid of the blowdown, we parked our car and settled for a three-mile roadwalk in addition to our bushwhack. At 9:15 a.m., we followed a series of moose prints up the road to the parking area and headed into the woods.
I was happy to see that a lot of the snow, which caused a companion and I to turn back two weeks ago, was mainly gone, so we had an easy trip at first. As we neared wet and boggy areas, we could hear frogs a’croaking away and one of the big mud holes had a bunch of frog egg masses floating in the water. Just past the mud hole, we veered off the road at a small cairn and began heading up a herd path through the woods.
At first, it was really easy going -- the path was fairly distinct before it turned into a brook (likely a result of the run-off.) We took a route that had lots of large rock slabs -- which were all wet and mossy, but there always seemed to be an obvious route around them. However, we soon lost the herd path and found ourselves in much thicker spruce and in about a foot or so of snow. Pushing our way through the spruce, we eventually decided that snowshoes would make the whole business easier, so we strapped them on. It made the footing a little more challenging but it certainly helped not to be postholing.
It soon became apparent that we had somehow veered too far east, so Big Earl took the lead and headed toward the summit. There was a ton of thick spruce and the going was pretty slow and Earl managed quite a few gashes on his arms. We were both getting somewhat discouraged as we reached a series of false summits, where we both searched eagerly for the canister, sighed and then pressed on to what looked like higher ground. We went through that process about four times before we finally saw the green-ish canister hanging above our heads at around 1:30 p.m. I was overjoyed that my bad luck was finally over and I was finally standing atop a summit.
After signing in and taking a quick snack break, we packed up just as it started to sprinkle. We took a different route down the mountain which was about 1,000 times easier than our route uphill. There was little snow and the route was pretty distinct. Big Earl led us from cut swathes down to a logging road, which popped us back out on the old woods road, cutting off a lot of the distance. We were back at the car by 3:30 p.m. after an enjoyable day in the woods and it started pouring about 10 minutes after we started the car.
Thanks to Big Earl for all of the bushwhacking lessons I learned on this hike. On most of my other bushwhacks, I’ve been at the back of big groups -- so by the time this slow-poke reached everyone else, decisions on where to head were already made. It was great to get a little better understanding of how to make those decisions!
Pictures from the hike can be found here.
- Ivy
Before meeting up with Big Earl in Oquossoc, I stopped the car for a turkey and a moose crossing the road (no, not together) As we headed down Route 16 to the logging roads, we saw a ton of snowshoe hares. Fortunately, navigating down the logging roads was pretty easy since I had been here a couple of weeks ago so we didn’t have any trouble with the directions.
About 1.5 miles from the traditional parking area there, a big pine tree is blocking the road. Earl attempted to pull it out of the way but his rope had a small fray in it and came apart quite quickly. Satisfied that we at least tried to get rid of the blowdown, we parked our car and settled for a three-mile roadwalk in addition to our bushwhack. At 9:15 a.m., we followed a series of moose prints up the road to the parking area and headed into the woods.
I was happy to see that a lot of the snow, which caused a companion and I to turn back two weeks ago, was mainly gone, so we had an easy trip at first. As we neared wet and boggy areas, we could hear frogs a’croaking away and one of the big mud holes had a bunch of frog egg masses floating in the water. Just past the mud hole, we veered off the road at a small cairn and began heading up a herd path through the woods.
At first, it was really easy going -- the path was fairly distinct before it turned into a brook (likely a result of the run-off.) We took a route that had lots of large rock slabs -- which were all wet and mossy, but there always seemed to be an obvious route around them. However, we soon lost the herd path and found ourselves in much thicker spruce and in about a foot or so of snow. Pushing our way through the spruce, we eventually decided that snowshoes would make the whole business easier, so we strapped them on. It made the footing a little more challenging but it certainly helped not to be postholing.
It soon became apparent that we had somehow veered too far east, so Big Earl took the lead and headed toward the summit. There was a ton of thick spruce and the going was pretty slow and Earl managed quite a few gashes on his arms. We were both getting somewhat discouraged as we reached a series of false summits, where we both searched eagerly for the canister, sighed and then pressed on to what looked like higher ground. We went through that process about four times before we finally saw the green-ish canister hanging above our heads at around 1:30 p.m. I was overjoyed that my bad luck was finally over and I was finally standing atop a summit.
After signing in and taking a quick snack break, we packed up just as it started to sprinkle. We took a different route down the mountain which was about 1,000 times easier than our route uphill. There was little snow and the route was pretty distinct. Big Earl led us from cut swathes down to a logging road, which popped us back out on the old woods road, cutting off a lot of the distance. We were back at the car by 3:30 p.m. after an enjoyable day in the woods and it started pouring about 10 minutes after we started the car.
Thanks to Big Earl for all of the bushwhacking lessons I learned on this hike. On most of my other bushwhacks, I’ve been at the back of big groups -- so by the time this slow-poke reached everyone else, decisions on where to head were already made. It was great to get a little better understanding of how to make those decisions!
Pictures from the hike can be found here.
- Ivy
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