buckyball1
New member
After an excellent hike of Kineo yesteday with my friend, i decided to try to squeeze in one more today before the rain starts again.
Day Mt -2106'- is NW of Farmington and a nice little hike, but a PITA to approach by car. With no beta, i planned two possible car approaches.
1)from the south (Farmington) up Temple, Intervale, Day Mt, etc-about 10-11 miles, looked decent most of the way, but probably very iffy the last mile+
2) from the north off Rt 4 west of Strong on the Dustin Rd, then uncertain logging roads-only 4-5 miles, but totally unknown quality.
I stopped in a convenience store in Farmington and found a woman who seemed knowledgeable about where i was headed. She told me the last mile of the south approach was steep, rocky, eroded, just bad and that i should try from the north.
The approach from the north isn't very good-and very different "pathway" from what you see on the too old sat pics (this is becoming a real problem)-almost 5 miles in and much of it is slow "white knuckle" driving because of erosion and small/medium size rock in the roadbed-tire buster stuff-only a few bad dips (see later) or swimming holes. I parked west of Day and headed up (about 0.65 crow fly miles and 650'). The entire hill side has seen logging in the past.
I was able to use a series of old skid roads and fairly easy whacking to work my way up. Skid roads are nice in some respects, but usually filled with old slash and heavy scrub vegetation-often badly eroded and wet.The mountain rewarded good route decisions and punished poor ones--no problems save for the continuing wetness under foot up here.
A few of you know i seem to lose stuff on these whacks over the last several years, some poles, a few hats, a gaiter earlier this year....i think when your senses register a real beating in heavy going, you don't notice dropping/losing things. Today was a new low. After passing through a group of high briers which nearly flayed me, i realized my GPS (around my neck in heavy going when i have no clue) was gone..I can hear Albee cheering
---no biggie as had compass/altimeter and bearings were easy here. I backtracked and found the unit about 150 feet down in the scrub-pure luck. The small plastic bar to which the lanyard is attached sheared off.
As I neared the top, i hit an old trail with blue blazes, still in nice shape (not the one on some older topos).I followed it about 0.1 to the totally wooded summit with a blue pipe embedded in small cairn. Since the mountain looked steep on the east side as i drove by, i decided to follow a herd path east along the ridge hoping for good views-a nice clearing , but only heavily occluded views. I also found another "summit possibility" in heavy woods about 150' from the pipe, but who knows.
I followed the old trail going back down and was too enamored with it as it veered from my descent direction-kept thinking "it'll turn". I finally stopped and started through the woods in the correct direction and soon hit a series of old logging activity that with good (lucky? ) choices dropped me 100' from my car. There were some excellent views coming down, especially of Hurricane, directly west, a cool looking peak which is in my sights for 2010.
I decided to try the southern route driving out after figuring the "bad" part shouldn't be more than 1/2 mile. Before i reached that downhill i started to encounter some huge puddles and after stopping to check out 2 or 3 of them before proceeding to slide through them, decided "stupid, go out the way you came in". Turned around, thought i was being really careful, but hit a culvert i had no problems with coming in. I really drove the front end hard into it, completely destroyed/tore loose the large plastic heat shield over the exhaust/etc--of course i'd repaired this in the field several times from similar encounters--largish piece of plastic and a bit of insulation; new replacement part cost $114 from your friendly Subaru dealer.
If you go, i'd try the approach from the south and walk the last road bit if needed-the road from the north is just no fun.
-small problems not withstanding, i enjoyed this little peak
jim
Day Mt -2106'- is NW of Farmington and a nice little hike, but a PITA to approach by car. With no beta, i planned two possible car approaches.
1)from the south (Farmington) up Temple, Intervale, Day Mt, etc-about 10-11 miles, looked decent most of the way, but probably very iffy the last mile+
2) from the north off Rt 4 west of Strong on the Dustin Rd, then uncertain logging roads-only 4-5 miles, but totally unknown quality.
I stopped in a convenience store in Farmington and found a woman who seemed knowledgeable about where i was headed. She told me the last mile of the south approach was steep, rocky, eroded, just bad and that i should try from the north.
The approach from the north isn't very good-and very different "pathway" from what you see on the too old sat pics (this is becoming a real problem)-almost 5 miles in and much of it is slow "white knuckle" driving because of erosion and small/medium size rock in the roadbed-tire buster stuff-only a few bad dips (see later) or swimming holes. I parked west of Day and headed up (about 0.65 crow fly miles and 650'). The entire hill side has seen logging in the past.
I was able to use a series of old skid roads and fairly easy whacking to work my way up. Skid roads are nice in some respects, but usually filled with old slash and heavy scrub vegetation-often badly eroded and wet.The mountain rewarded good route decisions and punished poor ones--no problems save for the continuing wetness under foot up here.
A few of you know i seem to lose stuff on these whacks over the last several years, some poles, a few hats, a gaiter earlier this year....i think when your senses register a real beating in heavy going, you don't notice dropping/losing things. Today was a new low. After passing through a group of high briers which nearly flayed me, i realized my GPS (around my neck in heavy going when i have no clue) was gone..I can hear Albee cheering
---no biggie as had compass/altimeter and bearings were easy here. I backtracked and found the unit about 150 feet down in the scrub-pure luck. The small plastic bar to which the lanyard is attached sheared off.As I neared the top, i hit an old trail with blue blazes, still in nice shape (not the one on some older topos).I followed it about 0.1 to the totally wooded summit with a blue pipe embedded in small cairn. Since the mountain looked steep on the east side as i drove by, i decided to follow a herd path east along the ridge hoping for good views-a nice clearing , but only heavily occluded views. I also found another "summit possibility" in heavy woods about 150' from the pipe, but who knows.
I followed the old trail going back down and was too enamored with it as it veered from my descent direction-kept thinking "it'll turn". I finally stopped and started through the woods in the correct direction and soon hit a series of old logging activity that with good (lucky?
) choices dropped me 100' from my car. There were some excellent views coming down, especially of Hurricane, directly west, a cool looking peak which is in my sights for 2010.I decided to try the southern route driving out after figuring the "bad" part shouldn't be more than 1/2 mile. Before i reached that downhill i started to encounter some huge puddles and after stopping to check out 2 or 3 of them before proceeding to slide through them, decided "stupid, go out the way you came in". Turned around, thought i was being really careful, but hit a culvert i had no problems with coming in. I really drove the front end hard into it, completely destroyed/tore loose the large plastic heat shield over the exhaust/etc--of course i'd repaired this in the field several times from similar encounters--largish piece of plastic and a bit of insulation; new replacement part cost $114 from your friendly Subaru dealer.
If you go, i'd try the approach from the south and walk the last road bit if needed-the road from the north is just no fun.
-small problems not withstanding, i enjoyed this little peak
jim
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