Stony Brook Recreation was our base for a couple of days, and a pretty nice spot. Recommended.
Bob and Geri's driving directions were excellent and I think we parked a little further up the road than they did; we were in sight of where the "main drag" turned right. Focus with a manual transmission: surprisingly good car for this sort of thing. There were some nasty spots, including some very early on the road, so I wouldn't recommend this in a Prius or your new Bugatti Veyron.
Where the travelled way turned right we continued up a less-used road (cairn) until it ended at the height-of-land. There's a cairn on the left with two paths coming out. The right-hand one continues in the same direction of the road and I believe it's the remains of the Clearwater Brook trail. We took the left-hand one, heading for the SW/NE Elephant col.
For the most part, this was a very obvious path, and we took the right fork where there was a choice. At about 3000' the right fork levels off and heads too far east; here we turned left on a path up an old cut, again headed straight for the col. There's a thick patch around 3200', bypassable on the left (faint path), and then it's an obvious path up to the boggy flat below the col at 3400'.
We skirted to the right around this bog to pick up the path next to a stream and headed straight up. Eventually the herd path makes an obvious crossing of this stream. To get to the SW (new) peak, I believe it would be better to avoid this crossing and stay left of the stream.
We, of course, crossed the stream and continued on. It became quite obvious that we were on a herd path to the old (NE) peak, but we couldn't really cut back left until we were through the (very boggy) col and on the NW of the ridge, where the going was easier. From here it was a little wet feet, a little pushing through spruce and we picked up a herdpath to the summit and its...accoutrements.
Coming down, we wanted to avoid the bog and extra distance, so we followed the very obvious herdpath until it disappeared into a blowdown patch. We never picked it up again. There does appear to be a "magic line" between the bog in the col, descender's left, and the really thick stuff, descender's right. This involves sometimes being in the muck and sometimes in the trees and lots of tiny ups and downs. We missed it, went too far right, and eventually smashed through 100' of really nasty spruce to regain the path at the stream crossing. From here it was pretty easy down.
Frankly I had fun, although it would have been more fun if I weren't in trail runners (my boots were still drying out from Scar.) After the thickets of PAtN and Vose, I could get used to this "open" woods bushwhacking. We still had time for another peak!
Bob and Geri's driving directions were excellent and I think we parked a little further up the road than they did; we were in sight of where the "main drag" turned right. Focus with a manual transmission: surprisingly good car for this sort of thing. There were some nasty spots, including some very early on the road, so I wouldn't recommend this in a Prius or your new Bugatti Veyron.
Where the travelled way turned right we continued up a less-used road (cairn) until it ended at the height-of-land. There's a cairn on the left with two paths coming out. The right-hand one continues in the same direction of the road and I believe it's the remains of the Clearwater Brook trail. We took the left-hand one, heading for the SW/NE Elephant col.
For the most part, this was a very obvious path, and we took the right fork where there was a choice. At about 3000' the right fork levels off and heads too far east; here we turned left on a path up an old cut, again headed straight for the col. There's a thick patch around 3200', bypassable on the left (faint path), and then it's an obvious path up to the boggy flat below the col at 3400'.
We skirted to the right around this bog to pick up the path next to a stream and headed straight up. Eventually the herd path makes an obvious crossing of this stream. To get to the SW (new) peak, I believe it would be better to avoid this crossing and stay left of the stream.
We, of course, crossed the stream and continued on. It became quite obvious that we were on a herd path to the old (NE) peak, but we couldn't really cut back left until we were through the (very boggy) col and on the NW of the ridge, where the going was easier. From here it was a little wet feet, a little pushing through spruce and we picked up a herdpath to the summit and its...accoutrements.
Coming down, we wanted to avoid the bog and extra distance, so we followed the very obvious herdpath until it disappeared into a blowdown patch. We never picked it up again. There does appear to be a "magic line" between the bog in the col, descender's left, and the really thick stuff, descender's right. This involves sometimes being in the muck and sometimes in the trees and lots of tiny ups and downs. We missed it, went too far right, and eventually smashed through 100' of really nasty spruce to regain the path at the stream crossing. From here it was pretty easy down.
Frankly I had fun, although it would have been more fun if I weren't in trail runners (my boots were still drying out from Scar.) After the thickets of PAtN and Vose, I could get used to this "open" woods bushwhacking. We still had time for another peak!
