Grafton Loop Trail opens this month!

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So it looks like Long Mountain and Sunday River WhiteCap will have trails over the summits now, and Puzzle Mountain and Slide Mountain will be short bushwhack 3ks from the loop trail. Sounds good. :)
 
I hope this really is happening this time. In the article there is talk about needing tent sites, I thought in the original plan there was a few tent sites 1 at Sargeant brook and 1 other both on the western side of the GLT. Thanks for the info we have been waiting a long time for this one.
Chris
 
Wish It Were So

albee said:
So it looks like Long Mountain and Sunday River WhiteCap will have trails over the summits now, and Puzzle Mountain and Slide Mountain will be short bushwhack 3ks from the loop trail. Sounds good. :)

Albee

Of the four peaks, only SRW has a trailed peak. Long Peak requires a short b/w and likely jar search.
 
And with the trail officially opening soon, I guess the canister on SRW will quickly go away. Wonder how much longer it will last...
 
Nate said:
And with the trail officially opening soon, I guess the canister on SRW will quickly go away. Wonder how much longer it will last...

Sunday River Whitecap was the first mountain I'd ever bushwhacked.

Back in the fall of 1974 a buddy & I decided to bushwhack SRW from Screw Auger Falls. What an adventure! We felt like we where the only people to ever set foot atop the summit... untill we discovered a small jar located under a pile of rocks.

At that time I'd never heard of "3000 footers", let alone canisters on trail less summits. Didn't think much about it for 30 years...
 
onestep said:
At that time I'd never heard of "3000 footers", let alone canisters on trail less summits. Didn't think much about it for 30 years...

But then Onesteop caught a fever... and the only cure is MORE bushwhacking!

Anyway, I bagged Sunday River Whitecap and Slide over the weekend. I bushwhacked up from the logging road near Screw Auger Falls. Heading into the woods, I soon hit a network of skidder paths, which went quite a ways up toward Miles Notch. Then again, they were mostly overgrown with at least waist-high bushes and weeds, so it wasn't quite easy going. Reaching the top of the skidder roads, I then wasn't in the open woods very long before I found a series of herd paths that led me the short distance to the the Grafton Loop Trail, where it passes through the col.

Once on the trail, I had a straightforward ascent of Sunday River Whitecap. Needless to say, I had the peak to myself. I poked around two of the highest cairns on the summit, but I wasn't able to locate the canister. It's either very well-hidden, or it's finally been removed. As it was, I soaked in what views there were, since the sky was overcast and I could see dark rain clouds passing over Old Speck. I was left to imagine how much better the views are when the sky is clear.

But I had business left to attend to, and soon enough I was descending down toward Slide. I was most of the way back to the col when the showers reached me. I knew they were coming, too, but because of the outing's bushwhacking sections I hadn't bothered to bring my umbrella, and hadn't thought to bring my rain jacket. I tried to duck under the forest canopy, but the trees aren't as thick as one would like in the col. Accepting the fact that I was going to get drenched regardless, I kept going. Thankfully the slopes of Slide aren't densely vegetated, and were it not for the fact everything was wet and making me drencher, this would have been a very tolerable bushwhack. But, I kept going, not soon enough reaching the elongated summit, and turning right, locating the canister proved to be straightforward. I did my best to keep the canister's contents dry (an endeavor in which I was mostly successful). However, due to the conditions, the pen I had on me wasn't writing worth anything, and so I had to settle for using a less permanent pencil. I scratched out a message as quickly as I could, then returned everything to the jar.

On the descent, I encountered more blowdowns and low cliffy areas than I had on the ascent (having strayed slightly too north on my bearing), but I ultimately reached the trail again okay. During this time, the rain even stopped, and the sun seemed to be trying to make an appearance by the time I reached the trail. But, this experience still underlined the fact that for me that it's preferable not to be bushwhacking in the rain.

I guess I could have made a beeline from Slide back down to my car, but in those conditions I preferred battling brush to making my way through wet trees. As it was, once back at the trail, I wasn't on it for very long before I turned left to retrace my route back to the skidder roads. Emerging at the highest one, I found descending through them to be a much easier than climbing through, even though the weeds weren't any less dense on the return trip. This part actually reminded me a bit of my descent of the overgrown ski slopes on Burke last October, overcast skies and all. Needless to say, from this point on it was a straightforward walk back to the car.
 
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