Little Moose - 29 June 2012

[nundagao]

This was Christine's second time. Considering that she was willing to do it again, plus Inge's description from last winter, I had the idea that it would be easy. HAH! We started at the first gated road on the left past the Cellar Pond road at 10:15. The flat area south of there is an extensive marsh, so we walked east until we were far enough beyond the marsh to leave the road and bushwhack to another old road further south. Butter Brook looks small on the map, but don't be fooled. it can't be jumped, and any attempt to wade would mean sinking at least kneedeep in mud. Fortunately, after some scouting, we found a place where we could cross. By and by, we found the other old road. The next obstacle was Moose River, which drains Little Moose Lake. The water was low and we found a rock crossing. After a heavy rain much of that would probably be submerged. The lower woods were generally open and the going was not too bad. Deerflies made up for that. They were pesky all day. Higher up, to our dismay, we ran into extensive recent blowdown which precluded an easy ascent to the ridgeline, so we had to contour quite far to our right and subsequently had to force a way through a formidable band of cliffs. That wasn't the end of the difficulties. Shortly below the summit there was yet more new blowdown and another band of cliffs. We summited around 3:00 and didn't stay long. Finding a route up through the cliffs was hard enough. Rediscovering the same route on the descent was more difficult. In such terrain a small mistake can suddenly put you into a nasty, dangerous spot. It's too easy to lower yourself down through a steep, brushy mess that looks like it might go, but if you find yourself cliffed it is extremely tedious to pull yourself back up. Happily, Christine is a whiz with the gps. Even with the gps we had a few of those missteps. Without it we might still be up there. There are some humongous femur-eaters above and below the cliffs and the mountain's lower flanks are lush with waist-high hobblebush. Thanks to gps and Christine's skill, we managed to locate our same river crossing. Even with gps, it took some scouting to find the old road. By then it about 5:30 and, prefering extra distance on the road to bushwhacking at that late hour, we decided to follow it further east than where we had come onto it on the way in. It crosses a beaver dam and a drainage near the NW corner of the lake (there's a truck in the woods). At its closest approach to the other road, about 0.3 miles to the north, near a large glacial erratic, we left it and bushwhacked across. The rest was easy. We were back at the car at 7:15, nine hours after we'd started. I have 15 left now. If I ever bag the rest of them, I think I will retire from bushwhacking!

 

[BlackSpruce]

If Hurricane Irene treated all of the peaks of the Indian Lake area which are included in the other 54 list the same way as Little Moose Spencer's may have to come up with a Third edition of his guidebook* sooner than he had planned to! The forest of Little Moose today is nothing like it was on July 7, 2003, much more of it was standing then that is for sure!


PS: Plus as described in the new edition of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan/October 2011, the grassy roads we walked even though still indicated as restricted on most maps and sporting a rusted gate at its start are now open to the public. It's probably why the bridge over Silver Run brook is missing. We can assume those nice roads will not last for ever but in the meantime it's an easy way to get to Little Moose Lake if not to the summit of Little Moose Mountain.

 

[BlackSpruce]

During the 1970s James P. Heron, who could be the first climber to reach all of the 100, wrote in a 1979 edition of ADK Adirondac magazine :

"On one occasion while bushwhacking to Little Moose Mt. in early June, I stopped for lunch at a lovely shady gurgling stream. On a nice dry rock. Unaware at the time that black flies breed in water. By a fortunate coincidence, I had on long sleeves and pants (tied at the bottom), cap, ski goggles, gloves and a heavy layer of bug juice. Despite which I could hardly see the sandwich for the black flies on the ski goggles. Later on return to the car, I opened the door, leaped in, slammed the door, then proceeded to kill 42 black flies which settled on the inside of the windshield."


*James P. Heron author of the delightful column "The Joys of Hiking" died June 16, 1980 in the Albany Veterans Administration Hospital following a lingering illness.