Little Tunnel Ravine 10-8-11

[Jason Berard]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been at the overlook on the Benton Trail, and heard the cacophonous waterfall down in the ravine, and wondered if it might be worth a trip up in there to go see if it really is as big as it sounds. With the weather forecast as good as it gets for this time of year, Brent and I decided to get in there and find out for ourselves!

I hadn't realized that Tunnel Brook Road was washed out during Irene....that added about 3/4 of a mile to our trip.

Here is our first glimpse of the main waterfall. This is the bottom of it, ther are also some lovely cascades below this.

Here is Brent, which will give an idea of scale.

This is from along the north side of the mail waterfall. There was no go place to take a picture of the entire thing, but we were about halfway up the waterfall (more of a long cascade). I'd estimate it to be at least 250 feet long.

That all I have time to post for now, but I wanted to get the pics up. I did find some interesting historic reports of trips the AMC used to take to the waterfall from the late 1800's. I'll try and post that stuff later on.

 

[NeoAkela]

Great stuff, Jason. I've wanted to head up that ravine in search of the fabled "9 Cascades" for a couple of years now... just never managed to get it to the top of the list. I am looking forward to the rest of your photos, terrain conditions, and finding out how far up Little Tunnel you went. Thanks for sharing this report!

 

[Jason Berard]

I just wish the pictures were actually in focus!

We went in off from Benton trail...left it at about 2200', which was about 200' too high, as we hit some rather steep terrain on our way into the ravine. We climbed to about 2750' along the brook. The waterfalls started a fair bit lower than that...maybe 2400 feet?

On the way out, we just followed the brook, staying to the north side. I would recommend using this route both in and out. It was much easier. The trick was finding a good crossing point. . Irene rearranged things quite a bit along Tunnel Brook.

 

[Jason Berard]

Here is a link to a historic description of the falls:

http://books.google.com/books?id=iRk8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA361&lpg=PA361&dq=nine+cascades+moosilauke+little+tunnel+ravine&source=bl&ots=KEwtRmihcH&sig=eDLKmxHk66JxKlrqYerzo4LbQuk&hl=en&ei=eZKUTtLwMuP10gGBqfHIBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=nine%20cascades%20moosilauke%20little%20tunnel%20ravine&f=false

 

[David Metsky]

I've gone up from the road, bushwacking to the summit via the AT eventually. It's a fairly common bushwack for the Dartmouth folks since it features prominently in the story of Doc Benton - he of the secret to everlasting life fame. When you go up there, just make sure that you carefully guard your left ear.