Jay H
New member
Zero-G and I cooked up this scheme kind of last minute after a failed attempt at trying to go to NH over this weekend, my last weekend of freedom while I was unemployed. We had this whole scheme of doing this mtn from the Loj, heading out to Wallface Ponds and taking a direct route up to the middle bump, what was shown on my Terrain Navigator map as the 1211ish Meter summit... Knowing the long rains we had on friday and even saturday as we drove to the Loj, I expected a wet trail and was worried about what showed up on the maps as "swamp" past Wallface Pond. Reading somebody's trip report of wading across the pond was also on the backs of my mind!
Sure enough, turned out that 2.8 mile "trail" from Scott's Clearing to Wallface pond was worse than any part of the bushwack or stream crossings. The old Logging Dam was crossable, though the rocks were under about 1.5-2" of moving water. The Beaver Dam was well underwater but again, not over the tops of our boots. However, the trip in from the Leanto was well underwater and we spent a lot of time whacking around the flooded trail. The herdpaths from the end of the marked trail to the Beaver crossing ended not long after we started gaining elevation.
I used a 244deg bearing once past the Wallface ponds to get us in the correct vincinity til we hit the cliffs you encounter just below the final summit ridge push. Slippery moss and wet rocks greeted us as we hit the herdpath along the summit. Zero-G's GPS point told us to make a left, at which we hit an obvious bump in the ridge.. Summit??? No summit sign, a short walk out to a rock showed us what would be a viewpoint on a clear day. Again, no summit sign. A few meanderings and a short trip by me further down the herdpath show the trail going down and down and down..
So we stop and eat lunch and ponder the strange lack of signage. Both of us saw a trip report with a sign on it though we didn't know the age of the photo so we ate our food, I ate a muffin (Mmmmmm muffin) and we packed up, ready to go. We headed back towards where we hit the ridge and with us being on a nice herdpath, we decide to check out the other bump that we saw when we hit the ridge... 100ft later, we pop up to a very small clearing and the summit sign... Voila... Hmmmm, interesting, not sure which bump is higher but heck, this one has a sign on it!!! So a few photos and not much lingering, we leave and head back towards Wallface Ponds. Turned out, we hit the summit ridge very close to the signed summit bump, so our bearing was pretty good, we just turned the wrong way, following a GPS coordinate, I guess!
Hit the trail around 4:45pm and darkness abounds.. pitch dark by the time we got back to Scott's Clearing and headlamps were used to get back to the Loj..
I also managed to get poked in the left eye which did no damage but managed to pluck out my contact so I hiked back to the Loj with one contact and a blurry depth perception.. Got out around 8pm after a 8:30am start on this long and wet day.
Decided to crash at a leanto at the Loj, since neither of us are ADK members, the leanto included parking there so it was cheap enough..
Pictures to come!
jay
Sure enough, turned out that 2.8 mile "trail" from Scott's Clearing to Wallface pond was worse than any part of the bushwack or stream crossings. The old Logging Dam was crossable, though the rocks were under about 1.5-2" of moving water. The Beaver Dam was well underwater but again, not over the tops of our boots. However, the trip in from the Leanto was well underwater and we spent a lot of time whacking around the flooded trail. The herdpaths from the end of the marked trail to the Beaver crossing ended not long after we started gaining elevation.
I used a 244deg bearing once past the Wallface ponds to get us in the correct vincinity til we hit the cliffs you encounter just below the final summit ridge push. Slippery moss and wet rocks greeted us as we hit the herdpath along the summit. Zero-G's GPS point told us to make a left, at which we hit an obvious bump in the ridge.. Summit??? No summit sign, a short walk out to a rock showed us what would be a viewpoint on a clear day. Again, no summit sign. A few meanderings and a short trip by me further down the herdpath show the trail going down and down and down..
So we stop and eat lunch and ponder the strange lack of signage. Both of us saw a trip report with a sign on it though we didn't know the age of the photo so we ate our food, I ate a muffin (Mmmmmm muffin) and we packed up, ready to go. We headed back towards where we hit the ridge and with us being on a nice herdpath, we decide to check out the other bump that we saw when we hit the ridge... 100ft later, we pop up to a very small clearing and the summit sign... Voila... Hmmmm, interesting, not sure which bump is higher but heck, this one has a sign on it!!! So a few photos and not much lingering, we leave and head back towards Wallface Ponds. Turned out, we hit the summit ridge very close to the signed summit bump, so our bearing was pretty good, we just turned the wrong way, following a GPS coordinate, I guess!
Hit the trail around 4:45pm and darkness abounds.. pitch dark by the time we got back to Scott's Clearing and headlamps were used to get back to the Loj..
I also managed to get poked in the left eye which did no damage but managed to pluck out my contact so I hiked back to the Loj with one contact and a blurry depth perception.. Got out around 8pm after a 8:30am start on this long and wet day.
Decided to crash at a leanto at the Loj, since neither of us are ADK members, the leanto included parking there so it was cheap enough..
Pictures to come!
jay
