Moats - 9/24

[dr_wu002]

I should start off by saying that I'm developing a bit of a reputation for being unreliable, fussy and indecisive regarding trip planning, cancellations etc. I apologize to anyone that I've aggravated lately -- I've been dealing with a number of distracting personal issues as of late which have made me, to put it bluntly, flaky. Hopefully I'll screw my head on before it simply floats off my shoulders like a kiddie balloon (I wouldn't be LNT!)

Anyway, I'm going to forgo a trip to Goose Eye and stick with the Moats for Saturday which is what I had previously planned on. Meet @ Northeastern TH (Diana's Bath, I believe) @ 7:30am on Saturday. I will level with people: I often times come up with ambitious trip plans but they generally are no more than an exciting guideline in my head. I rarely ever do the trip that I have planned -- sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. When hiking solo (as I used to always do) this was easy but now that it involves people it's become more difficult to continuously float wherever the wind blows me!

I would like to go in at Diana's Bath to the Attitash Trail and head towards Big Attitash Mtn (West Moat). At the junction with the Moat Mountain Trail, the Attitash Trail supposedly is difficult to follow but I think my route finding skills will suffice to get us to Big Attitash. From there, I'd like to bushwhack to North Moat. According to DMS, the woods are fairly open on the Big Attash side but a little denser on the North Moat side. Shouldn't be too bad -- it should be less than a mile to North Moat and I'd actually consider angling North of the Summit, picking up the trail a few 1/10's away. From there, explore the open ridges of North, Middle and South Moat as well as Red Ridge before heading out. This trip is about 18 miles.

For the most part I'm not fussy about wanting to make this summit or that summit -- I'm not a peak bagger or a list bagger necessarily but I'd rather debate the trip itinerary while on the trip and not here because it's only stresses me out constantly figuring out which route we should/should not do. Who cares? Just let's show up and walk into the woods. The Big Attitash Mtn part of it might be for another day -- it might be worthwile just exploring all the wonderful open areas of Moat and then if there's time heading over to Big Attitash or something like that.

Sorry for the long and overblown post but I felt like I needed to clear the air a bit about my recent flakiness as well as my idea of trip planning. So again, if anyone is interested: Moats, exploring, Sat 7:30am @ Diana's Bath TH. There should be some nice foliage views by now!!!

-Dr. Wu

 

[carole]

So did you do this? I'm interested in heading back in that area.

 

[dr_wu002]

So did you do this? I'm interested in heading back in that area.

Yeah! Jessbee and I did this on Saturday and it was a great time. We BW'd off the Attitash Trail to find those cascades and they were nice but had almost no water in them. The views from all of the Moats are incredible. Equally impressive is the beautiful woods all around in the area. Mostly open and gorgeous! The area is also very rocky and I suspect that bushwhacking up "Red Ridge Brook" you would find some interesting cataracts/falls. Hoping to get Barbarossa there someday soon.

The Views from North, Middle and South Moat are, in my opinion, some of the finest in the Whites. The alpine feel of being above treeline for quite a while was nice. TR maybe later. Pictures soon.

-Dr. Wu

 

[DougPaul]

I did them at the same time, except that I took the trail from the south end. Trails in good condition, dry. One blowdown (easily bypassed). Nice views.

Met Dr Wu and Jessbee between Middle and North Moat.

Doug

 

[carole]

I love the Moats - but was asking more so about the route in to Big Attitash.

 

[dr_wu002]

I love the Moats - but was asking more so about the route in to Big Attitash.

We went up the Big Attitash Trail for a little while. It was a really cool trail & easy to follow in my opinion. We stayed on it until it started to swing west. At that point we BW'd up the feeder brook and looked at the cataracts about 0.1 mi off trail. From there we continued up the feeder brook (practically dry) and then BW'd over to the Moat Mountain Trail rather than retracing our steps.

This area is very much indeed quite pretty... open hardwoods, lots of ledgy areas etc. I'll be back very soon and this time I'll also go to Big Attitash and maybe Little Attitash -- looks like there's some good ledges on Little Attitash.

-Dr. Wu

 

[jessbee]

Agreed...this was a beautiful yet relatively easy hike. I had a cold and my allergies were acting up but I was still okay, just had to take some extra catch-my-breath stops. Both the 360 degree views and the forested areas were scenic. This is definitely not a hike to race through. Take your time and enjoy it. Just hope that a troop of 50 middle schoolers didn't get the same idea for the same hike

 

[dms]

Carol, before the trail swings west as mentioned by Dr. Wu, it is easy to follow, after that, there are a few spots where you need to really look around and pay close attention, as the trail is getting no maintenance and because of several large blowdowns it is really obscure.