So, I took a swing at North Turner this past weekend. I must say, crossing over from South Turner was much slower going than I expected. I wonder if things have have gotten thicker since Dennis C. was up there, and if anyone's passed through there in the last few years perhaps they can confirm this.
I started my whack in the open area north of the South Turner summit cone, and initially the vegetation was thick, as is often the case when entering the woods from a large clear area. Descending further down the peak, I came to a section of more mature evergreens, which would have been comfortably open were it not for all the shorter spruce trees (5-6' tall) that grew in between that I had to push my way through and which conveniently obscured many of the blowdowns underfoot, leaving me to unsuspectingly trip over them. Even this patch didn't last all that long.
Once down on the connecting ridge, the spruce were about 7-10' high, with very few small clearings or animal paths, so it was a constant fight to get through the stuff. Due to my morning nap and the sleet that fell on South Turner while I was up there, I didn't start my bushwhack until 1:30. The two peaks are about two miles apart, but after an hour of battling along, I was only able to gain 0.6 of a mile (usually I can bushwhack a mile an hour). At that point I did the math, and realized that at my current rate, by the time I whacked over to North Turner and then dropped down to the Wassataquoik Trail, it would be long dark before I returned to Roaring Brook, and not having a flash light on me, it simply wouldn't happen. All my preparation for this whack was geared toward contending with "moderately open" woods, which were not what I encountered.
Then, I came to a frightening realization: perhaps what I was encountering during my attempt on North Turner really is "moderately open" compared to what the experienced bushwhackers have experienced. What if, as bad as it was, going to North Turner is easy compared to some of the other mountains out there?
When I hear "open woods" I assume it's like much of the whack going up Little Wildcat. To me, "moderately open" is like the saddle on Aziscohos, where there's a fair amount of mature spruce trees to manuever through, but if you pick your spots you can move along. Perhaps I've simply been bushwhacking in a naive little bubble all this time.