UNFROZENCAVEMAN
New member
Did a nice hike yesterday, I got some points off http://wayhoo.com/index/a/s/ for the peak of Little Ascutney and headed out figuring I'd bushwhack strait from my house with GPS in one hand and compass in the other. I made a couple of mistakes, one of them was wearing shorts (I need to get some bushwhacking pants) and the other was not bringing the Croc's.
The neat thing about bushwhacking is you never know what you'll find - it's like fishing in the ocean, you just don't know for sure what'll come up. There's one section that I came into that looked like a war zone, I was trying to figure out what had happened when it donned on me it was where the tornado had gone through a couple of years ago. What a mess, broken off trees everywhere, I mean it was like walking on a giant brush pile that had nasty pricker bushes growing up through it - the footing was horrible, the prickers were relentless. I made it but it took me a good long time and my legs were a bloody mess when I got out the other side.
About a mile or so later I came to a briver (you know, normally a brook but river like with all the runoff!), I spent about an hour hiking upstream looking for a place to cross and finally decided that I'd deboot and brave the cold...barefoot. I almost fell several times, it was waist deep, rippin fast, and VERY cold but I got to the other side still upright with dry bag and boots and was able to continue. It felt pretty good on the legs actually.
After several hours of hiking up and down mulitple peaks, across fields, through swamps, over beaver damns, jumping deer, flushing partridge and trudging in knee deep snow I finally came out and crossed 106 which is right in front of Little Ascutney - I was psyched. I found a spot to cross the water and get out into the field in front of the mountain and hiked to the other side only to find another river (this one a legitmate river that I forgot about) and there was no way of crossing it so I doubled back heading north so that I could get back onto 106 with dry feet, then walked South till I got to Little Ascutney road (bridges over rivers = dry feet to summit mountain with) and headed out that.
I got to the base of the mountain and decided that I'd head north along the bottom so that I could summit hiking up the rockslide that I was originally looking at from the field, there was a road that took me most of the way there, a landowner is pulling rock out of there and selling it by the pallet so that part of it was an easy walk, it was quick to get harder though.
Once I started up the hill it became a four apendage climb. This thing is steep, wicked steep actually and the rockslide that I was talking about has rocks the size of school buses on it! There was one spot where I had to do some "rock climbing" to continue on the path that I wanted to, and while I should have gone around it, it was a blast and I managed not to fall. I made it to the top a very tired and thirsty boy so I sat down and ate some food, drank some Gatorade and thought about what I wanted to do next.
I had a point for Ascutney loaded in the GPS and "all" I needed to do was take a heading of 62 and I'd be there in 3 "short" miles. Hmm, that's point to point though and I had to hike down off of Little Ascutney and then over to and up the side of Ascutney - figuring that I've never whacked Ascutney, from the Weathersfield Trail trailhead it's 2,600 vertical and I'd be starting quite a bit lower than that, and realizing that I was tired, it was getting late (5:00 at this point), and that I was going to have to hitchike home I decided I'd work on getting home instead and save whacking Ascutney for another day.
I made the right decision, I got out to the main road and started hitchiking and wound up walking another 6 miles before I got picked up! I'm not sure if it was the bloddy legs, messed up hair, or my "uniform" of shorts and gaiters but nobody wanted to pick me up. Finally a very nice Marlboro smoking woman stopped and told me in a deep voice that she figured if someone was going to mess with her they were going to get a pretty good fight - I assured her I was in no condition to fight at that point!
I highly recommend hiking this hill if you're in the area, the challenge and the views are spectacular - my day totaled out in the neighborhood of 20 miles but if you want to drive to the bottom it would be less than 2. Of course if you want to start at my house and whack your way over, there's plenty of parking!
The neat thing about bushwhacking is you never know what you'll find - it's like fishing in the ocean, you just don't know for sure what'll come up. There's one section that I came into that looked like a war zone, I was trying to figure out what had happened when it donned on me it was where the tornado had gone through a couple of years ago. What a mess, broken off trees everywhere, I mean it was like walking on a giant brush pile that had nasty pricker bushes growing up through it - the footing was horrible, the prickers were relentless. I made it but it took me a good long time and my legs were a bloody mess when I got out the other side.
About a mile or so later I came to a briver (you know, normally a brook but river like with all the runoff!), I spent about an hour hiking upstream looking for a place to cross and finally decided that I'd deboot and brave the cold...barefoot. I almost fell several times, it was waist deep, rippin fast, and VERY cold but I got to the other side still upright with dry bag and boots and was able to continue. It felt pretty good on the legs actually.
After several hours of hiking up and down mulitple peaks, across fields, through swamps, over beaver damns, jumping deer, flushing partridge and trudging in knee deep snow I finally came out and crossed 106 which is right in front of Little Ascutney - I was psyched. I found a spot to cross the water and get out into the field in front of the mountain and hiked to the other side only to find another river (this one a legitmate river that I forgot about) and there was no way of crossing it so I doubled back heading north so that I could get back onto 106 with dry feet, then walked South till I got to Little Ascutney road (bridges over rivers = dry feet to summit mountain with) and headed out that.
I got to the base of the mountain and decided that I'd head north along the bottom so that I could summit hiking up the rockslide that I was originally looking at from the field, there was a road that took me most of the way there, a landowner is pulling rock out of there and selling it by the pallet so that part of it was an easy walk, it was quick to get harder though.
Once I started up the hill it became a four apendage climb. This thing is steep, wicked steep actually and the rockslide that I was talking about has rocks the size of school buses on it! There was one spot where I had to do some "rock climbing" to continue on the path that I wanted to, and while I should have gone around it, it was a blast and I managed not to fall. I made it to the top a very tired and thirsty boy so I sat down and ate some food, drank some Gatorade and thought about what I wanted to do next.
I had a point for Ascutney loaded in the GPS and "all" I needed to do was take a heading of 62 and I'd be there in 3 "short" miles. Hmm, that's point to point though and I had to hike down off of Little Ascutney and then over to and up the side of Ascutney - figuring that I've never whacked Ascutney, from the Weathersfield Trail trailhead it's 2,600 vertical and I'd be starting quite a bit lower than that, and realizing that I was tired, it was getting late (5:00 at this point), and that I was going to have to hitchike home I decided I'd work on getting home instead and save whacking Ascutney for another day.
I made the right decision, I got out to the main road and started hitchiking and wound up walking another 6 miles before I got picked up! I'm not sure if it was the bloddy legs, messed up hair, or my "uniform" of shorts and gaiters but nobody wanted to pick me up. Finally a very nice Marlboro smoking woman stopped and told me in a deep voice that she figured if someone was going to mess with her they were going to get a pretty good fight - I assured her I was in no condition to fight at that point!
I highly recommend hiking this hill if you're in the area, the challenge and the views are spectacular - my day totaled out in the neighborhood of 20 miles but if you want to drive to the bottom it would be less than 2. Of course if you want to start at my house and whack your way over, there's plenty of parking!
