Original Woody
Member
Owls Head via Lincoln Woods Trail, Black Pond Trail, Black Pond Bushwack, Lincoln Brook Trail, Brutus Bushwack???, Owls Head Path.
There was ice and snow right from the begining at the parking lot.
I started out by myself at 8AM on the Linclon Woods Trail in microspikes. there were 2 groups in front of me and they broke through the icy crust and packed it out nicely. It was a beautiful day out with big patches of blue sky and some sunshine.
Arrived at the Black Pond Trail at 9AM the snow got a little deeper so I put on my snow shoes better footing and in anticipation of the bushwack ahead. The Black Pond Trail and the bushwack was pretty uneventful because the groups ahead of me had broken through the icy crust on the surface and made it easy to follow. I checked the direction they were heading in with my compass from time to time during the bushwack and it was close to the one I had planned so I stayed on their trail.
Got to the Lincoln Brook trail about 10AM and things were looking good. The two groups in front of me had done all the work of breaking the trail and made it easy for me.
At about 11:30AM I caught up to one of the groups in front of me at the Lincoln Brook Crossing about .4 miles from the Owls Head Path. I recognized one of the hikers, it was MadRiver (Rick)! Hiking in a Kilt! Another member was also there Lava Lamp(Tom)! It turned out to be a really cool group of five. Along with Rick and Tom there was Allen, Pam and Linda. Turns out they planned on following the group ahead of them up the "Brutus Bushwack" the group ahead of them said they had the route on their GPS. They invited me to go with them and I was all for it. Rick had some concerns about where they started the bushwack from but we thought that because they had the route on their GPS we would go ahead and follow their tracks. It turned out the route they took was off. We ended up bushwacking through some very heavy Pine Growth... After a couple hours of this the tracks started heading south by southeast. At this point Rick and Allen, the two most experienced hikers in the group had had enough and decided to drop down in elevation and Rick started breaking trail and leading us due North with the hope that we would come across the slide. After about fifteen more minutes of bushwacking North it wasn't looking good. We could see Liberty directly across from us and Pam thought the trail should be around our general location but we weren't having any success finding it. It was about 2:15 -2:30PM now and we were resigned to the fact that we were going to have to go back to the tracks we followed up so we didn't get stuck up there after dark. Allen took the lead and started beaking trail back to the south while dropping some more elevation and then he noticed some blow down had been cut with a chain saw and then saw another one and we realized we were standing on the Owls Head Path! We got the group back together and headed up to the New Summit, took a short break and headed back down around 3:25PM.
We never saw the group in front of us so we don't know where they ended up, just hope they're ok.
We went back down the slide and Allen broke trail the whole way down. It's very steep and I changed into my crampons at the look out point and felt much more comfortable. Swapped out my crampons for snowshoes once we got back on Lincoln Brook Trail
We broke trail for about .4 miles on the way back until we got to the point on Lincoln Brook Trail where we started the Bushwack. It started getting dark soon after and we put our headlamps on. We got back to the start of the Black Pond Bushwack at 6PM and took a short break then headed out back through the woods. About 1\2 way through the bushwack I got ahead of the rest of the group and waited a while for them to catch up but my back started to tighten up and I figured it would be better if I just kept moving. Sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to the group but thanks for letting me hike with you to the summit and back. That's the first time I ever hiked with anyone from VFT!
I made it out to the Lincoln Woods Trail at 7:30PM and was back at the parking lot at 8:30 and wore my snowshoes all the way out to the parking lot.
Owls Head was my 45\48. All I have left to do is the Bonds. I hope to do them sometime this winter.
I took a couple pictures here's a link if you want to see them.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3077719017487.2151892.1099099425&type=3&l=1271097c2b
Special Equipment needed: Snowshoes, Crampons, map and compass
Special Equipment used: poles, microspikes, snowshoes, crampons, map and compass
There was ice and snow right from the begining at the parking lot.
I started out by myself at 8AM on the Linclon Woods Trail in microspikes. there were 2 groups in front of me and they broke through the icy crust and packed it out nicely. It was a beautiful day out with big patches of blue sky and some sunshine.
Arrived at the Black Pond Trail at 9AM the snow got a little deeper so I put on my snow shoes better footing and in anticipation of the bushwack ahead. The Black Pond Trail and the bushwack was pretty uneventful because the groups ahead of me had broken through the icy crust on the surface and made it easy to follow. I checked the direction they were heading in with my compass from time to time during the bushwack and it was close to the one I had planned so I stayed on their trail.
Got to the Lincoln Brook trail about 10AM and things were looking good. The two groups in front of me had done all the work of breaking the trail and made it easy for me.
At about 11:30AM I caught up to one of the groups in front of me at the Lincoln Brook Crossing about .4 miles from the Owls Head Path. I recognized one of the hikers, it was MadRiver (Rick)! Hiking in a Kilt! Another member was also there Lava Lamp(Tom)! It turned out to be a really cool group of five. Along with Rick and Tom there was Allen, Pam and Linda. Turns out they planned on following the group ahead of them up the "Brutus Bushwack" the group ahead of them said they had the route on their GPS. They invited me to go with them and I was all for it. Rick had some concerns about where they started the bushwack from but we thought that because they had the route on their GPS we would go ahead and follow their tracks. It turned out the route they took was off. We ended up bushwacking through some very heavy Pine Growth... After a couple hours of this the tracks started heading south by southeast. At this point Rick and Allen, the two most experienced hikers in the group had had enough and decided to drop down in elevation and Rick started breaking trail and leading us due North with the hope that we would come across the slide. After about fifteen more minutes of bushwacking North it wasn't looking good. We could see Liberty directly across from us and Pam thought the trail should be around our general location but we weren't having any success finding it. It was about 2:15 -2:30PM now and we were resigned to the fact that we were going to have to go back to the tracks we followed up so we didn't get stuck up there after dark. Allen took the lead and started beaking trail back to the south while dropping some more elevation and then he noticed some blow down had been cut with a chain saw and then saw another one and we realized we were standing on the Owls Head Path! We got the group back together and headed up to the New Summit, took a short break and headed back down around 3:25PM.
We never saw the group in front of us so we don't know where they ended up, just hope they're ok.
We went back down the slide and Allen broke trail the whole way down. It's very steep and I changed into my crampons at the look out point and felt much more comfortable. Swapped out my crampons for snowshoes once we got back on Lincoln Brook Trail
We broke trail for about .4 miles on the way back until we got to the point on Lincoln Brook Trail where we started the Bushwack. It started getting dark soon after and we put our headlamps on. We got back to the start of the Black Pond Bushwack at 6PM and took a short break then headed out back through the woods. About 1\2 way through the bushwack I got ahead of the rest of the group and waited a while for them to catch up but my back started to tighten up and I figured it would be better if I just kept moving. Sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to the group but thanks for letting me hike with you to the summit and back. That's the first time I ever hiked with anyone from VFT!
I made it out to the Lincoln Woods Trail at 7:30PM and was back at the parking lot at 8:30 and wore my snowshoes all the way out to the parking lot.
Owls Head was my 45\48. All I have left to do is the Bonds. I hope to do them sometime this winter.
I took a couple pictures here's a link if you want to see them.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3077719017487.2151892.1099099425&type=3&l=1271097c2b
Special Equipment needed: Snowshoes, Crampons, map and compass
Special Equipment used: poles, microspikes, snowshoes, crampons, map and compass
