Neil
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- Apr 26, 2004
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A gang of Québecois hikers bagged forty-five 4000 footers on Saturday and raised $3000 for Leukemia research. Cory and I were responsible for Owl’s Head and West Bond.
Preamble :
Right off the bat at 5:00am I hit a moose while looking for Haystack Rd. All the little roads running off of Rte 3 are signed except this one so while I was cruising along slowly a moose suddenly loomed into view above my windshield and I hit the breaks so hard it wasn’t funny and the poor moose buckled under my front end. Then he was lying on the road looking me right in the eye and got up and dashed off into the woods. I was pretty much wide awake by that time and continued searching for the stupid road. I found the road and drove to the trailhead to find….no Cory so I drove back to Rte 3 very warily now and sat and waited for him for all of 1 minute. We left my car at the N Twin TH and drive around to Lincoln Woods.
Lincoln Woods to Black Pond was uneventful. Black Pond Bushwhack to Linclon Brook Trail took 30 minutes of pushing. I would have gone around on the trail but Cory convinced me that the whack was a better bet and he was right, there was a lot of water in the brook and we saved a couple of crossings. I had estimated 2:15 to the Owl’s Head cutoff and it took us 2:30 so the day was already shot. I said to Cory that we should turn back right then and there but he told me to straighten my spine.
We made it to the true summit of OH in 50 minutes and as I had estimated 60 we had won back 10 of the 15 lost minutes so I felt OK with continuing on to West Bond. But first we had to drop 2000 feet to Franconia Brook and this was a big unknown to us ADK fish out of water. We headed due east from the summit and were very mindful not to get sucked into the drainage. (Hindsight dictates whacking 100 yards north from Owlie summit before dropping due east. ) The woods were wide open and the footing excellent for the first 2/3 of the drop and then it got rocky and birch-branchy which slowed us down. I had predicted 60 minutes to Hellgate Brook and it took us 75 minutes so once again I recommended we call it a day and hit the bar in Linclon but Cory just gave me a scornful look and booted it into the woods following a 60 degree magnetic bearing.
The lower Hellgate is a curvaceous brook and we avoided an elbow right away by going up and away from it (on the north side) across a big tongue of hill. I had whacked up Redrock Brook in March and I figured Hellgate would be a carbon copy so when the the tongue was behind us and we found ourselves doing some hateful side-hilling across tons of wet birch branches I lobbied hard for a descent to the creek. In spite of the map showing tight contour lines along a drainage there is often a flat and broad bed that offers good travelling conditions and this proved to be the case on Hellgate. Bonus: there was a very solid herd path that offered us firm footing and some fast cruising.
Our initial plan (after abandoning my idea to whack the west ridge of Bondcliff) was to ascend one of the West Bond slides that you see from Bondcliff. (I think those slides are on the cover of the AMC guide-book). However, it rained gently all morning and given that the slides have an 80% slope we activated our fallback plan to go up the slide on the south end of West Bond. We had a map that showed this slide as a pale area on it and I fired up my gps so we could get our elevation. If we turned due north at 2850 feet we would hit the slide dead on. We headed uphill just shy of that elevation and then after climbing up for a while made a hard right hand turn and entered a rubbly drainage which led us directly to our slide.
It was a rubbly slide with a few smooth slabs and the views from it were priceless. The main reason I do off-trail hikes is to get the unique views and perspectives and we definitely got our salt's worth.
When the slide ran out we entered the woods and it was really, really steep and the Red Spruce branches impeded out progress. The gps altimeter served as a psychological crutch telling us we were indeed gaining elevation, although just looking over our shoulders at Bondcliff gave us the same information with a spectacular view to boot.
Cory cut to the left to find an open channel and freaked out to see that after we left the slide it had opened up again and we had missed out on about 300 more vertical feet of slide climbing. Sigh. We gained at least another 200 feet on the upper slide before it ended for good. The whack from there to the south summit was moderately difficult (easy, moderate or difficult) and from the south to the true summit it was OK. From Franconia Brook to West Bond required 3.5 hours whereas I had predicted 3. I did not suggest bailing on the hike because at this juncture, no matter what we did would result in bailing.
From West Bond to South Twin took us 2 hours which was exactly what I had predicted. Cory ran up and tagged Bond while I maintained the hike's forward momentum. He caught me 2/3 of the way up S. Twin. South to North took us 31 minutes and I had predicted 30.
We made it out at 8:30 after crossing the Little River like 4 times. I had predicted we would get out at 9 for a 14-hour day so the trip from N. Twin to the car required 30 minutes less time than I had estimated.
Final note. By shear co-incidence Cory and I both wore Sportiva Raptor trail runners on this hike. We tested them in a wide variety of tough conditions to say the least. My score: 5/5. I'm pretty sure Cory would agree because he headed off for a Galehead to Flume traverse in them this morning.
PICTURES
Preamble :
Right off the bat at 5:00am I hit a moose while looking for Haystack Rd. All the little roads running off of Rte 3 are signed except this one so while I was cruising along slowly a moose suddenly loomed into view above my windshield and I hit the breaks so hard it wasn’t funny and the poor moose buckled under my front end. Then he was lying on the road looking me right in the eye and got up and dashed off into the woods. I was pretty much wide awake by that time and continued searching for the stupid road. I found the road and drove to the trailhead to find….no Cory so I drove back to Rte 3 very warily now and sat and waited for him for all of 1 minute. We left my car at the N Twin TH and drive around to Lincoln Woods.
Lincoln Woods to Black Pond was uneventful. Black Pond Bushwhack to Linclon Brook Trail took 30 minutes of pushing. I would have gone around on the trail but Cory convinced me that the whack was a better bet and he was right, there was a lot of water in the brook and we saved a couple of crossings. I had estimated 2:15 to the Owl’s Head cutoff and it took us 2:30 so the day was already shot. I said to Cory that we should turn back right then and there but he told me to straighten my spine.
We made it to the true summit of OH in 50 minutes and as I had estimated 60 we had won back 10 of the 15 lost minutes so I felt OK with continuing on to West Bond. But first we had to drop 2000 feet to Franconia Brook and this was a big unknown to us ADK fish out of water. We headed due east from the summit and were very mindful not to get sucked into the drainage. (Hindsight dictates whacking 100 yards north from Owlie summit before dropping due east. ) The woods were wide open and the footing excellent for the first 2/3 of the drop and then it got rocky and birch-branchy which slowed us down. I had predicted 60 minutes to Hellgate Brook and it took us 75 minutes so once again I recommended we call it a day and hit the bar in Linclon but Cory just gave me a scornful look and booted it into the woods following a 60 degree magnetic bearing.
The lower Hellgate is a curvaceous brook and we avoided an elbow right away by going up and away from it (on the north side) across a big tongue of hill. I had whacked up Redrock Brook in March and I figured Hellgate would be a carbon copy so when the the tongue was behind us and we found ourselves doing some hateful side-hilling across tons of wet birch branches I lobbied hard for a descent to the creek. In spite of the map showing tight contour lines along a drainage there is often a flat and broad bed that offers good travelling conditions and this proved to be the case on Hellgate. Bonus: there was a very solid herd path that offered us firm footing and some fast cruising.
Our initial plan (after abandoning my idea to whack the west ridge of Bondcliff) was to ascend one of the West Bond slides that you see from Bondcliff. (I think those slides are on the cover of the AMC guide-book). However, it rained gently all morning and given that the slides have an 80% slope we activated our fallback plan to go up the slide on the south end of West Bond. We had a map that showed this slide as a pale area on it and I fired up my gps so we could get our elevation. If we turned due north at 2850 feet we would hit the slide dead on. We headed uphill just shy of that elevation and then after climbing up for a while made a hard right hand turn and entered a rubbly drainage which led us directly to our slide.
It was a rubbly slide with a few smooth slabs and the views from it were priceless. The main reason I do off-trail hikes is to get the unique views and perspectives and we definitely got our salt's worth.
When the slide ran out we entered the woods and it was really, really steep and the Red Spruce branches impeded out progress. The gps altimeter served as a psychological crutch telling us we were indeed gaining elevation, although just looking over our shoulders at Bondcliff gave us the same information with a spectacular view to boot.
Cory cut to the left to find an open channel and freaked out to see that after we left the slide it had opened up again and we had missed out on about 300 more vertical feet of slide climbing. Sigh. We gained at least another 200 feet on the upper slide before it ended for good. The whack from there to the south summit was moderately difficult (easy, moderate or difficult) and from the south to the true summit it was OK. From Franconia Brook to West Bond required 3.5 hours whereas I had predicted 3. I did not suggest bailing on the hike because at this juncture, no matter what we did would result in bailing.
From West Bond to South Twin took us 2 hours which was exactly what I had predicted. Cory ran up and tagged Bond while I maintained the hike's forward momentum. He caught me 2/3 of the way up S. Twin. South to North took us 31 minutes and I had predicted 30.
We made it out at 8:30 after crossing the Little River like 4 times. I had predicted we would get out at 9 for a 14-hour day so the trip from N. Twin to the car required 30 minutes less time than I had estimated.
Final note. By shear co-incidence Cory and I both wore Sportiva Raptor trail runners on this hike. We tested them in a wide variety of tough conditions to say the least. My score: 5/5. I'm pretty sure Cory would agree because he headed off for a Galehead to Flume traverse in them this morning.
PICTURES
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