Owl's Head on Friday. We left the parking lot around 8:15. Irene has done some serious damage to the Wilderness Trail. We veered left at Black Pond and followed a fairly well-established "bushwhack" trail for a while. (There was an early split, we went to the left). In sections, it looks like an established trail, in others, the course was barely discernible and we relied on a compass. Essentially, wherever we walked we saw footprints. Then we just took a heading and followed the compass for a while, heading true north. Then at some point we came across an extremely established trail, which we followed down to the river. The rest of the hike to the summit was extremely easy to follow with no blowdowns below the ridge.
At the base of the slide we encountered two older gents, one in work boots, blue jeans and a long sleeved white shirt(!) who had biked out part of the way. We ran into a gent with two younger guys (sons? son and a friend?) and a father-daughter coming down, and a woman hiking all along heading up. Someone has done some trail maintenance with a saw on the ridge, and while illegal, I can't deny it, it was great appreciated!
On the way back we decided simply to follow the trail and avoid the bushwhack, and the whole route was in very nice condition, especially given how frighteningly low the streams are right now.
All the best,
Brian
At the base of the slide we encountered two older gents, one in work boots, blue jeans and a long sleeved white shirt(!) who had biked out part of the way. We ran into a gent with two younger guys (sons? son and a friend?) and a father-daughter coming down, and a woman hiking all along heading up. Someone has done some trail maintenance with a saw on the ridge, and while illegal, I can't deny it, it was great appreciated!
On the way back we decided simply to follow the trail and avoid the bushwhack, and the whole route was in very nice condition, especially given how frighteningly low the streams are right now.
All the best,
Brian
