Owl's Head

[sli74]

Donna, let's not count this one out yet . . . I was talking to Max yesterday and he indicated that he might join us for this trip and maybe if I promise him some of my pineapple cake I can twist his arm to make his maybe a definite. Also as Brian already pointed out, if we keep our eyes on the trail conditions posts and also on the snow fall, we might have it broken out for us. In any case, I am still hoping we can pull this one off . . . maybe a kind soul who has done this one before will step up and go with us

sli74

 

[KenC]

I'm late into this thread and am very interested as this is a trip i had on my to do list! You can e-mail me from my profile.

Ken

 

[Brian]

If you look at the trail reports you will see that I did the bushwhack route on 2/8 (#25 of the "indexed list"), repeated it with Cantdog on 2/14, and Becca Monroe did it on 2/24 and stated that the trail was still well packed out. I know that upon returning on my second trip that the bushwhack was like a packed hiway. Might as well have been a trail.

Just hope it doesn't get too warm and the streams start to melt. Both times I went you couldn't even hear water. Everything was frozen solid.

Brian

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Stinkyfeet and Frodo broke out the Black Pond bushwhack the first week of January, and although it was not the most direct route, it was pretty good and has been kept open all winter, as can be followed by postings to this board.

About a decade ago, John Fabel and I x-c skied the trail from 13 Falls to the base of Owls Head slide, and it was not too difficult to follow then. We hiked up the slide in our x-c ski boots, as it was early March, and the slide was tame. The return to 13 Falls was a blast skiing back down through the birch glades.

But, our purpose in camping at 13 Falls was also to climb Galehead and Garfield, and not just Owls Head, which alone is most easily approached via Black Pond, I think.

Then, there is always the Bridle Path to Lafayette and down Lincoln slide option, the most direct route to Owls Head before there was a Kancamagus Highway.......

 

[RoySwkr]

Well Dr. D, you should have gone one step further and skied to the summit, a couple of people have done this from the height-of-land on Lincoln Brook Trail which you went right by. I think they went around by 13 Falls and I think they were backpacking.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

re: "...skiing to the summit of Owls head...." brings to my mind a question that I was asked on this year's Pemi ski-through, which was "how many of the NH 4s have been skied to their summits?" I am assuming all of them, but not sure. Does anyone have data to answer this question?

I will leave it to a more senior VFTT member to begin a new thread on this question.......