Bombadil
Active member
9/29/12
Despite a pretty lousy forecast for the weekend myself and 5 others started out from the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge yesterday on a dreary, rainy Saturday morning. We camped out the night before at Lafayette place so we could finish at the campsite, somewhat of a novelty. It rained all night long and really dumped for a while so it was a small victory to even get rolling at the early hour in the still decidedly poor weather. We only decided on the exact route the night before over some late night campfire beers. Somewhat disappointingly we picked Gorge Brook versus a double-back on Beaver Brook, and unknown to us at the time actually cheated ourselves out of an extra 700 or so feet for the day! But Gorge Brook is a nice fast trail and despite the steady rain we hit the top of Moosilauke in just over 80 min. My only note on the trail conditions is that recently opened Gorge Brook reroute is nothing shy of an extended mudpit. I love the DOC and what they do but the 0.5 mile plus rerouted trail was comically muddy, sorry guys--it needs improvement. The damaged trail isn't that bad.
The summit of Moosilauke did not disappoint in its nastiness when you venture up there on a bad day. It took us all a little while to fully warm back up below treeline. The descent to the Beaver Brook TH was uneventful save for a pair of bad falls on slippery rock, literally moments after placing wagers on the number of falls we'd take on a 25 mile hike on such a miserable rainy morning. Karma.
Down at the Beaver Brook TH we met up with Kim and his friend who would be joining us for the remainder of the hike. After a brief refuel we were off on the KRT. The trail climbed swiftly but as expected had many miles of fast, rolling terrain with nice woods. The light rain subsided into more of a drizzle and even seemed to stop at times. We even had our 2nd moose spotting of the day, a camera-shy cow. As we approached the top of S Kinsman we were treated to a partial undercast and we were delighted to have a view of any sort.
At N Kinsman we all regrouped and began estimates for an exit time, normally a pretty minor detail but today we all had been looking forward to dinner at Woodstock Inn and we didn't want to miss out. So we had one hiker drop out at the Fishin Jimmy jct and make for the campground while the rest of us charged up for a blitz over the cannonballs. We kept a solid pace running any sections that had halfway decent footing and quickly hit Coppermine Col just after dusk. Here another 4 opted to head down to the campground and the remaining 3 again had a solid push covering the very rough climb to the summit in the dark over wet rock in just 20 minutes. With beers awaitin' we descended as fast as we could but the wet slippery ledges on Hi-Cannon prevented us from really moving at any considerable speed. Death by burger was had by a few, death by burger was regretted by a few, and this time around the steady overnight rain only helped us sleep after a fun 25 mile hike with ~9000 ft in vertical gain.
Thanks to AJ, Devin, Aaron, Alan, Dan, Kim and Kim's friend (sorry! bad with names...)!
Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com
AJ, Alan, and Dan enjoying the fine weather on Moosilauke
poor photo but the best I could muster for the camera-shy cow
nice fall colors along the KRT
partial undercast near the top of S Kinsman
fall colors through a hole in the undercast
Cannon and Franconia Ridge from N Kinsman
Despite a pretty lousy forecast for the weekend myself and 5 others started out from the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge yesterday on a dreary, rainy Saturday morning. We camped out the night before at Lafayette place so we could finish at the campsite, somewhat of a novelty. It rained all night long and really dumped for a while so it was a small victory to even get rolling at the early hour in the still decidedly poor weather. We only decided on the exact route the night before over some late night campfire beers. Somewhat disappointingly we picked Gorge Brook versus a double-back on Beaver Brook, and unknown to us at the time actually cheated ourselves out of an extra 700 or so feet for the day! But Gorge Brook is a nice fast trail and despite the steady rain we hit the top of Moosilauke in just over 80 min. My only note on the trail conditions is that recently opened Gorge Brook reroute is nothing shy of an extended mudpit. I love the DOC and what they do but the 0.5 mile plus rerouted trail was comically muddy, sorry guys--it needs improvement. The damaged trail isn't that bad.
The summit of Moosilauke did not disappoint in its nastiness when you venture up there on a bad day. It took us all a little while to fully warm back up below treeline. The descent to the Beaver Brook TH was uneventful save for a pair of bad falls on slippery rock, literally moments after placing wagers on the number of falls we'd take on a 25 mile hike on such a miserable rainy morning. Karma.
Down at the Beaver Brook TH we met up with Kim and his friend who would be joining us for the remainder of the hike. After a brief refuel we were off on the KRT. The trail climbed swiftly but as expected had many miles of fast, rolling terrain with nice woods. The light rain subsided into more of a drizzle and even seemed to stop at times. We even had our 2nd moose spotting of the day, a camera-shy cow. As we approached the top of S Kinsman we were treated to a partial undercast and we were delighted to have a view of any sort.
At N Kinsman we all regrouped and began estimates for an exit time, normally a pretty minor detail but today we all had been looking forward to dinner at Woodstock Inn and we didn't want to miss out. So we had one hiker drop out at the Fishin Jimmy jct and make for the campground while the rest of us charged up for a blitz over the cannonballs. We kept a solid pace running any sections that had halfway decent footing and quickly hit Coppermine Col just after dusk. Here another 4 opted to head down to the campground and the remaining 3 again had a solid push covering the very rough climb to the summit in the dark over wet rock in just 20 minutes. With beers awaitin' we descended as fast as we could but the wet slippery ledges on Hi-Cannon prevented us from really moving at any considerable speed. Death by burger was had by a few, death by burger was regretted by a few, and this time around the steady overnight rain only helped us sleep after a fun 25 mile hike with ~9000 ft in vertical gain.
Thanks to AJ, Devin, Aaron, Alan, Dan, Kim and Kim's friend (sorry! bad with names...)!
Pat
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com
AJ, Alan, and Dan enjoying the fine weather on Moosilauke
poor photo but the best I could muster for the camera-shy cow
nice fall colors along the KRT
partial undercast near the top of S Kinsman
fall colors through a hole in the undercast
Cannon and Franconia Ridge from N Kinsman
