This was my last of the four Blue Ridges for the HH. Christine had done it once before with Gary. It was a 7 1/2 hour day, with 6+ hours of easy and less than an hour of hard. First the easy: NPT to Brown Brook bridge, old road (very nice!!!) for nearly 3 miles to abandoned car at end of road, old car toward ridge, not so nice, through spruce flats with uneven terrain and large boulders littered with deadfall to Dishrag Pond outlet. Then very inviting open beech woods at least 2/3 of the way up the ridge. Ridge becomes extremely steep for the upper third. Map contours suggest cliffs but there were none. It's all climbable. The top was obvious, made more so by Christine spotting two unmistakable bolt holes where the canister used to be. Back down same way. The hardest part of the entire hike was finding the old road after bottoming out in those nasty spruce flats. We knew we still had to lose more elevation and it would have been very dicey with only map and compass but Christine is a whiz with gps. Still, we got off course a bit and dropped down too far but rather than backtrack decided to press ahead and make corrections when the going got easier. Options were limited due to gullies, deadfalls, thick brush, and water courses. As soon as practical, we corrected course, bent to the left and slabbed back up and within 10-15 minutes we came onto the old road a short distance east of the abandoned car. Then it was just a long relaxing walk back down to the NTP. Anyone who wants to avoid the crowds on popular weekends can, provided they are willing to bushwhack!
Raquette Lake Blue Ridge 09/29/13
- Thread starter nundagao
- Start date
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Nice one, you're getting close. Take any photos?
Alan
Alan
This leaves 5, Lost Pond, Brown Pond & Panther, and North River & Cheney. After those there's still "the forbidden one". If I ever venture to bag TFO no one but myself and the most discreet of trusted companions will ever know. No pix. I never carry a camera anymore. I have too many shoeboxes of old photos never albummed, uncounted folders of 35mm slides with no occasion to ever show again, and my hard drive has so much on it already that I can never find the thing I'm looking for when I want it.
All of the former FP ones should be open before too long.
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