Neil
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At one point on this incredible wintry hike Jack pointed out that there was no way a person could put the hike into words in such a way as to communicate our experience to a non hiker.
I suppose he’s right. You can write:
Six inches of new snow, late March sunshine and winter temperatures under a blue sky with a cold wind whipping clouds of snow about with views of mountain peaks from an open woods bushwhack on an exposed ridge.
An experienced hiker will forgive the run-on sentence and will project himself into the experience no problem.
But if you’re writing for someone who has never hiked it’s a lot tougher to convey.
After the hike Jack and I decided to try our luck at the winter 46er supper and we discovered that a lot of people didn’t have a clue as to where we had hiked that day: Sawtooths East and Northeast. Some people I spoke with didn’t know where the Sawtooth Range was. Period.
So, here’s an intro:
The Sawtooth Range
The dominant peak of the range, Sawtooth One, lies 4 miles to the west of Street and Nye, 7 miles to the North of Santanoni. and 3 miles NE of Seymour. About 4 miles separates the summits of ST 4 and 3 which lie at the extreme west and east of the range respectively.
Depending on how you define a mountain there are 5, 11 or 18 Sawtooth summits. The ADK Guidebook defines a mountain as having 300 feet of prominence and lists 5. The Northeast 770 list considers 200 feet of prominence to be enough and lists 11. Qam1 has no fewer than 18 listed on his website.
There are numerous approaches to the Sawtooths and the easiest IMO is from the Blueberry Footpath/Ward Brook Truck Trail. Access to the east end of the range and ST3 is from the NPT at Moose Pond. From the Lake Placid TH it’s about a 10 mile walk to the beginning of the bushwhack. From Upper Works it may be about 12 miles. ST3 can also be accessed from the Ward Brook trail.
My favorite access involves the most bushwhacking and offers little to no trail travel from the Pine Pond Road which is at the end of the Averyville Road about 5 miles south of Lake Placid.
The hike reported below targeted the long ridge that defines the easternmost limit of the Northern half of the range. One of the summits on the ridge (East at 3560 elev.) is a 100 highest ADK peak from the 770 list but doesn’t figure on the ADK Guidebook list due to it’s shallow col depth. The other, Northeast, does have a 300 foot col but is too low to make the top 100 but is on the Barry/Boomer list which recognizes a 300 foot col but no distance rule thereby evicting many of the 46 and making room for lower peaks with 300 foot cols, including Sawtooth NE. Sawtooth East at 3560 ft. is higher than both Sawtooth 4 and 5, which are at 3460 in elevation.
Isn’t that interesting?
I have gazed at the ridge and the peaks often from below and have used them for triangulation purposes while approaching the range from the valley below.
And now, on to the report.
I tried to entice fellow hikers with promises of a hard barebootable crust of snow such as I enjoyed a week earlier on Slip Mtn. (3331 feet) near the Jay Range. After watching the forecast I surmised that the hard crust would persist another week at least and planned a 3 peak bushwhack over NE and East and up to yet another Sawtooth known to some as SSE.
The hike began as many good hikes do: in the dark. We immediately noted there just enough fresh snow to make wearing snowshoes preferable to barebooting over the Pine Pond road, which is an ATV trail. After leaving the Pine Pond Rd. we encountered deeper and deeper snow as we gained elevation on the ridge. The going was much slower and more arduous than had we been able to scoot along on a bulletproof crust. Jack accused me of false advertising and I sneakily arranged things in such a way that he broke trail up the steepest and deepest sections of the hike. Every time I took over the lead the snow seemed to be much more supportive. Then, each time we arrived at a steep pitch I pretended to scout out an alternate route off to one side while Jack waited. Then I would say that the best route was straight up and he would take over the lead.
It was an incredible day. Beautiful freshly fallen snow and very open maple forests with various pines, giant hemlocks and huge yellow birches were our most persistent canvas with ever increasing views of everything from Whiteface, the Sentinel Range, Lost Pond Peak, Wallface and Santanoni just to name those ones.
Of particular interest to me were the views down and across to many of the routes I’d used on 6 separate trips into Sawtooths.
The wind was cold and blew snow across our path and we kept our balaclavas on and our hoods cinched tight. Nevertheless, the late March sun was very intense.
Up to the top of NE the going remained wide open but the south side was a very steep impregnable fortress of gnarly-istic fir wave and spruce traps. Suddenly, East seemed a lot further away than it looked on the map at home. Jack took a step and immediately sank to his waste. I spied a better route 2 feet to his right and sank to my chest. As far as we could gaze below there was more of the same so after a mighty, energy sapping struggle to regain our freedom we made a detour and found a route down that only looked horrendous while being merely malevolent and provocative of superficial flesh wounds to the facial and orbital regions.
After a 200-300 foot steep drop we were in a wide open maple forest again with no wind and burning sunshine. Luckily for us the snow was not sticky and we made a pleasant traverse to the lowest point between NE and E. Our map indicated 2 major bumps on the final ridge approach and one of them had a real tough steep section. Once again, I contrived to have Jack lead the toughest part but then took over and did the lion’s share on this one, graciously stepping aside within 50 feet of the summit so Jack could be the 14th human ever (my guesstimate) to stand atop Sawtooth East.
The summit was wide-open thanks to a combination of blowdown and a 5 foot snowpack. The views were 300 degrees and swept from the Jay range around the dial all the way to Sawtooth 1 which completely dominated the view to the west. The best views were of the Macintyre Range and Couchie. We could see down to the swamp that Doug and I skirted when we did ST3 from Averyville and up to ST SSE. In consideration of the deep and slower snow, the tough climb ahead of us back up NE and the exceptional opportunity we now had to soak in the unique views from Sawtooth East we decided to forget about SSE and savor the sun-drenched moment. The cameras worked overtime as we went from lookout to lookout and we tried to figure out which mountain was which. There were so many it was hard to name them all.
Finally, we turned around and followed our tracks back down to the Pine Pond Road. The return trip on our trail took 4 hours, versus 6 in, which gives an indication of the conditions.
-Pictures-
I suppose he’s right. You can write:
Six inches of new snow, late March sunshine and winter temperatures under a blue sky with a cold wind whipping clouds of snow about with views of mountain peaks from an open woods bushwhack on an exposed ridge.
An experienced hiker will forgive the run-on sentence and will project himself into the experience no problem.
But if you’re writing for someone who has never hiked it’s a lot tougher to convey.
After the hike Jack and I decided to try our luck at the winter 46er supper and we discovered that a lot of people didn’t have a clue as to where we had hiked that day: Sawtooths East and Northeast. Some people I spoke with didn’t know where the Sawtooth Range was. Period.
So, here’s an intro:
The Sawtooth Range
The dominant peak of the range, Sawtooth One, lies 4 miles to the west of Street and Nye, 7 miles to the North of Santanoni. and 3 miles NE of Seymour. About 4 miles separates the summits of ST 4 and 3 which lie at the extreme west and east of the range respectively.
Depending on how you define a mountain there are 5, 11 or 18 Sawtooth summits. The ADK Guidebook defines a mountain as having 300 feet of prominence and lists 5. The Northeast 770 list considers 200 feet of prominence to be enough and lists 11. Qam1 has no fewer than 18 listed on his website.
There are numerous approaches to the Sawtooths and the easiest IMO is from the Blueberry Footpath/Ward Brook Truck Trail. Access to the east end of the range and ST3 is from the NPT at Moose Pond. From the Lake Placid TH it’s about a 10 mile walk to the beginning of the bushwhack. From Upper Works it may be about 12 miles. ST3 can also be accessed from the Ward Brook trail.
My favorite access involves the most bushwhacking and offers little to no trail travel from the Pine Pond Road which is at the end of the Averyville Road about 5 miles south of Lake Placid.
The hike reported below targeted the long ridge that defines the easternmost limit of the Northern half of the range. One of the summits on the ridge (East at 3560 elev.) is a 100 highest ADK peak from the 770 list but doesn’t figure on the ADK Guidebook list due to it’s shallow col depth. The other, Northeast, does have a 300 foot col but is too low to make the top 100 but is on the Barry/Boomer list which recognizes a 300 foot col but no distance rule thereby evicting many of the 46 and making room for lower peaks with 300 foot cols, including Sawtooth NE. Sawtooth East at 3560 ft. is higher than both Sawtooth 4 and 5, which are at 3460 in elevation.
Isn’t that interesting?
I have gazed at the ridge and the peaks often from below and have used them for triangulation purposes while approaching the range from the valley below.
And now, on to the report.
I tried to entice fellow hikers with promises of a hard barebootable crust of snow such as I enjoyed a week earlier on Slip Mtn. (3331 feet) near the Jay Range. After watching the forecast I surmised that the hard crust would persist another week at least and planned a 3 peak bushwhack over NE and East and up to yet another Sawtooth known to some as SSE.
The hike began as many good hikes do: in the dark. We immediately noted there just enough fresh snow to make wearing snowshoes preferable to barebooting over the Pine Pond road, which is an ATV trail. After leaving the Pine Pond Rd. we encountered deeper and deeper snow as we gained elevation on the ridge. The going was much slower and more arduous than had we been able to scoot along on a bulletproof crust. Jack accused me of false advertising and I sneakily arranged things in such a way that he broke trail up the steepest and deepest sections of the hike. Every time I took over the lead the snow seemed to be much more supportive. Then, each time we arrived at a steep pitch I pretended to scout out an alternate route off to one side while Jack waited. Then I would say that the best route was straight up and he would take over the lead.
It was an incredible day. Beautiful freshly fallen snow and very open maple forests with various pines, giant hemlocks and huge yellow birches were our most persistent canvas with ever increasing views of everything from Whiteface, the Sentinel Range, Lost Pond Peak, Wallface and Santanoni just to name those ones.
Of particular interest to me were the views down and across to many of the routes I’d used on 6 separate trips into Sawtooths.
The wind was cold and blew snow across our path and we kept our balaclavas on and our hoods cinched tight. Nevertheless, the late March sun was very intense.
Up to the top of NE the going remained wide open but the south side was a very steep impregnable fortress of gnarly-istic fir wave and spruce traps. Suddenly, East seemed a lot further away than it looked on the map at home. Jack took a step and immediately sank to his waste. I spied a better route 2 feet to his right and sank to my chest. As far as we could gaze below there was more of the same so after a mighty, energy sapping struggle to regain our freedom we made a detour and found a route down that only looked horrendous while being merely malevolent and provocative of superficial flesh wounds to the facial and orbital regions.
After a 200-300 foot steep drop we were in a wide open maple forest again with no wind and burning sunshine. Luckily for us the snow was not sticky and we made a pleasant traverse to the lowest point between NE and E. Our map indicated 2 major bumps on the final ridge approach and one of them had a real tough steep section. Once again, I contrived to have Jack lead the toughest part but then took over and did the lion’s share on this one, graciously stepping aside within 50 feet of the summit so Jack could be the 14th human ever (my guesstimate) to stand atop Sawtooth East.
The summit was wide-open thanks to a combination of blowdown and a 5 foot snowpack. The views were 300 degrees and swept from the Jay range around the dial all the way to Sawtooth 1 which completely dominated the view to the west. The best views were of the Macintyre Range and Couchie. We could see down to the swamp that Doug and I skirted when we did ST3 from Averyville and up to ST SSE. In consideration of the deep and slower snow, the tough climb ahead of us back up NE and the exceptional opportunity we now had to soak in the unique views from Sawtooth East we decided to forget about SSE and savor the sun-drenched moment. The cameras worked overtime as we went from lookout to lookout and we tried to figure out which mountain was which. There were so many it was hard to name them all.
Finally, we turned around and followed our tracks back down to the Pine Pond Road. The return trip on our trail took 4 hours, versus 6 in, which gives an indication of the conditions.
-Pictures-
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