dr_wu002
Well-known member
I doubt there have been many threads about Southeast Whaleback here on VFTT. When Eric (Barbarossa) and I signed the register, the last entry we found was 10/18/03. Most of the people who signed in I did not recognize as members of VFTT (although I recognized a bunch of the names). Southeast Whaleback is on the NH 200 which I don't think many people are working on (Eric is, I am not; Maybe I should finish my NH48 first).
We started out this hike really having no definite idea what we were going to do. I read that stream crossings would suck. Eric's knee was bothering him. I hadn't hiked in a while and on and on. When we reached the junction with the Lincoln Woods Trail and the Flume-Osseo Trail we kinda looked at the map and decided that the only thing that seemed interesting (and doable) that day was Southeast Whaleback. So, we headed up the Flume-Osseo Trail (dry and in good condition) for about 3/4 mile until we had a nice departure point to Osseo Brook (?? or whatever the name is of this brook).
At this point, I started to enjoy the hike. Until now I had been rather bored with the Lincoln Woods Trail and even the Flume-Osseo Trail and was rather eager to get off trail and start stomping around the woods. We dropped down to the brook and upstream on a nice logging road to find a decent crossing. After crossing (me on a downed tree, Eric some other way), we followed another logging road downstream a bit before heading into the woods. For a long time Eric and I had nice open hardwoods and calm, beautiful day. We kept going, crossed a few feeder streams and then started climbing.
Climbing was nice until about 2500' when we found ourselves swimming upstream through thick spruce & blowdowns. This lasted for about an hour when we reached about 2900'. Then it was just blowdowns, but at least we could see something besides spruce-in-the-face. Finding the summit and register was easy despite the summit area being a wide plateau.
Eric and I signed the register, maybe farted a few times and wondered why people don't poop in the registers more often, and then headed north to avoid the blowdown and spruce on the decent. Going down was much easier... we kinda hooked up with the main feeder brook in the valley, which we followed just about the entire way to the crossing of Osseo Brook (which we just trudged through this time) and then the trail. On the way, much to Eric's chagrin, I took down any flagging I saw.
I took about 3 pictures and I'm not going to go to the trouble posting them and whatnot. There were no ledges and this was a wooded summit. However, since the leaves were down we got some great views into the Pemi. For most of the hike we had great views to Bond, Bondcliff, Hellgate Ravine and West Bond. In my opinion these were some unique views considering you rarely look directly into Hellgate Ravine from any angle. Also, we found a blowdown area that gave even nicer views to Owl's Head, The Bonds, The Twin Range and even Garfield poked out. I was satisfied. In fact, I was happy with the entire hike. You really can't beat being off trail, open woods (for the most part), logging roads, moosie paths and whatnot on a dry fall day. Despite the warnings of horrific stream crossings, all ours were simple.
After the hike, Eric ate a block of cheese and we went to the Mountain Wanderer.
-Dr. Wu
We started out this hike really having no definite idea what we were going to do. I read that stream crossings would suck. Eric's knee was bothering him. I hadn't hiked in a while and on and on. When we reached the junction with the Lincoln Woods Trail and the Flume-Osseo Trail we kinda looked at the map and decided that the only thing that seemed interesting (and doable) that day was Southeast Whaleback. So, we headed up the Flume-Osseo Trail (dry and in good condition) for about 3/4 mile until we had a nice departure point to Osseo Brook (?? or whatever the name is of this brook).
At this point, I started to enjoy the hike. Until now I had been rather bored with the Lincoln Woods Trail and even the Flume-Osseo Trail and was rather eager to get off trail and start stomping around the woods. We dropped down to the brook and upstream on a nice logging road to find a decent crossing. After crossing (me on a downed tree, Eric some other way), we followed another logging road downstream a bit before heading into the woods. For a long time Eric and I had nice open hardwoods and calm, beautiful day. We kept going, crossed a few feeder streams and then started climbing.
Climbing was nice until about 2500' when we found ourselves swimming upstream through thick spruce & blowdowns. This lasted for about an hour when we reached about 2900'. Then it was just blowdowns, but at least we could see something besides spruce-in-the-face. Finding the summit and register was easy despite the summit area being a wide plateau.
Eric and I signed the register, maybe farted a few times and wondered why people don't poop in the registers more often, and then headed north to avoid the blowdown and spruce on the decent. Going down was much easier... we kinda hooked up with the main feeder brook in the valley, which we followed just about the entire way to the crossing of Osseo Brook (which we just trudged through this time) and then the trail. On the way, much to Eric's chagrin, I took down any flagging I saw.
I took about 3 pictures and I'm not going to go to the trouble posting them and whatnot. There were no ledges and this was a wooded summit. However, since the leaves were down we got some great views into the Pemi. For most of the hike we had great views to Bond, Bondcliff, Hellgate Ravine and West Bond. In my opinion these were some unique views considering you rarely look directly into Hellgate Ravine from any angle. Also, we found a blowdown area that gave even nicer views to Owl's Head, The Bonds, The Twin Range and even Garfield poked out. I was satisfied. In fact, I was happy with the entire hike. You really can't beat being off trail, open woods (for the most part), logging roads, moosie paths and whatnot on a dry fall day. Despite the warnings of horrific stream crossings, all ours were simple.
After the hike, Eric ate a block of cheese and we went to the Mountain Wanderer.
-Dr. Wu
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