Snowflea
New member
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2003
- Messages
- 1,104
- Reaction score
- 284
Peaks: North & South Twin, Southwest Twin, (South Twin), Galehead
Trails: Seven Dwarves herd path, North Twin Trail, North Twin Spur, Twinway, Bushwhack to SW Twin, Twinway, Frost Trail, Garfield Ridge Trail, Gale River Trail, Gale River Road
Recommended equipment: Snowshoes. An enthusiastic and solid hiking partner. Headlamps.
Trail maintenance notes: A particular shout out to the North Twin Spur Trail adopter. The relatively fresh blue blazes are appreciated. All trails were nicely broken out with beautiful snowshoe tracks. Thanks everyone!
Southwest Twin is a Trailwrights 4000 footer and, navigationally speaking, probably the hardest one to climb. I have done SW Twin twice before, both times "from the bottom," the Franconia Brook Trail. The first time was January 25, 1992, my first winter of hiking, on an AMC trip led by Dennis Crispo. Tom and Diane Sawyer were there that day (yes, THAT Tom and Diane Sawyer). My most vivid memory is of the hour getting late, the group deliberating whether or not we had reached our turnaround time, and Tom casually leaning against a tree and saying something like "Diane and I are acccustomed to winter bushwhacking in the dark. We'll keep going." The group split in two. I stuck with the Masters and got the peak. BTW, it's Tom Sawyer's fault that I've never subscribed to turnaround times.
But I digress. The Lincoln Woods-Franconia Brook approach is long and flat and can be mind numbing at the end of a long day, even on skis. Although I'd heard Bad Things about approaching the peak from the Twinway/AT, I wanted to give it a try. Looking at the map, it makes SO much more sense, in theory, to approach from this direction!
I am not a huge fan of bushwhacking and definitely not a fan of winter bushwhacking - something about those spruce traps... - so asked around, and apparently only Hamtero wasn't busy organizing his sock drawer this weekend. Hamtero is the kind of partner who, say, if you are stuck in a tent at 17,000 feet on Denali and starting to get panicky with hypoxia, he will lend you his battery powered radio to calm you down so you can try to sleep. He's that kind of guy. Cruddytoes also agreed to join us for the Regular Twins but had foolishly done some Googling of "SW Twin" the day before and exclaimed "But nobody MAKES IT from the Twinway!!" Pshaw. I say don't believe everything you read.
The day was a good winter hiking day although not as lovely as the previous Prezi Day, and my boots had not completely dried out from Friday's spectacular Monroe-to-Jefferson jaunt. Consequently, although temps were moderate in the 20s, my feet ended up getting cold so rest stops were few and brief. We made our way up and over the Twins on a very nicely broken out snowshoe track, then turned left on the Twinway, said goodbye to Cruddy, and continued 1/2 to 3/4 mile to our launching point. (We very much appreciated following Wayne, Jack, and Andy's track from the day before and not having to spend time searching for the Twinway. Thanks guys!) The distance to SW Twin was only 0.8 mile as the crow flies. We went on a 220 bearing, more or less, jogging left or right for openness. I carried an old-school USGS topo map and compass; Hamtero had the aid of a GPS function on his Thmartphone. For two non-expert bushwhackers, we picked a darn good route, with only a tiny area of very thick woods and only a short bit of trouble with spruce traps. It was almost disappointing.... No, it wasn't.
What WAS disappointing was that there was no register jar to be found on top, so we took a photo of Hamtero's phone for proof that we stood atop Peak 4357. Views were stingy on this day: we caught fleeting glimpses of one of the slides leading down to Redrock Pond and of very nearby scenery but, alas, none of Guyot or the Bonds, the upper Pemi or Owls Head...
Following our snowshoe tracks back to the Twinway, we continued up and over South Twin, down the steeps (wheeee....!!!) to Galehead Hut, dropped our packs for the out-and-back to the peak, and deliberated doing Garfield. Hmm... We knew we could do it, but since we also knew full and well how much it would really suck, neither of us had any desire to do it. Hamtero had to drive all the way back to Boston, the wind was picking up, it was starting to snow, and Garfield is SO much nicer to do in the daylight... So we bailed down Gale River, noticing one lonely set of older snowshoe tracks continuing on Garfield Ridge which helped to solidify our decision.
The flats of the Gale River Trail are about two miles longer than I remember, but the sparkles of falling snow reflecting from our lights and the soft "swoosh-swoosh" sounds of our snowshoes on the new fluff made for a meditative/reflective head space/time. Or something like that. We finally hit the road and had to step aside twice to make way for a snowmobile groomer (we mused, he no doubt listening to music with the heat cranked while we plodded along). I finally removed my snowshoes about 1/4 mile from the cars, but Hamtero wore his even across Route 3 so he could say he wore his snowshoes car to car today.
Although we sort of left a straggler (Garfield), we were thrilled to have snagged the main event, SW Twin. FWIW to those considering this peak, I definitely prefer the route from the Twinway vs. Franconia Brook. Thanks for a super hike, Hamtero and Cruddy! Now who wants to traverse the Osceolas?
Trails: Seven Dwarves herd path, North Twin Trail, North Twin Spur, Twinway, Bushwhack to SW Twin, Twinway, Frost Trail, Garfield Ridge Trail, Gale River Trail, Gale River Road
Recommended equipment: Snowshoes. An enthusiastic and solid hiking partner. Headlamps.
Trail maintenance notes: A particular shout out to the North Twin Spur Trail adopter. The relatively fresh blue blazes are appreciated. All trails were nicely broken out with beautiful snowshoe tracks. Thanks everyone!
Southwest Twin is a Trailwrights 4000 footer and, navigationally speaking, probably the hardest one to climb. I have done SW Twin twice before, both times "from the bottom," the Franconia Brook Trail. The first time was January 25, 1992, my first winter of hiking, on an AMC trip led by Dennis Crispo. Tom and Diane Sawyer were there that day (yes, THAT Tom and Diane Sawyer). My most vivid memory is of the hour getting late, the group deliberating whether or not we had reached our turnaround time, and Tom casually leaning against a tree and saying something like "Diane and I are acccustomed to winter bushwhacking in the dark. We'll keep going." The group split in two. I stuck with the Masters and got the peak. BTW, it's Tom Sawyer's fault that I've never subscribed to turnaround times.
But I digress. The Lincoln Woods-Franconia Brook approach is long and flat and can be mind numbing at the end of a long day, even on skis. Although I'd heard Bad Things about approaching the peak from the Twinway/AT, I wanted to give it a try. Looking at the map, it makes SO much more sense, in theory, to approach from this direction!
I am not a huge fan of bushwhacking and definitely not a fan of winter bushwhacking - something about those spruce traps...
- so asked around, and apparently only Hamtero wasn't busy organizing his sock drawer this weekend. Hamtero is the kind of partner who, say, if you are stuck in a tent at 17,000 feet on Denali and starting to get panicky with hypoxia, he will lend you his battery powered radio to calm you down so you can try to sleep. He's that kind of guy. Cruddytoes also agreed to join us for the Regular Twins but had foolishly done some Googling of "SW Twin" the day before and exclaimed "But nobody MAKES IT from the Twinway!!" Pshaw. I say don't believe everything you read.The day was a good winter hiking day although not as lovely as the previous Prezi Day, and my boots had not completely dried out from Friday's spectacular Monroe-to-Jefferson jaunt. Consequently, although temps were moderate in the 20s, my feet ended up getting cold so rest stops were few and brief. We made our way up and over the Twins on a very nicely broken out snowshoe track, then turned left on the Twinway, said goodbye to Cruddy, and continued 1/2 to 3/4 mile to our launching point. (We very much appreciated following Wayne, Jack, and Andy's track from the day before and not having to spend time searching for the Twinway. Thanks guys!) The distance to SW Twin was only 0.8 mile as the crow flies. We went on a 220 bearing, more or less, jogging left or right for openness. I carried an old-school USGS topo map and compass; Hamtero had the aid of a GPS function on his Thmartphone. For two non-expert bushwhackers, we picked a darn good route, with only a tiny area of very thick woods and only a short bit of trouble with spruce traps. It was almost disappointing.... No, it wasn't.
What WAS disappointing was that there was no register jar to be found on top, so we took a photo of Hamtero's phone for proof that we stood atop Peak 4357. Views were stingy on this day: we caught fleeting glimpses of one of the slides leading down to Redrock Pond and of very nearby scenery but, alas, none of Guyot or the Bonds, the upper Pemi or Owls Head...
Following our snowshoe tracks back to the Twinway, we continued up and over South Twin, down the steeps (wheeee....!!!) to Galehead Hut, dropped our packs for the out-and-back to the peak, and deliberated doing Garfield. Hmm... We knew we could do it, but since we also knew full and well how much it would really suck, neither of us had any desire to do it. Hamtero had to drive all the way back to Boston, the wind was picking up, it was starting to snow, and Garfield is SO much nicer to do in the daylight... So we bailed down Gale River, noticing one lonely set of older snowshoe tracks continuing on Garfield Ridge which helped to solidify our decision.
The flats of the Gale River Trail are about two miles longer than I remember, but the sparkles of falling snow reflecting from our lights and the soft "swoosh-swoosh" sounds of our snowshoes on the new fluff made for a meditative/reflective head space/time. Or something like that. We finally hit the road and had to step aside twice to make way for a snowmobile groomer (we mused, he no doubt listening to music with the heat cranked while we plodded along). I finally removed my snowshoes about 1/4 mile from the cars, but Hamtero wore his even across Route 3 so he could say he wore his snowshoes car to car today.
Although we sort of left a straggler (Garfield), we were thrilled to have snagged the main event, SW Twin. FWIW to those considering this peak, I definitely prefer the route from the Twinway vs. Franconia Brook. Thanks for a super hike, Hamtero and Cruddy! Now who wants to traverse the Osceolas?
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