Well, Steve-o and I hit Sugarloaf, Hogsback, Jeffers, and Blueberry on Fri/Sat under clear, blue, sunny, beautiful skies. Some gems there, even if you never crest 3000'. We camped in the woods well off one of the forest service roads -
not a bad view from the site.
From the N-S road, we took a left to head to the west of long pond, then, when we reached height-of-land, we headed up and hit hogsback first. Whackin' is pretty easy - largely hardwoods, no leaves, etc. Plenty of moose in the area, though we saw none. This is a view
looking NW to sugarloaf from the hogsback. The southern view with Jeffers's rolling, flat summit is
here. Lots of forest logging activity, but it appears to have been many years since they did anything.
The 'whack from the Hogsback to Sugarloaf was a treat - beautiful woods, until you hit the top of some of the clearcuts in that area... a bit of spruce nastyness as you mount the summit cone of the 'Loaf. But, the views are worth it - this is
looking south to the Hogsback, the long flat ridge to the right is Jeffers, the snow is on Moose, and if you look REAL close you can see the summit of Clough over hogsback slightly to the left of S. Moosilauke. Not bad for 2600' or so.
Now, back over hogsback - needed to drink in the views from that summit in again.
Here is a view from another part of the exposed ridge - N. and S. Kinsman with franconia range rising behind it. And, a shot of
Long Pond - you can see the ridge to Moose rising on the right. No jar found on the Hogsback.
The 'whack from Hogsback to Jeffers was fairly straight forward. More or less walk along the contour line staying as close to the ridge top as possible AND out of the conifers.... We went past the outlook Dr. Wu mentioned, but found another spactacular ledge affording lovely views to the east. And yes, there is a JAR on Jeffers -
here it is.
We now understand why Dr. Wu found it fairly easily - it is at the south end of the long, flat summit.... that is the approach they took, we came from the north - all i have to say is you have to be persistent and DON'T be fooled by a thick skinny ridge of conifers cuz it ain't there. It took us a few passes to find it. stay to the east side where the walking is easy and you will find it. After an hour or so nap on the ledge, we went back, and located it. No one has climbed it since 9/2006 .... records go back to 1986, can't be more than 50 people in 21 yrs that hit it, of course, it doesn't count the people who do not sign it.... zero view from the summit.
from there, we had enough. we dialed in a bearing to the camp site, and walked straight down the bearing.... it was a totally leasurly day - we must have taken in 3+ hours of views along the way.... lots of "eye candy" for the prepared mind
we used map/compass for all the navigation with the exception of the last 1/4mi where we let the GPS fine-tune the final approach to the camp site.
on sat, we hit blueberry.
here is jeffers from there.
We saw two people the entire time.
Yeah, easily can be done in a day trip, but sometimes the best way to do these is backpackin'.... very relaxing....
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