Damselfly
Active member
I met Michael LaRoss and Lew Dow in Groveton for today's hike up into
the Longs. Nash Steam Road is in great shape and you couldn't tell
we had a hurricane a week ago.
We drove up towards the ponds/trailhead, and parked at the gate.
After a 5 minute road walk towards a camp, you have to look right into
the woods for a faint trail that takes you onto the old logging roads.
We followed the wet, muddy and overgrown logging roads easily. As the
road forked, we aimed right, which followed the herd path / compass
direction. The road seemed to peter out; we followed the herd path
uphill through some trees, and it came back onto an old logging road.
At the next fork we went Left (a torrent of water was coming down from
the right). And then, finally, the woods road dead-ended.
At this point, we found a small ax blaze on a tree, and we discovered /
fell onto a narrow ax-blazed trail. This was super easy to follow, as
the brush cuts on the tree were definitely caused by an ax or clippers
- not by moose. Using this trail was easier than whacking, so we
stayed on this. The trail seemed to be drawing us up towards the pond
- and we quickly knew that we would probably be hiking to Middle Long
first. We wondered who would ax cut a trail out in this area...
fisherman? (Though the visit to the pond gave us doubt that one could
fish there.)
Much to our disappointment, this trail eventually dead-ended - but we
were now only .7 miles or so Middle Long. The woods up to Middle were
light to moderate and we easily got to the summit.
We then aimed for the southern end of Long Mt. Pond near its outlet.
The pond was really nice and beautiful - but too shallow for good
fishing (making us wonder again about that ax-cut trail we had
found). As previously reported, we found a large number of moose bones near the outlet.
From the pond it was about a half hour whack up the more pointed
summit of West Long. We took a nice long lunch break here, enjoying
the ferns, cool fall temps and restricted views of the Prezzies.
The woods were more dense on the trip out, but the three of us thought
that compared with our Scar Ridge traverse, this was easy. Our
navigating was good, and we landed back onto our ax-cut trail, which
brought us back to the wet woods roads. At a leisurely pace, it was
just a bit over two hours from the summit back to the car.
It was a real pleasant fall day to be out in the woods... wish every
hiking day could be so pleasant.
the Longs. Nash Steam Road is in great shape and you couldn't tell
we had a hurricane a week ago.
We drove up towards the ponds/trailhead, and parked at the gate.
After a 5 minute road walk towards a camp, you have to look right into
the woods for a faint trail that takes you onto the old logging roads.
We followed the wet, muddy and overgrown logging roads easily. As the
road forked, we aimed right, which followed the herd path / compass
direction. The road seemed to peter out; we followed the herd path
uphill through some trees, and it came back onto an old logging road.
At the next fork we went Left (a torrent of water was coming down from
the right). And then, finally, the woods road dead-ended.
At this point, we found a small ax blaze on a tree, and we discovered /
fell onto a narrow ax-blazed trail. This was super easy to follow, as
the brush cuts on the tree were definitely caused by an ax or clippers
- not by moose. Using this trail was easier than whacking, so we
stayed on this. The trail seemed to be drawing us up towards the pond
- and we quickly knew that we would probably be hiking to Middle Long
first. We wondered who would ax cut a trail out in this area...
fisherman? (Though the visit to the pond gave us doubt that one could
fish there.)
Much to our disappointment, this trail eventually dead-ended - but we
were now only .7 miles or so Middle Long. The woods up to Middle were
light to moderate and we easily got to the summit.
We then aimed for the southern end of Long Mt. Pond near its outlet.
The pond was really nice and beautiful - but too shallow for good
fishing (making us wonder again about that ax-cut trail we had
found). As previously reported, we found a large number of moose bones near the outlet.
From the pond it was about a half hour whack up the more pointed
summit of West Long. We took a nice long lunch break here, enjoying
the ferns, cool fall temps and restricted views of the Prezzies.
The woods were more dense on the trip out, but the three of us thought
that compared with our Scar Ridge traverse, this was easy. Our
navigating was good, and we landed back onto our ax-cut trail, which
brought us back to the wet woods roads. At a leisurely pace, it was
just a bit over two hours from the summit back to the car.
It was a real pleasant fall day to be out in the woods... wish every
hiking day could be so pleasant.
