btausend
New member
Parking: There is no parking lot at the Pine Bend Brook trailhead. You need to park on the side of the road. NH DOT has done a good job pushing back the snow banks on the north side of the road. There is parking for quite a few cars on the north side. On the south side there is not much room and if you park there your car will be pretty close to the travel portion of the road. Everyone parked on the north side of the road.
Trails: Pine Bend Brook Trail, Mount Tripyramid Trail
Trail Conditions: We started out as two. The trail has not been truly broken out since last weekends storm. It looks like one person hiked this trail, but it has snowed since then. There was about 3" of snow on the trail. The snow was not wet, but it had a lot of moisture content to it. As we gained elevation the amount of new snow increased and it was much drier. At the Sandwich Range sign two people caught up to us which really helped in breaking the trail. The steeper sections of the trail had upwards of a foot of new snow which made it very difficult to climb. It was next to impossible to get bite in the hard pack below. At Scaur Ridge trail we were joined by one more person and the 5 of us continued up to the North peak and on to the Middle peak. The Mt Tripyramid trail had some wind packed snow and places where there was only a couple of inches of snow on top of hard pack.
The brook crossings are all open. Nothing is bridged. The water is low and you have to hike through it. The toughest part on some of the crossing is decending down into the brook. There are also a couple wet areas that you can either hop over or go around. There were a few trees to duck under, but not too many obstacles on the trail.
We left the Middle peak at 12:30 to head back to the cars. We met one couple between the peaks and a group of 6 backpackers still approaching the North peak. Sabbaday Brook Trail and Scaur Ridge Trails were not broken out. The group of 6 said they were going to do all 3 peaks and then continue on to Whiteface and Passaconaway so the trail should be broken out to the South Peak and beyond. One of the 6 broke the bindings on one of his MSR snowshoes. It didn't look there was any way to repair it and the shoe was not usable so I don't know if it changed their plans.
The trail is now a well defined snowshoe trail. It will be a while before it is hard packed so anything other than snowshoes will cause excessive postholing. I think with the amount of traffic on the steep section today it will be a lot easier to get a bite with the toe crampons on your snowshoes.
Equipment Used: Snowshoes and Poles
Comments: It was kind of on the warm side today and no wind at all. It was cloudy all day, but the views were still great. I want to thank Zac (summitseeker) for coming on this hike with me. I also want to thank Steve and Holly (and their dog Kibo) along with Al "The Iron Man" from Long Island for joining up with us and making it a lot easier to bag these two peaks. It was exhausting, but still a great hike.
Brian
Trails: Pine Bend Brook Trail, Mount Tripyramid Trail
Trail Conditions: We started out as two. The trail has not been truly broken out since last weekends storm. It looks like one person hiked this trail, but it has snowed since then. There was about 3" of snow on the trail. The snow was not wet, but it had a lot of moisture content to it. As we gained elevation the amount of new snow increased and it was much drier. At the Sandwich Range sign two people caught up to us which really helped in breaking the trail. The steeper sections of the trail had upwards of a foot of new snow which made it very difficult to climb. It was next to impossible to get bite in the hard pack below. At Scaur Ridge trail we were joined by one more person and the 5 of us continued up to the North peak and on to the Middle peak. The Mt Tripyramid trail had some wind packed snow and places where there was only a couple of inches of snow on top of hard pack.
The brook crossings are all open. Nothing is bridged. The water is low and you have to hike through it. The toughest part on some of the crossing is decending down into the brook. There are also a couple wet areas that you can either hop over or go around. There were a few trees to duck under, but not too many obstacles on the trail.
We left the Middle peak at 12:30 to head back to the cars. We met one couple between the peaks and a group of 6 backpackers still approaching the North peak. Sabbaday Brook Trail and Scaur Ridge Trails were not broken out. The group of 6 said they were going to do all 3 peaks and then continue on to Whiteface and Passaconaway so the trail should be broken out to the South Peak and beyond. One of the 6 broke the bindings on one of his MSR snowshoes. It didn't look there was any way to repair it and the shoe was not usable so I don't know if it changed their plans.
The trail is now a well defined snowshoe trail. It will be a while before it is hard packed so anything other than snowshoes will cause excessive postholing. I think with the amount of traffic on the steep section today it will be a lot easier to get a bite with the toe crampons on your snowshoes.
Equipment Used: Snowshoes and Poles
Comments: It was kind of on the warm side today and no wind at all. It was cloudy all day, but the views were still great. I want to thank Zac (summitseeker) for coming on this hike with me. I also want to thank Steve and Holly (and their dog Kibo) along with Al "The Iron Man" from Long Island for joining up with us and making it a lot easier to bag these two peaks. It was exhausting, but still a great hike.
Brian
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