bryan
New member
date: 3/6/13
trails: sawyer river road, signal ridge trail, carrigain notch trail, bushwack
conditions: sawyer river road is snowmobile packed. signal ridge trail had a well packed snowshoe track. carrigain notch trail had not been recently travelled and had at least a foot of snow over an often imperceptible base. we walked to the "big rock" then backtracked a bit and headed nw up to the ridge through mostly open woods hitting the ridge at a lower elevation then i had previously, but it proved to be a much nicer and more gradual ascent. from there we followed the path of least resistance up the ridge with increasing snow depth and a couple bands of spruce before hitting the scree field. rather than crossing the snow covered scree field as the summer herd path does we followed the scree field around the mountain then went back into the woods contouring around to the east side of the peak. this is where the snow depth really seemed to increase and become less consolidated. we came at the summit from the east after contouring around a cliff band with a couple steep pitches popping up right near the summit. this route was much less steep than the route of the summer herd path above the scree field. descending we followed our tracks until the lower woods where we followed a drainage back out to the trail coming out a bit lower than where we started. the water crossing was open, but low and easily rock hopped in snowshoes.
equipment: we wore snowshoes the whole hike.
comments: a great trip to vose spur. some deep snow up high, but we ended up on a nice route almost the whole way. limited views from the scree field and in the notch. a bit of sleet on the walk out. thanks to timc for a great hike.
bryan
[email protected]
trails: sawyer river road, signal ridge trail, carrigain notch trail, bushwack
conditions: sawyer river road is snowmobile packed. signal ridge trail had a well packed snowshoe track. carrigain notch trail had not been recently travelled and had at least a foot of snow over an often imperceptible base. we walked to the "big rock" then backtracked a bit and headed nw up to the ridge through mostly open woods hitting the ridge at a lower elevation then i had previously, but it proved to be a much nicer and more gradual ascent. from there we followed the path of least resistance up the ridge with increasing snow depth and a couple bands of spruce before hitting the scree field. rather than crossing the snow covered scree field as the summer herd path does we followed the scree field around the mountain then went back into the woods contouring around to the east side of the peak. this is where the snow depth really seemed to increase and become less consolidated. we came at the summit from the east after contouring around a cliff band with a couple steep pitches popping up right near the summit. this route was much less steep than the route of the summer herd path above the scree field. descending we followed our tracks until the lower woods where we followed a drainage back out to the trail coming out a bit lower than where we started. the water crossing was open, but low and easily rock hopped in snowshoes.
equipment: we wore snowshoes the whole hike.
comments: a great trip to vose spur. some deep snow up high, but we ended up on a nice route almost the whole way. limited views from the scree field and in the notch. a bit of sleet on the walk out. thanks to timc for a great hike.
bryan
[email protected]
