1SlowHiker
New member
Finished my NEHH list this past Friday 08/28/15 with Vose Spur. To make it interesting and help my 15 yo grandson Kris with his 4k list we went via Mt Carrigain. It was a long day for this one slowhiker (14 hrs) but we got out of the whack with 1 hour of daylight to spare. Believe it or not, the trail up to Carrigain was really the hardest part for me. I really have to get back in shape before starting on my winter hikes.
After weighing suggestions about the direction to go, I decided to do the loop clockwise with Carrigain first so that 90% of the whack is downhill. That was a good choice. I think I would have had a hard time whacking up the ridge to Carrigain from Vose.
We started directly down the ridge from Carrigain but I think I was a bit too far south. We really hit some thick stuff here and when I shifted North we picked up some faint herd paths and the going was easier. After less than ¼ mile Kris pointed out that I was only holding 1 trekking pole. Lost the other somewhere in back in the thick. Oh well, I wasn’t about to go back (uphill looking for it). Per plan, we dropped off the ridge to the south before it started ascending to the lower peak trying to stay on the 4020’ contour. It was thick with a lot of blow-downs here but I think it was still better than going up over the lower peak. We went a bit further north than I planned (following the path of list resistance) and we broke out of the woods near the col a bit north of the huge talus field on the Carrigain side of the col. We followed the lower edge of the col until we got to my planned start of the bushwhack up to Vose. There were fields of delicious perfectly ripened blueberries at the base of talus field.
We were sort of following a 2010 track from jmmdds that I had downloaded from wikiloc. My plan was to intercept a herd-path that he had taken up to VS which we did. Prior to that, it was fairly thick and we did have to climb one short cliff that was a way-point on the dentist’s track. I’m just assuming he’s a dentist (DDS) and that’s what we called him during the whack. “How are we doing relative to the dentists track?
Once we intercepted the herd-path we just dropped our packs (after marking a waypoint) and followed it up to the peak It gets a little confusing at the top with various herd-paths but after wondering around a bit I was able to spot the lawn-chair at the peak. At this point I was no longer concerned about the time - we had plenty of daylight left to get down to the notch trail – so we took a long peak break congratulating each other. I meant to bring a Marvin the Martian figure to leave at the peak but forgot to bring it. I also meant to bring a celebratory beer but forgot that as well. Oh well! We signed the log. I had brought a new book and zip-lock because I had read that the old one was full and wet, but someone has already replaced it. There is water in the bottom of the canister but no way to get it out. It really needs a drain hole at the bottom. Maybe someone can bring up a portable drill.
We headed back down the herd path and picked up our packs. For most of the way down there were easy to follow herd-paths. I had planned to hit the upper VS talus field near its bottom but ended up coming in from the top. As it turned out this was great for Kris because he really enjoyed climbing down the field (and making me nervous)
From the field it was a combination of following herd-paths and fairly easy bushwhacking to look for paths. Near the bottom we just started following the bottom of a ravine that eventually came out at the C-N trail just north of “the boulder”. We hit the trail at 630 put on headlamps an hour later and were back at the trail-head by 830pm.
Pictures and trip details at http://1slowhiker.blogspot.com/
Track at : http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=10645691
All pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/107058143793233454912/August292015VoseSpurFromCarrigain
After weighing suggestions about the direction to go, I decided to do the loop clockwise with Carrigain first so that 90% of the whack is downhill. That was a good choice. I think I would have had a hard time whacking up the ridge to Carrigain from Vose.
We started directly down the ridge from Carrigain but I think I was a bit too far south. We really hit some thick stuff here and when I shifted North we picked up some faint herd paths and the going was easier. After less than ¼ mile Kris pointed out that I was only holding 1 trekking pole. Lost the other somewhere in back in the thick. Oh well, I wasn’t about to go back (uphill looking for it). Per plan, we dropped off the ridge to the south before it started ascending to the lower peak trying to stay on the 4020’ contour. It was thick with a lot of blow-downs here but I think it was still better than going up over the lower peak. We went a bit further north than I planned (following the path of list resistance) and we broke out of the woods near the col a bit north of the huge talus field on the Carrigain side of the col. We followed the lower edge of the col until we got to my planned start of the bushwhack up to Vose. There were fields of delicious perfectly ripened blueberries at the base of talus field.
We were sort of following a 2010 track from jmmdds that I had downloaded from wikiloc. My plan was to intercept a herd-path that he had taken up to VS which we did. Prior to that, it was fairly thick and we did have to climb one short cliff that was a way-point on the dentist’s track. I’m just assuming he’s a dentist (DDS) and that’s what we called him during the whack. “How are we doing relative to the dentists track?
Once we intercepted the herd-path we just dropped our packs (after marking a waypoint) and followed it up to the peak It gets a little confusing at the top with various herd-paths but after wondering around a bit I was able to spot the lawn-chair at the peak. At this point I was no longer concerned about the time - we had plenty of daylight left to get down to the notch trail – so we took a long peak break congratulating each other. I meant to bring a Marvin the Martian figure to leave at the peak but forgot to bring it. I also meant to bring a celebratory beer but forgot that as well. Oh well! We signed the log. I had brought a new book and zip-lock because I had read that the old one was full and wet, but someone has already replaced it. There is water in the bottom of the canister but no way to get it out. It really needs a drain hole at the bottom. Maybe someone can bring up a portable drill.
We headed back down the herd path and picked up our packs. For most of the way down there were easy to follow herd-paths. I had planned to hit the upper VS talus field near its bottom but ended up coming in from the top. As it turned out this was great for Kris because he really enjoyed climbing down the field (and making me nervous)
From the field it was a combination of following herd-paths and fairly easy bushwhacking to look for paths. Near the bottom we just started following the bottom of a ravine that eventually came out at the C-N trail just north of “the boulder”. We hit the trail at 630 put on headlamps an hour later and were back at the trail-head by 830pm.
Pictures and trip details at http://1slowhiker.blogspot.com/
Track at : http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=10645691
All pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/107058143793233454912/August292015VoseSpurFromCarrigain
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