Whack a mole; Nancy, Bemis, Anderson, Lowell

[Wayne]

Little Brown Mushroom and I decided to knock some peaks off his NE and NH 100 lists. Since I have done these peaks I was elected guide. Steve brought me a breakfast sandwich and coffee as payment. I soon showed that was about what my services were worth. My memory of the turn to Bemis was realy easy and so I didn't research it again. Well after we had blown by the turn I realized my error. We decided to continue up. The silver lining was a view of the Nancy Cascades and the view down Norcross Pond. We left Norcross Pond and headed up the herd path to the Nancy summit. From there we worked north along the ridge and back east up along the long ridge to Bemis. The woods gave us a bit of everything. Ledges, thick and thin woods. Once on Bemis we dropped off the South side and worked our way through spruce Hell avoiding some large drops and around Nancy back to the ponds. We filtered more water then crossed the southeast end of Norcross and headed up Anderson. We stayed on the ridge the whole way to avoid the cliff band visible from Norcross. Woods began to put up a solid defense with occasional sweet spots. Once at the recognized high point we took a heading for Lowell and jumped back into the spruce fray. Again, we came across a bit of everything. Things got very thick near the top and it was great to finally reach the high point. We skirted along the cliffs northwesterly and eventually wrapped around more to the west and popped out on the notch trail. Despite the many dire reports we found this descent to be some of the better woods we encountered throughout the day. We topped the height of land and descended to the rock marker for Vose Spur. We were both out of water. I heard a faint babbling through the woods and we were excited to find a bit of water flowing. We filtered more water and got back to the trail. Our plan had been to head up Vose and continue up over Carrigain and down to the Captain (Aargh!). With the time of day we were unsure if we would get onto the herd path down from the Captain before nightfall. My experience of that area was of very thick woods. We decided the smart thing would be to not get greedy. Vose to the Captain will have to wait for another day. Maybe by then my shins will have scabbed over. My apologies to Steve for missing the Wardens trail to Bemis. The extra time and energy might have gotten us through the whole planned itinerary.

 

[una_dogger]

Dang!

That's en epic day.

I bow down to you

 

[Wayne]

Una,It was the first bushwack of any scale for either one of us for a couple years. Amazing how quickly I had forgotten what a violent sport it is!!

 

[TEO]

What?! No Duck Pond Peak? Slackers.

 

[HockeyPuck]

How did the change in plans from missing the Bemis turn-off affect your trip planning? Seems like descending back to the Bemis turn would still be significantly shorter in both distance and time than a traverse over Nancy and looping back to Norcross Pond.

I'm glad to hear you found an 'occasional sweet spot' when ascending Anderson. The ascent from Carrigan Notch is through thick, thicker and thickest spruce. Any recent entries in the registers?

Thanks for sharing the unique trip report.

 

[Wayne]

TEO, it's too funny you mention skipping Duck Pond Peak. Last time I was in there Lady Gray and I did Lowell and Anderson. Within an hour my friend Charlie was asking why we had skipped DPP since we had been right there. I joked with Steve about it and we decided if we bagged every peak that's on some list somewhere we might never leave the woods!

 

[Wayne]

Hockeypuck, we were almost to the Cascades when I finally realized I had totally missed the turn. Since I hadn't bushwhacked in a while I convinced myself that continuing on made perfect sense. In hindsight it would have been worth it to backtrack and take the trail up Bemis. Good old hindsight. There were a few entries from this year. Some guy named Hockeypuck and another named Holleywood. Sounded like the makings of a TV cop show title! It's interesting that you hit such a nasty line up from the Notch. We had (relatively) great woods descending to the notch. Sometimes a few hundred yards can make a world of difference.