Tom Rankin
Well-known member
Regarding
http://vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43430
I believe we met you.
We came up the McGrillis trail, which starts out a few miles west of the Blueberry Ledge trail and meets it at the giant view rocks shortly before the summit. I did not even notice this trail the last time I was at the rocks in summer. In any case, the trail starts out quite low, about 900'. The Winter parking lot also makes the route longer than in summer, and requires a short road walk. We spotted a car at the Blueberry Ledge lot, and off we went, with ManBearPig, WomanSowSow, Paradox, Laurie and yours truly.
The trail was unbroken to start, and we bare booted for a while. The footing was irregular on the road, with snowmobile tracks, etc. After a while the trail leaves the road and meanders thru the woods. We soon put snowshoes on and left them on the rest of the day. The trail stays down low for a while and crosses 1 major brook, which we managed to rock hop over w/o incident. There are a few places where a few more blazes would have been nice, but we managed to follow the trail 99% of the time. We took turns breaking trail, which was not too strenuous at this point.
Eventually the trail starts to get steeper and steeper. We could see the other ridge line and the dreaded exposed rocks that are the bane of the other route (see link above). While we started after some other groups from the Blueberry Ledge trail head, we did avoid this tricky section and were the first group to summit Whiteface. Either MBP was a great trail breaker or somehow this route is easier, because we were not exactly flying up the mountain! (Some unpleasant names for Whiteface came to mind at the summit, but we won't go there!
).
Once on the normal route, we met at least 50 people doing various hikes! Some other hikers caught up to us at the summit and we leap-frogged them over to Passaconaway, so the trail breaking was easier, especially on the down sections. There was one spot soon after leaving Whiteface that we left the trail and whacked around to the left, as the trail was over a very steeply pitched icy rock, with a drop off to the right. Aside from that we made our way over to Passaconaway with relative ease, and made the short, steep ascent to the summit on the spur trail. The spring is still flowing and water is available. It must be near its source, because it is not cold as I expected it to be. From there we were back to the spotted car in about 2 hours.
After that we headed to Chip's house, where we celebrated a successful hike, and the Pat's whup-a$$ of the Broncos!
http://vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43430
I believe we met you.
We came up the McGrillis trail, which starts out a few miles west of the Blueberry Ledge trail and meets it at the giant view rocks shortly before the summit. I did not even notice this trail the last time I was at the rocks in summer. In any case, the trail starts out quite low, about 900'. The Winter parking lot also makes the route longer than in summer, and requires a short road walk. We spotted a car at the Blueberry Ledge lot, and off we went, with ManBearPig, WomanSowSow, Paradox, Laurie and yours truly.
The trail was unbroken to start, and we bare booted for a while. The footing was irregular on the road, with snowmobile tracks, etc. After a while the trail leaves the road and meanders thru the woods. We soon put snowshoes on and left them on the rest of the day. The trail stays down low for a while and crosses 1 major brook, which we managed to rock hop over w/o incident. There are a few places where a few more blazes would have been nice, but we managed to follow the trail 99% of the time. We took turns breaking trail, which was not too strenuous at this point.
Eventually the trail starts to get steeper and steeper. We could see the other ridge line and the dreaded exposed rocks that are the bane of the other route (see link above). While we started after some other groups from the Blueberry Ledge trail head, we did avoid this tricky section and were the first group to summit Whiteface. Either MBP was a great trail breaker or somehow this route is easier, because we were not exactly flying up the mountain! (Some unpleasant names for Whiteface came to mind at the summit, but we won't go there!
).Once on the normal route, we met at least 50 people doing various hikes!
Some other hikers caught up to us at the summit and we leap-frogged them over to Passaconaway, so the trail breaking was easier, especially on the down sections. There was one spot soon after leaving Whiteface that we left the trail and whacked around to the left, as the trail was over a very steeply pitched icy rock, with a drop off to the right. Aside from that we made our way over to Passaconaway with relative ease, and made the short, steep ascent to the summit on the spur trail. The spring is still flowing and water is available. It must be near its source, because it is not cold as I expected it to be. From there we were back to the spotted car in about 2 hours. After that we headed to Chip's house, where we celebrated a successful hike, and the Pat's whup-a$$ of the Broncos!
