adamiata
New member
Having no significant family obligations for Christmas Eve Day, I decided to make the most of my day off from work by going hiking. My initial plan had been to stay at Lyon's Hospitality in Twin Mountain, get up very early on Saturday, and hike Galehead and the Twins from the Gale River Road. However, after seeing a less than promising weather report, and wanting to be home early for Christmas dinner, I opted to save the views from South Twin for another day.
Instead, I opted to hike Whiteface by the Blueberry Ledges Trail from Ferncroft with my friend Noah. I figured that the distance would make for good short hike, with the option of adding Passaconaway if we were so inclined. We met at the New Hampton park and ride off 93 at 7 in the morning and quickly made our way to the Ferncroft trailhead. We were the only car in the lot as we prepared to depart, but were soon joined by an older gentleman who intended to hike Passaconaway. He was the only other hiker we encountered all day.
The lower section of Blueberry Ledges was a pleasant walk in the woods, winding around snow covered evergreens in the Sandwich Range Wilderness. We saw many tracks crossing the trail, including rabbits and the occasional deer. The trail had been well packed by snowshoers with a light coating of powder from the previous day. We both commented on how much nicer it was to have snow up here, rather than the rain and freezing rain in Southern NH and the "other" state.
The weather was mostly overcast for us, but occasionally the sun would break through and give us some direct sunshine. Directly ahead the clouds were dark, which made for an interesting contrast with the light snow voered ground. Temperatures were very warm. I won't hazard to guess the actual temperature but were down to a single short sleeve layer before long, yet the snow on the branches overhead wasn't melting enough to drip on us.
Occasionally the evergreens on either side of the trail would lean in close enough that we had to knock the snow off them with our poles before proceeding. At times, when the undergrowth was tall enough, the trimmed branches would form sort of a spruce tunnel for us to walk through. Overall, the trail was very well maintained, with no blowdowns, and clear, frequent blazes. Thanks, WODC!
After an increasingly steep climb, we reached the summit ledges. We decided that our poles were being more of a hindrance at this point, and decided that we'd be coming back this way, so we left them on the side of the trail. Both of us wanted to be home for some Christmas dinner, so we decided to forego the trip out to Passaconaway, though we were already making good time. The ledges were entertaining to climb, they had little to no ice on them but were mostly covered in a layer of powder. Crampons stayed in our packs, but I did finally get some use out of my ixe axe. It wasn't strictly neccesary, but I was ably to use it to carve hand holds, probe for holes, and hook trees with it. Before this I felt like the Maytag repairman in that old commercial where the only use he has for his big pipe wrench is cracking nuts on his desk.
We reached the summit at about 11:30 with nothing to see amongst the clouds that surrounded us. Winds were light though, so we retreated to the summit ledges for lunch. Shortly afterward, we began our descent. Coming down the ledges was blast, with Noah and I jumping and sliding our way down and back to our poles.
The trail on the way down felt like a sidewalk and we made fast progress back to the intersection with the Tom Wiggins Trail. The sign for the TWT read "not recommended, steep and rough". Being still quite early in the day, we decided that sounded like fun. The snow for the TWT was undisturbed, it didn't appear as though anyone had been this way in quite a while, perhaps since before the first significant snowfall. I'd read the descriptions of this trail and various comments about it in books and online, so we decided to see it for ourselves.
We pushed our way down hill through knee deep powder and the trail was indeed steep at times. Despite the fact that it wasn't broken out in any way, we found it quite easy to follow, with a clearly trimmed pathway through the brush, and blazes that were visible from some distance away without any foliage to interfere. As the grade steepened and the snow got a bit wetter things did become loose, though not in the way the sign makers intended. Many small snowballs would roll away from us and grow rapidly in size as we plunged down the hill. One of them was bigger than the others, so I kept guiding it ahead of me. Before long this snowball was about 3 feet in diameter and so big that it took our combined strength to get moving again. At times, it virtually broke trail for us. We named it "Snowbally", just to be extra creative, and he was our friend for a while. Unfortunately, Snowbally met an untimely end when he hit a sapling and was split in two. Oh, Snowbally, we hardly knew ye.
After losing a lot of elevation, the trail began to level out and we trudged across a stream to meet up with the Dicey's Mills Trail. Like Blueberry Ledges, Dicey's Mills was a snowshoe highway and we were made such fast progress that we were suprised when we came out to a house and a driveway. That sure didn't feel like 1.6 miles. We strolled down the driveway between two open fields and encountered an older couple out for a walk. I assume they were the landowners for the lower section of the trail so we had a pleasant conversation with them and we were extra polite. They expressed suprise that we'd come down the Tom Wiggins Trail. We wished them a Merry Chistmas and made our way back to the car.
Though I would've rather been able to spend Christmas Eve with my wonderful girl, this proved to be the next best thing. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Instead, I opted to hike Whiteface by the Blueberry Ledges Trail from Ferncroft with my friend Noah. I figured that the distance would make for good short hike, with the option of adding Passaconaway if we were so inclined. We met at the New Hampton park and ride off 93 at 7 in the morning and quickly made our way to the Ferncroft trailhead. We were the only car in the lot as we prepared to depart, but were soon joined by an older gentleman who intended to hike Passaconaway. He was the only other hiker we encountered all day.
The lower section of Blueberry Ledges was a pleasant walk in the woods, winding around snow covered evergreens in the Sandwich Range Wilderness. We saw many tracks crossing the trail, including rabbits and the occasional deer. The trail had been well packed by snowshoers with a light coating of powder from the previous day. We both commented on how much nicer it was to have snow up here, rather than the rain and freezing rain in Southern NH and the "other" state.
The weather was mostly overcast for us, but occasionally the sun would break through and give us some direct sunshine. Directly ahead the clouds were dark, which made for an interesting contrast with the light snow voered ground. Temperatures were very warm. I won't hazard to guess the actual temperature but were down to a single short sleeve layer before long, yet the snow on the branches overhead wasn't melting enough to drip on us.
Occasionally the evergreens on either side of the trail would lean in close enough that we had to knock the snow off them with our poles before proceeding. At times, when the undergrowth was tall enough, the trimmed branches would form sort of a spruce tunnel for us to walk through. Overall, the trail was very well maintained, with no blowdowns, and clear, frequent blazes. Thanks, WODC!
After an increasingly steep climb, we reached the summit ledges. We decided that our poles were being more of a hindrance at this point, and decided that we'd be coming back this way, so we left them on the side of the trail. Both of us wanted to be home for some Christmas dinner, so we decided to forego the trip out to Passaconaway, though we were already making good time. The ledges were entertaining to climb, they had little to no ice on them but were mostly covered in a layer of powder. Crampons stayed in our packs, but I did finally get some use out of my ixe axe. It wasn't strictly neccesary, but I was ably to use it to carve hand holds, probe for holes, and hook trees with it. Before this I felt like the Maytag repairman in that old commercial where the only use he has for his big pipe wrench is cracking nuts on his desk.
We reached the summit at about 11:30 with nothing to see amongst the clouds that surrounded us. Winds were light though, so we retreated to the summit ledges for lunch. Shortly afterward, we began our descent. Coming down the ledges was blast, with Noah and I jumping and sliding our way down and back to our poles.
The trail on the way down felt like a sidewalk and we made fast progress back to the intersection with the Tom Wiggins Trail. The sign for the TWT read "not recommended, steep and rough". Being still quite early in the day, we decided that sounded like fun. The snow for the TWT was undisturbed, it didn't appear as though anyone had been this way in quite a while, perhaps since before the first significant snowfall. I'd read the descriptions of this trail and various comments about it in books and online, so we decided to see it for ourselves.
We pushed our way down hill through knee deep powder and the trail was indeed steep at times. Despite the fact that it wasn't broken out in any way, we found it quite easy to follow, with a clearly trimmed pathway through the brush, and blazes that were visible from some distance away without any foliage to interfere. As the grade steepened and the snow got a bit wetter things did become loose, though not in the way the sign makers intended. Many small snowballs would roll away from us and grow rapidly in size as we plunged down the hill. One of them was bigger than the others, so I kept guiding it ahead of me. Before long this snowball was about 3 feet in diameter and so big that it took our combined strength to get moving again. At times, it virtually broke trail for us. We named it "Snowbally", just to be extra creative, and he was our friend for a while. Unfortunately, Snowbally met an untimely end when he hit a sapling and was split in two. Oh, Snowbally, we hardly knew ye.
After losing a lot of elevation, the trail began to level out and we trudged across a stream to meet up with the Dicey's Mills Trail. Like Blueberry Ledges, Dicey's Mills was a snowshoe highway and we were made such fast progress that we were suprised when we came out to a house and a driveway. That sure didn't feel like 1.6 miles. We strolled down the driveway between two open fields and encountered an older couple out for a walk. I assume they were the landowners for the lower section of the trail so we had a pleasant conversation with them and we were extra polite. They expressed suprise that we'd come down the Tom Wiggins Trail. We wished them a Merry Chistmas and made our way back to the car.
Though I would've rather been able to spend Christmas Eve with my wonderful girl, this proved to be the next best thing. Merry Christmas, everyone.
