Amicus
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The air was cool and fragrant after the Friday p.m. showers and the sky wore her prettiest shade of blue, as I headed up the Nancy Pond Trail at 7 a.m. this morning. The parking area is 1/2 mile south of the Notchland Inn and Davis Path trailhead on Rte 302, and my last hike from there was in the summer of 1990, when my father-in-law and his brother persuaded me to join them on a bushwhack to Duck Pond Mtn. (a dismal lump that is on the NE3K list) - a hike I will never willingly repeat.
Poison Ivy, BigEarl and Bob & Geri (the last with one of their useful GPS tracks) have posted Reports of their hikes to Nancy, to which I refer the interested for details and photos. I'll just add a few personal notes.
I enjoyed poking around the moss-covered brick and concrete ruins of Lucy mill at 1.8 miles (1,900 feet), including the twisty metal remains of the machinery. What a remote location, and wasn't it difficult to build there?
Nancy Cascades, abetted no doubt by those showers, compared favorably, I thought, with Arethusa Falls a few miles north - NH's highest. The round-trip of a little under 5 miles would be worthwhile for any waterfall-fancier. The Trail seems to go across their base, but that is a herd-path for Cascade viewers and swimmers. The real Trail doubles back to the left, marked by a yellow tree-blaze and an arrow on a rock, starting a fairly steep section of switchbacks that climb from 2,400 to 3,100 feet, where the Trail levels and traces the north shores of Nancy and Norcross Ponds.
Those Ponds look like moose magnets but I saw none - just their tracks in the mud and some droppings. The summit path begins in the clearing beyond Norcross Pond. You look straight at a little "no camping" symbol and the path is over your right shoulder, heading NNE and flat. It is at least as wide and clear as the Trail at that point.
Before heading up that path, take the spur path on the left, which leads about 10 yards down to the head of the rocky little cascade of Norcross Pond. This gives you a stirring westward panorama of the Pemi Wilderness, centered on the Bonds. You won't see these peaks from the summit.
The summit path comes immediately to another clearing where it forks - you go left. (Does the right-hand path go to Bemis?) Shortly after that left, you come to the "unmaintained trail - don't touch the blowdowns" sign. There are a number of them - the biggest is the first. None are too difficult or obscure the path, however.
The crow-flight distance from the summit ledges to the start of the path is only 0.39 mile but the path does wind around some. It climbs 800 feet and not evenly, so the steep parts, including a section that parallels and briefly uses a slide, are really steep.
Turn around as you get higher. From the Pond, looking SW, you see only Mt. Anderson, but as you ascend, two other peaks peek over its right shoulder. I guessed they were Mt. Lowell and Vose Spur, but a study of the map seems to indicate that Lowell is entirely blocked, so my revised guess is Carrigain and Vose.
A new register was placed in the yellow summit canister in April by Phil, Alan, Dave and Andy. The most recent entry was Wed., by Jabberwalk and Hufflepuff (a/k/a Betsy and Dot). The view ledge just beyond gives a fine panorama N to SSE. Clouds were rolling in when I got there around 10:45 a.m. and Mt. Washington was obscured, but Old Speck, the Baldpates and Table Rock in Maine, to the E, were distinct. The view north through Crawford Notch is striking, but I liked even better the near view east to the ledges of Crawford and Stairs - the reverse of the view SteveHiker, Rocknsrolls, Damon, HikerFast and I had a few weeks ago, near the end of our Glen Boulder/Davis Path traverse.
Did you know that Mt. Nancy was sometimes known as Mt. Amorisgelu (accent on the third syllable)? That may sound Native American but it's Latin. It means "the frost of love" - a reference to the tragedy of Nancy Barton, namesake of its other name. (I'm sure you all know that story).
Returning, I met my first hikers between the Ponds - an older guy and his daughter (I'm guessing). He completed his 48 on the Bonds a week or so ago as a thunderstorm approached, so they saw nothing. They were climbing up for the view from Norcross Pond of the Bonds, to see what they'd missed.
From that point I met lots of ascending hikers, mostly headed for the Ponds or the Cascades. Some young people were swimming in the latter (clothed) as I passed.
I got back to my car a few minutes after 2. I make a point of forgetting one important thing on every hike, and today it was my food. So, I was hungry but otherwise very satisfied after an excellent hike.
Miles, c. 10.5; vertical feet climbed - 2,950.
Poison Ivy, BigEarl and Bob & Geri (the last with one of their useful GPS tracks) have posted Reports of their hikes to Nancy, to which I refer the interested for details and photos. I'll just add a few personal notes.
I enjoyed poking around the moss-covered brick and concrete ruins of Lucy mill at 1.8 miles (1,900 feet), including the twisty metal remains of the machinery. What a remote location, and wasn't it difficult to build there?
Nancy Cascades, abetted no doubt by those showers, compared favorably, I thought, with Arethusa Falls a few miles north - NH's highest. The round-trip of a little under 5 miles would be worthwhile for any waterfall-fancier. The Trail seems to go across their base, but that is a herd-path for Cascade viewers and swimmers. The real Trail doubles back to the left, marked by a yellow tree-blaze and an arrow on a rock, starting a fairly steep section of switchbacks that climb from 2,400 to 3,100 feet, where the Trail levels and traces the north shores of Nancy and Norcross Ponds.
Those Ponds look like moose magnets but I saw none - just their tracks in the mud and some droppings. The summit path begins in the clearing beyond Norcross Pond. You look straight at a little "no camping" symbol and the path is over your right shoulder, heading NNE and flat. It is at least as wide and clear as the Trail at that point.
Before heading up that path, take the spur path on the left, which leads about 10 yards down to the head of the rocky little cascade of Norcross Pond. This gives you a stirring westward panorama of the Pemi Wilderness, centered on the Bonds. You won't see these peaks from the summit.
The summit path comes immediately to another clearing where it forks - you go left. (Does the right-hand path go to Bemis?) Shortly after that left, you come to the "unmaintained trail - don't touch the blowdowns" sign. There are a number of them - the biggest is the first. None are too difficult or obscure the path, however.
The crow-flight distance from the summit ledges to the start of the path is only 0.39 mile but the path does wind around some. It climbs 800 feet and not evenly, so the steep parts, including a section that parallels and briefly uses a slide, are really steep.
Turn around as you get higher. From the Pond, looking SW, you see only Mt. Anderson, but as you ascend, two other peaks peek over its right shoulder. I guessed they were Mt. Lowell and Vose Spur, but a study of the map seems to indicate that Lowell is entirely blocked, so my revised guess is Carrigain and Vose.
A new register was placed in the yellow summit canister in April by Phil, Alan, Dave and Andy. The most recent entry was Wed., by Jabberwalk and Hufflepuff (a/k/a Betsy and Dot). The view ledge just beyond gives a fine panorama N to SSE. Clouds were rolling in when I got there around 10:45 a.m. and Mt. Washington was obscured, but Old Speck, the Baldpates and Table Rock in Maine, to the E, were distinct. The view north through Crawford Notch is striking, but I liked even better the near view east to the ledges of Crawford and Stairs - the reverse of the view SteveHiker, Rocknsrolls, Damon, HikerFast and I had a few weeks ago, near the end of our Glen Boulder/Davis Path traverse.
Did you know that Mt. Nancy was sometimes known as Mt. Amorisgelu (accent on the third syllable)? That may sound Native American but it's Latin. It means "the frost of love" - a reference to the tragedy of Nancy Barton, namesake of its other name. (I'm sure you all know that story).
Returning, I met my first hikers between the Ponds - an older guy and his daughter (I'm guessing). He completed his 48 on the Bonds a week or so ago as a thunderstorm approached, so they saw nothing. They were climbing up for the view from Norcross Pond of the Bonds, to see what they'd missed.
From that point I met lots of ascending hikers, mostly headed for the Ponds or the Cascades. Some young people were swimming in the latter (clothed) as I passed.
I got back to my car a few minutes after 2. I make a point of forgetting one important thing on every hike, and today it was my food. So, I was hungry but otherwise very satisfied after an excellent hike.
Miles, c. 10.5; vertical feet climbed - 2,950.
