Tom Rankin
Well-known member
Laurie and I hiked Stratton in Vermont as a little warmup for Owl's head the next day 7/8. Stratton was a cake walk, nice easy grade, great views from the fire tower, chatted with the retired caretaker who is now a volunteer. Cool place, 'nuff said! 
The next morning we got up at 5:00 and headed off to the Lincoln Woods P.A. It was cool and clear, with a slight breeze. A perfect day for a hike!
We met 'Hunter' from the site, and started off across the first bridge at 6:02 AM. In exactly an hour, we were at the end of the road and crossed the 2nd bridge. The water looked like it was running well, but nothing near a flood or even 'high water'. The road walk was uneventful. There were a few muddy spots but no one fell in up to their arm pits! A very small amount of water was running over the road in a few places.
As we made out way up the trails, again there were a few mud wallows, but we skirted or even walked thru them with only one minor 'mudding'.
The stream crossings were challenging. Hunter and I managed to hop across the rocks, but Laurie fell in twice. (She has never fallen in a stream before, and we stopped both times so she could wring out her socks). I was the tallest of the 3 and Laurie was the shortest. This was not enough, as I almost fell in, but for a borrowed 2nd hiking pole for one of the crossings that helped me stop before I fell off a rock.
Summary of the crossings: Bring water shoes, sandals, etc, if you go in the near future!
Finding the slide proved trivial. There were 2 cairns there. It also helped that I had been there before, from the North. However, if the cairns had not been there, it might have been otherwise. Even with the cairns, 2 groups of people we met confessed that they failed to find the herd path on their first pass up the trail! Without the cairns, it just looks like a little washout stream with some blowdown in front of it. 4000'er has a picture of this in another thread.
As OverUnder said, there are some obvious and not so obvious signs of the herd path being near by:
I saw the 'no camping' sign. (again 4000'er has a picture of this)
I did not notice the 'cave-in', but I don't think I went that far up the trail.
I noticed that the elevation of 2500' was consistent where the herd path would be located.
I noticed the flat spot in the trail.
There was a mostly destroyed fire ring right in the middle of the trail!
I also want to mention that there is a large blowdown across the trail, about 7 feet high, just North of the herd path.
We saw 2 young guys coming down the slide as we went up. Another hiker had already descended the herd path, and met us along the marked trail. These 3 were all over-nighters.
So, anyway, up we went. The slide was dry for the most part, but consists mostly of shale. It's very easy to dislodge a rock or 10, and start a landslide! Be careful if traveling in a group! Some way up, there is a place where the slide appears to end, and a herd path continues up and slightly to the right. I mistrusted this path but followed it up a ways. Soon, I saw daylight to my left, and bushwhacked back over to the slide, which continues up a narrow thread on the left edge of where the main slide appears to end.
After this, the slide narrows and the herd path takes you up an obvious trail to the 'old' summit. There is bump here, but it is now believed to be slightly lower than another bump about 5-10 minutes walk to the north. There were no signs at the first bump, only a scar on a tree about 7 feet up. The new herd path is very twisty, and winds around blowdown, but leads soon to the true summit. There are a few items of note here, including 3 large nails in a tree, a fire ring , and a small clearing. We reached this point at around 10:30.
After a snack, we turned around and started back. We met about a dozen people on their way up. We tried to convery what we had learned during the day to most of them.
There are nice views from the slide, so don't forget your camera!
We re-crossed all the streams and made our way back to the road by 1:30. There were tons of people walking and biking this section! We were out at 2:30. We were all amazed that we had done the hike in 8.5 hours!
After changing, we headed over to the Woodstock Inn for some well-earned brews!
(I'm at a slow connection right now, but I will post pics soon).
The next morning we got up at 5:00 and headed off to the Lincoln Woods P.A. It was cool and clear, with a slight breeze. A perfect day for a hike!
We met 'Hunter' from the site, and started off across the first bridge at 6:02 AM. In exactly an hour, we were at the end of the road and crossed the 2nd bridge. The water looked like it was running well, but nothing near a flood or even 'high water'. The road walk was uneventful. There were a few muddy spots but no one fell in up to their arm pits!
A very small amount of water was running over the road in a few places. As we made out way up the trails, again there were a few mud wallows, but we skirted or even walked thru them with only one minor 'mudding'.
The stream crossings were challenging. Hunter and I managed to hop across the rocks, but Laurie fell in twice. (She has never fallen in a stream before, and we stopped both times so she could wring out her socks). I was the tallest of the 3 and Laurie was the shortest. This was not enough, as I almost fell in, but for a borrowed 2nd hiking pole for one of the crossings that helped me stop before I fell off a rock.
Summary of the crossings: Bring water shoes, sandals, etc, if you go in the near future!
Finding the slide proved trivial. There were 2 cairns there. It also helped that I had been there before, from the North. However, if the cairns had not been there, it might have been otherwise. Even with the cairns, 2 groups of people we met confessed that they failed to find the herd path on their first pass up the trail! Without the cairns, it just looks like a little washout stream with some blowdown in front of it. 4000'er has a picture of this in another thread.
As OverUnder said, there are some obvious and not so obvious signs of the herd path being near by:
I saw the 'no camping' sign. (again 4000'er has a picture of this)
I did not notice the 'cave-in', but I don't think I went that far up the trail.
I noticed that the elevation of 2500' was consistent where the herd path would be located.
I noticed the flat spot in the trail.
There was a mostly destroyed fire ring right in the middle of the trail!
I also want to mention that there is a large blowdown across the trail, about 7 feet high, just North of the herd path.
We saw 2 young guys coming down the slide as we went up. Another hiker had already descended the herd path, and met us along the marked trail. These 3 were all over-nighters.
So, anyway, up we went. The slide was dry for the most part, but consists mostly of shale. It's very easy to dislodge a rock or 10, and start a landslide!
Be careful if traveling in a group! Some way up, there is a place where the slide appears to end, and a herd path continues up and slightly to the right. I mistrusted this path but followed it up a ways. Soon, I saw daylight to my left, and bushwhacked back over to the slide, which continues up a narrow thread on the left edge of where the main slide appears to end. After this, the slide narrows and the herd path takes you up an obvious trail to the 'old' summit. There is bump here, but it is now believed to be slightly lower than another bump about 5-10 minutes walk to the north. There were no signs at the first bump, only a scar on a tree about 7 feet up. The new herd path is very twisty, and winds around blowdown, but leads soon to the true summit. There are a few items of note here, including 3 large nails in a tree, a fire ring
, and a small clearing. We reached this point at around 10:30. After a snack, we turned around and started back. We met about a dozen people on their way up. We tried to convery what we had learned during the day to most of them.
There are nice views from the slide, so don't forget your camera!
We re-crossed all the streams and made our way back to the road by 1:30. There were tons of people walking and biking this section! We were out at 2:30. We were all amazed that we had done the hike in 8.5 hours!
After changing, we headed over to the Woodstock Inn for some well-earned brews!
(I'm at a slow connection right now, but I will post pics soon).
![Yellowstone National Park [Map Pack Bundle] (National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51kGuJ72qjL._SL500_.jpg)
![Grand Teton Day Hikes and National Park Map [Map Pack Bundle] (National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41DB0jvRnbL._SL500_.jpg)
