Averill to Lyon 02-02

[Neil]

Very nice outing, much nicer and easier than I anticipated. Randomscooter and I met up at 6:30 am on the dot and left a car at the Lyon Mtn. TH. From there we drove over to the pumphouse at the foot of Averill and began our hike. The "road" up to the radio (TV, cell phone, whatever) tower was fairly narrow and covered in snow that supported us upon its ATV enhanced crust. The walk up to the tower was very agreable and before we knew it we were at the tower's foot. We cut left to one of the guy wire's fixation points, got our bearing on Mr. Sun and then the rubber hit the road as we began the bushwhack to the summit of A. Lucky us, the snow was fairly firm and the mixed woods open enough so that no suffering or blood lettting occurred. Averill's summit was another surprise with great views. Tom thought Whiteface was Mansfield but I soon set him straight :roll: and we ID'd few High Peaks. The skies were sunny and there was no wind. What more could we ask for? An easy hike over to Lyon? Well, that's what we got. Open mixed forest with a minimum of conifer boughs in our faces. We sunk into the snowpack maybe 3 inches. We did fall into the odd spruce trap up to hip height but all in all the hike was a very pleasant walk in the woods.

Approaching Lyon from the col we picked up a trail of sorts blazed with red paint and an axe. Branches had been lopped off. We were soon on top with great views back to Averill. We came out at a clearing that Prino and I had found last Novemeber and from there it was a quick jaunt along a packed trail to the fire tower and the trail down to the car.

Pictures. (http://neil.webcentre.ca/outdoor%20pursuits/index.html)

[Eric]

Great pic's Neil. "Look at all the snow" out there today.

[randomscooter]

As I entered yesterday's hike into my journal a few things stood out. First, this was my first hike with Neil. He's a very strange dude, but in an agreeable sort of way. I did get a bit concerned on the eastern bump of Averill when he started pondering what might be the result if one of us were to fall off the rather large cliff on which we were perched. :shock: I think he was just kidding, but I kept him in sight the rest of the hike just to be sure.

The forest was very much as I recalled from my June '02 hike between these two summits. From the transmission tower to the Averill summit is open forest with easy spruce undergrowth. From the summit to the east bump is pretty good, with a few more jabbies along the ridge but not bad. From the east bump we sidehilled down to the Averill/Lyon col. This area I recalled as being the most challenging, having numerous blowdowns, young enough not to be lying flat on the forest floor in an advanced state of decay, but old enough that there is substantial new growth surrounding them and hiding the obvious routes around them. Luckily the winter snow kept us above most of the trouble and it was rather fun winding our way amongst the exposed tops of the new growth. The section across the col is wide open forest, absolutely gorgeous. The forest heading up onto Lyon has widely spaced trees, tall but shrubby in appearance with dense branches overhead and considerable dead branches down low. The wide spacing however makes for an easy time. The rim of the Lyon summit plateau is a band of intermittent rock outcroppings of various shapes and sizes, and was no problem. Well, I guess it was a little challenging for Neil. :) The plateau itself is covered in very dense scrub, lots of intertwined jabbies. However, we had the great good luck of cresting the summit rim exactly at a point (see photo of Neil looking back towards Averill) where a blazed, painted, and brushed out survey line also intersects the rim. That line provided us an easy walk through the summit scrub and out to the end of the new roadway. About 100 yards down the roadway another similar blazed line provided easy access through more scrub over to the fire tower. If we had had a good waypoint on the tower we probably would have headed directly for it from the point we crested the rim, and we would have missed all of those blazed lines. So I suppose it was a good thing Neil screwed up and had bad coordinates ;)

[Neil]

The rim of the Lyon summit plateau is a band of intermittent rock outcroppings of various shapes and sizes, and was no problem. Well, I guess it was a little challenging for Neil. :)
I thought MSR's were supposed to go straight up rock faces, I'm returning mine for a new pair.
Admit it, you were hoping to see me run straight off Averill's cliff into the cripplebush below. The only reason I didn't is because I was wearing that flimsy Golite jacket.

[ALGonquin Bob]

I was just talking to the Mrs. about hiking Lyon, and I said that there's a HH peak adjacent to it. When I searched the site, I found this... thanks for the info! :D I love the pic of the Lyon tower. -Bob