peak_bgr
07-04-2005, 11:27 PM
Well we wanted both but got one. But the day didn't start out very well at all.
In Barbara McMartins book she mentioned a hunters access road through F and P land that was for public use. We looked for it and thought we had found it. We did find a very nice woods road but was not the one she had mentioned, so this ended up being private, our oppologies to the land owners.
This road climbed very steep from the Cedar River Road with nothing for a breather, so I was quite winded by the time we reached a shelf. The woods were pretty open. Soon after the plateau we came upon state land a very well cut property line so we followed it in hopes that it would deliver us where we wanted to go. It really didn't but we did find the McMartin road and that lead us in the right direction, kind of. Well it got us to a swampy area. it was my bright idea to go to the shore and hope for the best, I should bite my tougne more often. We ended up needing to backtrack and find the faint trail we were following prior, we didn't, all we found was an ungodly thick maze of second growth from logging a decade ago.
It got us around the swamp but not before a few choice words crossed my lips. Our next obstacle was a brook crossing, Alan nailed that one right on, thank god for that. But the woods on the other side were very scratchy and very dead. But somewhat open for the most part, NOT. We still had to fight through here to break into the hardwoods, which we finally did. Mind you we haven't even hit the Dishrag Pond trail yet, in fact we weren't even sure it still existed-and guess what?? It did. At this point Alan suggested we get the peak furthest in just incase we can't get them both, and he was right, I still haven't gotten over that yet! ;)
We decided to follow the Dishrag Pond Trail to its end and go up #99. The trail was very open with only a couple trees to jump through. At just before the end of the trail there is an old car on the side, kinda out of place, but there it was. The path went on for about another .1 miles before totally being gone. From there we entered the woods in a semi-dead forest and started a moderate climb.
It didn't take long before we hit the gorgeous hardwoods Indian Lake has offered us in the past. The walk was a joy all the way to the base of the the steep slope that guarded the summit. This slope is very noticable on any map. We debated skirting it to the right to avoid any possible cliffs but ended up going right up it to the ridge from the South. The ridge was a cake walk, open and fast. It's now at least 90 degrees outside and we're being attacked but enormous swarms of deer and horse flies the size of bumblebees and small private jets-deet didn't even touch them.
The summit wasn't open and didn't offer any views but it was still in all a nice peacefull summit. We didn't last to long on top, about 15 minutes. We decided to give the ridge a try-even though we lost about an hour screwing around down below. At this time it was 11:15 am and we needed to summit the other peak fast enough to get us out and me back home by 6pm, for a family thing.
Well we left the summit in the right direction but ended up way off course and had to find our way back around on the steep slopes of the North side. We ended up almost reclimbing the summit because we couldn't go right hard enough because of the slope. We we hit some pretty nasty %$#%&*^%@!!!! before we got back on the right heading and agian loosing about an hour of time. Well the woods finally opened up and I thought we were home free-and no I didn't say that out loud. We got to the first col and it was alittle marshy and was it ever thick and scrathcy. We broke through the ther side just in time to call it a day. We knew we weren't going to make it the remaining 2 miles or so to the other summit in time, because still at this time the woods weren't very inviting. It can be done if we had another 2 hours or more to spare, and on a normal day we would have pressed on.
The bushwhack out was relitively painless and straight forward. It passed buy pretty quickly until we hit Dishrag Pond dead on, we hadn't even seen it on the way up. So we had to skirt that to the left, but that was not so bad, the woods were very open at this pont. We hit the Dishrag Pond Trail again and decided to take our chances on where it came out, it was unanimous to skip the bushwhack back to the car. The trail was about 3 miles out and was a very pleasant walk. We eevn think we spooked a moose, the tracks were very fresh. The trail came out to the side of a persons house-looked like a weekend place. but the road was never posted until the end on the gate. Again we appologize to the land owners. We came out to the Cedar River Road about 2 miles from the car. that is a very long two miles on sore feet. So that's that, we need to go back in and get the other one some day. Thinking from the North via the wilson Pond Trail.
In Barbara McMartins book she mentioned a hunters access road through F and P land that was for public use. We looked for it and thought we had found it. We did find a very nice woods road but was not the one she had mentioned, so this ended up being private, our oppologies to the land owners.
This road climbed very steep from the Cedar River Road with nothing for a breather, so I was quite winded by the time we reached a shelf. The woods were pretty open. Soon after the plateau we came upon state land a very well cut property line so we followed it in hopes that it would deliver us where we wanted to go. It really didn't but we did find the McMartin road and that lead us in the right direction, kind of. Well it got us to a swampy area. it was my bright idea to go to the shore and hope for the best, I should bite my tougne more often. We ended up needing to backtrack and find the faint trail we were following prior, we didn't, all we found was an ungodly thick maze of second growth from logging a decade ago.
It got us around the swamp but not before a few choice words crossed my lips. Our next obstacle was a brook crossing, Alan nailed that one right on, thank god for that. But the woods on the other side were very scratchy and very dead. But somewhat open for the most part, NOT. We still had to fight through here to break into the hardwoods, which we finally did. Mind you we haven't even hit the Dishrag Pond trail yet, in fact we weren't even sure it still existed-and guess what?? It did. At this point Alan suggested we get the peak furthest in just incase we can't get them both, and he was right, I still haven't gotten over that yet! ;)
We decided to follow the Dishrag Pond Trail to its end and go up #99. The trail was very open with only a couple trees to jump through. At just before the end of the trail there is an old car on the side, kinda out of place, but there it was. The path went on for about another .1 miles before totally being gone. From there we entered the woods in a semi-dead forest and started a moderate climb.
It didn't take long before we hit the gorgeous hardwoods Indian Lake has offered us in the past. The walk was a joy all the way to the base of the the steep slope that guarded the summit. This slope is very noticable on any map. We debated skirting it to the right to avoid any possible cliffs but ended up going right up it to the ridge from the South. The ridge was a cake walk, open and fast. It's now at least 90 degrees outside and we're being attacked but enormous swarms of deer and horse flies the size of bumblebees and small private jets-deet didn't even touch them.
The summit wasn't open and didn't offer any views but it was still in all a nice peacefull summit. We didn't last to long on top, about 15 minutes. We decided to give the ridge a try-even though we lost about an hour screwing around down below. At this time it was 11:15 am and we needed to summit the other peak fast enough to get us out and me back home by 6pm, for a family thing.
Well we left the summit in the right direction but ended up way off course and had to find our way back around on the steep slopes of the North side. We ended up almost reclimbing the summit because we couldn't go right hard enough because of the slope. We we hit some pretty nasty %$#%&*^%@!!!! before we got back on the right heading and agian loosing about an hour of time. Well the woods finally opened up and I thought we were home free-and no I didn't say that out loud. We got to the first col and it was alittle marshy and was it ever thick and scrathcy. We broke through the ther side just in time to call it a day. We knew we weren't going to make it the remaining 2 miles or so to the other summit in time, because still at this time the woods weren't very inviting. It can be done if we had another 2 hours or more to spare, and on a normal day we would have pressed on.
The bushwhack out was relitively painless and straight forward. It passed buy pretty quickly until we hit Dishrag Pond dead on, we hadn't even seen it on the way up. So we had to skirt that to the left, but that was not so bad, the woods were very open at this pont. We hit the Dishrag Pond Trail again and decided to take our chances on where it came out, it was unanimous to skip the bushwhack back to the car. The trail was about 3 miles out and was a very pleasant walk. We eevn think we spooked a moose, the tracks were very fresh. The trail came out to the side of a persons house-looked like a weekend place. but the road was never posted until the end on the gate. Again we appologize to the land owners. We came out to the Cedar River Road about 2 miles from the car. that is a very long two miles on sore feet. So that's that, we need to go back in and get the other one some day. Thinking from the North via the wilson Pond Trail.