Morgan and Wilmington Peak

[peak_bgr]

Upon agreement from the gang we decided to leave Sawtooth #3 for a dryer day and head up to Wilmington for a couple small peaks. One of which is a HH and one of which may be in the future.

First we approached Morgan for the Cooperkiln Pond Trail. The trail had a couple wet spots other than the soaked trees and grass from the nights rain. Very rocky in spots, but a very moderateclimb to the height of land. We started a very :lol: relentless :lol: bushwhack of .18 miles to the summit of Morgan through open woods and small sections of ferns. The summit is lightly wooded but has nice views through the trees. From the summit we took a heading a little more toward the pond, since we were going there anyhow. The woods on this side almost as open as from the height of land. We hit the trail very quickly and descended to the pond.

Wilmington Peak you may ask is what we refer to as #101. It is a contraversial Peak mentioned in the ADK High Peaks Guide as a mountain that could at some point get put on the HH list in place of Sawtooth #4 or #5 which may not qualify. This may or may not happen. But we were so close so why not climb it. The bushwhack was only .5 miles from the pond.

We followed the pond around to the right and started a bushwhack through a very tight forest for quite a good distance before it opened up. Our way down was much better so here it is in reverse. Once around the pond there is a small herd path the follows the shore of the pond, folow here until you are almost directly accross the pond from the lean-to, than jump into the bushwhack. The forest is somewhat open but the ridge has alot of blowdown. We found a very well defined herd path that lead us right to the summit and through and around the blowdown. The path was quite often on the right side of the ridge. There were a couple nice views from the ridge of Catamount and Whiteface-even a bunch of the high peaks could be made out, when the clouds weren't in the way. The summit, had nothing.

Anyhow a nice short hike with a few good friends-who could ask for much more. Wish I could do it every week.

[Mavs00]

Anyhow a nice short hike with a few good friends-who could ask for much more. Wish I could do it every week.

Ain't that the truth. We can't thank you enough, not only for this wonderful outing, but your hospitality over the last few days in general. You guys are best, I mean that.

As for the hike, Spence said it all. Ther weather actually turned out better than they said it would and we probably could have done Sawteeth, but I think we were all in agreement, that it would have been a death march. With the furious bushwhacking pace as of lately, this very reasonable (and short) effort was perfect for our spirits. Enough to qualify for a bushwhack effort and got us out "in the woods", but not one that took much flesh or mental torment :cool: to complete.

One puzzling feature was the strong herd path to the summit of Wilmington Peak. We were almost certain it must lead to a killer view, or else why the heck would this "no name, no list" peak be bothered with. When it stopped at the summit (in the woods) We all were sorta scratching the head.

Great peak.

[Antlerpeak]

Spence you did say there was a controvercy. Your trip report sent me back to my hiking journal as we climbed Wilmington some time ago. What I found was Morgan Mt measured 3440 on my altimeter when I climbed that in 91. The guide book puts it at 3440c it seems the old altimeter may have verified it. There were three altimeters in the group and they agreed. Morgan is listed as # 98. We had the old 15 min topo at the time which is likely to be dated 1954 but as the thing has long ago perished I can't verify that. Oh one of the altimeters was a swiss made instrument the fellow who owned it paid a kings ransom for. He swore that it was accurate. What really bugged him was my wrist watch casio always managed to agree with his. As you may be aware those wrist watch ones of the 90's were calibrated at 20 feet. This Swiss thing was calibrated at three feet.

I discovered that Wilmington was climbed in 1995 using the same old 15 min topo. we did both of those summits then went across the trail and did the two in the Stephenson Range north of Morgan. For the two Stephenson peaks the Swiss altimeter readings were 3324 and 3153 the topo reported 3326 and 3155 so the altimeters agreed with the maps on these two considereing the three foot increments of the Swiss instrument. My Casio read a few feet lower with its 20 foot limitation.

Wilmington on the South summit reported 3365 and the North as 3460 Twenty feet higher than Morgan. Again these readings were verified by altimeter. Not having paid any attention to this until reading your report I looked at the present map. Lo and behold the metric reports 1054 meters for both Morgan and Wilmington So Morgan grew. I suspect all the feds did with the new map was to convert from feet to meters not bothering to measure anything, 1054 meters equals 3457.12 feet. In any case this places Wilmington higher than #95 Wolf Pond #96 Cellar #97 Blue Ridge #99 Blue Ridge and # 100 Brown Pond and equal to #93 and #94 the Sawtooth. And with Morgan if it did grow 20 feet. This change in Morgan may suggest they did new measurements or did they?

Now to the question, how did Wilmington get left off the list considering the 1954 map and the present metric mess agree with each other and claim it is the same height as Morgan? Just curious as to your thoughts on this.

[Antlerpeak]

Perhaps the herd comes as a result of many people discovering Wilmington is really on the 100 highest list and are covering all bases.

I suppose it could be, but that seems odd to me too, mostly because you have many, many peaks on that actually are on the list that have nothing that even resembles a path anywhere near the summit. Places like Stewart, Blue Ridge (all 4 of them ;) ), Lewey just to name a few. Hell, even TR's herd path (which really is just off the beaten trail :cool: ) is not as good as this one was.

My best guess (and it's only a guess) is that people strike out from the Cooper Kiln lean-to (which is a really cool place) while staying out there. Not a ton to do there and you can see the start of the rise to the summit from there, so they just go, and over the years have caused a path to form.

We did find a few cool looks though, one really awesome one of nearby Catamount, and one back over towards Whiteface with Esther & Morgan in front.