Rik
04-11-2005, 10:36 AM
Ok, this trip report covers both Saturday 4/9 and Sunday 4/10 for reasons explained below. On Saturday Charlene, Dali the Dog, and I drove up to the central Adks for some bushwhacking. We hiked in the Sucker Brook trail from the campground near the bridge at Lewey Lake. The conditions down low were mixed leftover snow and bare, relatively dry, ground. There were small areas of ice. There were also several new blowdowns and debris from winter along the trail. Old snowshoe tracks were visible at times and could be felt underfoot at other times. The snow was getting soft quick in the warm spring sun. At about 2500 feet we encountered more snow and after a couple hundred feet we were postholing to our thighs. We were probably a hundred feet below the height of the land when we decided we would never make it without snowshoes. It had taken us about two hours to get that far at a leisurely pace. We had some lunch and made a plan to return the next day with the proper equipment. I think it was wishful thinking that lead us to leave our snowshoes behind. Felt like such a rookie! On our way home we stopped at Friends Lake Inn for dinner which was excellent but not cheap. The next morning, in spite of some back pain, we headed out again. A little earlier this time to take advantage of some firmer snow. It was still pretty soft by the time we got up to needing our snowshoes. We left the trail just short of the height of the land and headed on bearing to the peak. We saw an amazing amount of moose sign in the woods off trail! The going was a little slow due to the softness of the snow but navigation was easy with open woods and no foliage yet. We got glimpses of Snowy Mt and Indian Lake on our way up and down. Snowy looks very cool from this vantage. We took a more direct route back to the trail on the way down. It was more direct to the trail but needing to break trail in the soft snow I'm not sure it saved us much on time. It was nice to come out on to the trail so much lower. Stream crossings took some time to find places to cross but not overly difficult. The entire hike took us 7 hours with about a half hour of that on top eating lunch. Unfortunately we did not come across any lost gear from winter hikers while out on this trip. ;) Not too many people use this nice trail in this beautiful area.