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  • Things I've done lately/I'm bad at reports

    I just haven't been writing reports out of laziness. But, to update with some thoughts, here goes:

    • 6/28 - Rooster Comb

    Nice hike. Took the dog and we enjoyed a summit by ourselves. The perspective down the great range is neat. Intended to do a loop with Snow, but I may have accidentally taken a short nap on the sun soaked summit and ran short of time.

    • 6/29 - Owls Head

    If there is anywhere where one can find more proverbial "bang for your buck" than Owls Head then you, dear reader, damn well better speak up. The views are fifteen minutes in and the neat little summit (preceded by a cool cliff) didn't even take a full forty five minutes with very good views. Again I had the dog. I saw no one. I'll be bringing my young son here shortly. The only hitch of the trip was me mistaking a sign point directly at the trail to pointing in that direction down the road. We briefly ended up on a horrendous road that led us to someone's driveway. Got to use the four wheel drive at least. They weren't home to get mad, thankfully. As a final note, dropping down from Rt 73 and seeing all the rocks that help support the road from the side is really neat.

    • 7/10 - Street and Nye

    I went back and forth on whether or not to bring the dog for my next high peak adventure. He had only been on my Big Slide/Yard hike with my wife previously in the high peaks. Ultimately I decided to give him a chance and he did well. This was aided by choosing a Tuesday with a very late start to do two of the least popular easily accessible high peaks. My only previous experience with herd paths going into this was with the very short paths of Gray and Tabletop so I was a bit nervous. The hike was surprisingly easy though. The path was clear and obvious. The crossing was very easy. The junction came quick and Nye came even quicker. Before Nye, however, I had gone to Street and there I was pleasantly surprised. For some reason I had the misunderstanding that Street, like Nye, offered no views. But this was, as many of you assuredly know, mistaken. Street's summit may not, but very short spur paths from the summit lead to a pair of vistas. One of the two frames the Macs in a beautiful vista from an angle in which I had never seen them. This unexpected view left me on a high that carried us out quickly. Shame I left the camera at home. These were high peaks #12 and #13 for me.

    • 7/12 - Weston Mtn

    I wanted a trip to a mountain close by that I knew very little about, but one that was trailed as I have no real navigational skills. Perusing the map brought me to the Hurricane Wilderness and Weston Mtn. For the third time in a row I had the dog and we hiked up to Lost Pond where he was able to frolic for a bit before proceeding. Walter something or other Memorial lean-to is on the route and I sat there to let the dog play some more. I didn't think it likely to see anyone on a weeknight relatively late in the day so I let him free and no one came as expected. Weston itself has very nice views towards Lost Pond and Hurricane. It is a neat perspective and is a relatively short, easy hike with some cool things along the way in two lean-tos and a beautiful pond.


    • 7/16 - Big Crow Mtn

    My trip to Weston had me curious about what else the Hurricane Wilderness had to offer and I saw the Crows on the map was short hikes. I had about a three hour window of freedom on the 16th so I took to Big Crow the short way from what I leaned is Crow Clearing. This .7 mile hike rivals Owls Head in views for minimal effort ratio if you're ever feeling lazy. I brought the dog, again, but he needed to remain leashed for 90% of the hike as this was a busy mountain. What I found really neat was my sudden and unexpected ability to identify basically everything I saw. You can see a lot of high peaks from Big Crow and I surprised myself in knowing basically all of them by sight. I'm becoming less of a newbie to this. I used the map to confirm and felt a sense of accomplishment in being right.

    Here I also formulated a plan for a two vehicle traverse that I am going to undertake on one of the next days my wife and I both have off. One car is going to be placed at the trailhead for Little Crow Mtn. From there I will ascend up Little Crow, to Big Crow, over Nun-da-ga-o Ridge which culminates in Weston, descend to Long Pond, and go over Hurricane to another of its trailheads in which the second car will be parked. I don't have the map in front of me, but if memory serves this will connect all but a small portion of the trails in the Hurricane Wilderness area for one long, probably grueling, and definitely rewarding epic day hike. I've never been up Hurricane (neither Nun-da-ga-o nor Little Crow as well) and I'm saving it for the grand finale of this hike.

    • 7/18-19 - Santanoni lean-to

    Mud. Water. I called off a planned hike of the Santanonis due to the big storm the night before that was sure to mud up the place and probably create some blow down. I elected to hike in and find the herd path for something to do anyway. The dog and I stayed the night at the lean-to. It was a very cold night and the dog had to come in the bag. That wasn't ideal. I was grumpy in the morning. Also, mud. Water. Lots of it. The blue trail was putrid in its last mile. It was strangely fun rock hopping for a mile on a marked trail though. Also, big thanks and awesome job on behalf of myself and mother nature if anyone here worked on any of those recent looking re-routes to cut down on some of the mud on the trail. Everywhere else there was inches of water and mud. Also, strangely, the lean-to was set up like the Hilton. I found a large tyvek High Peaks map that was falling apart but usable. A handsaw, a small cooler, duct tape, matches, and more rope than I knew what to do with. And a nice stack of dry chopped wood int he lean-to to boot. Very strange. I didn't use any of it, but I did pack out 2/3s of the garbage that they left. I hope someone gets the rest. Did I mention that the trail was a river, mostly, except where it was a mudpit? The brook that is next to the trail for the middle part of the hike was raging beautifully, at least, with an impressive waterfall featuring a nice herd path to walk out onto the brook and get a great view of it.

    Finally, someone may want to check out that first bridge you come to on the blue trail after crossing the road. It looks like it is about to fall over. I read past trip reports and found mention of the railing not being right, but the whole thing is now bent one way and looks unsafe. I'm not sure if the storm did it or if it has been that way, but we took the easy rock hop instead and from the beaten path on the shore we haven't been the only ones. I imagine that means the bridge has been in that condition. Perhaps it should just be removed. It would only be necessary in extremely high water anyhow.

    • 7/20 - Algonquin and Iroquois

    This brings us today. On a Friday in July, I elected to not bring the dog on these popular trails. I found this trip to be a lot quicker than expected, but I still elected not repeat Wright because the summit looked annoyingly crowded on my decent from Algonquin. I paid attention to time early since I needed to be home by 5 PM, but I returned to my oblivious to time state when I summited Algonquin before 8 AM and obviously had enough time and then some. I sat alone on the summit on a beautiful, clear morning and took in probably what is now my second favorite view to Skylight so far. Just awesome in every direction. Colden, of course, was just stunning. It would have been near perfect wilderness morning were it not for an extremely obnoxious tourist propeller plane flying around the high peaks. Oh if I had the arm to throw my water bottle at it and bring it down...

    Excuse me. The TSA is knocking on my door.

    Okay. Back. I hereby pledge to threaten no more planes no matter the displeasure they bring me.

    Anyway! After a long while of taking photos, I was surprised to find no one coming up. I shrugged and headed off to Iroquois which was beckoning from the other side. I had read that the Iroquois herd path is a muddy demon, but after the adventure on the blue trail the day after the storm as mentioned above, I swear the herd path was as dry as the Sahara. Okay, there were some large mud pits, but they were very easy to navigate. I think the mud level is probably very low in there right now due to the recent drought sans that one day, but I don't really have a reference point as it was my first time there. Iroquois itself felt quite remote and peaceful. The Boundary bumps were nice as well. I say we just flatten them out by filling the gaps with rocks and make a nice mile above treeline! Everyone start now. Or not. Iroquois itself was easy, but going back over Algonquin tired my legs out. Again I sat on Algonquin for some time to rest before hiking out. That trail isn't bad coming up, but all those rocks make for an annoying decent. Oh well. A small price to pay for a fantastic day. #14 and #15.

  • #2
    Nice reports. What time did you start to summit Algonquin by 8 am? Looking forward to Street and Nye tomorrow; I'll hold you to the "easy" part.
    7/46
    HPHikingmoo

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    • #3
      Originally posted by HPHikingMoo View Post
      Nice reports. What time did you start to summit Algonquin by 8 am? Looking forward to Street and Nye tomorrow; I'll hold you to the "easy" part.
      7/46
      5:30. And "easy" is relative. They are still high peaks, of course.

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