Moosilauke side peaks, Blue & Jim

planning on an up Beaver Brook, down Benton trail hike this weekend with a car spot.

Mt Jim- how far out of the way and is the summit easy to find? looks like .5 mile or so?

same question for Blue? is there a herd path?

Been years since I did them, but unless Mt. Jim has moved it is a few feet off the height of land on the Asquam Ridge Trail, with (at the time I did it) a pretty clear herd path.

Mount Blue was a different story, a real bushwhack with real blood (OK, just enough to bring out the Band Aids ).

There is a decent herd path to Blue that begins in the western col with Moosilauke:

Moosilauke and Blue via Beaver Brook.

Tim

I just hiked up the Beaver Brook/Benton approach this weekend. There was a clear-looking herd path to Blue, relatively flat-looking, marked by a small cairn at the height of land as the trail traversed the sub-peak. Looked pretty straight-forward. From the Asquam junction, the trail is level for a bit, then climbs for a bit, then see-saws up and down roughly along the rim of Jobildunk Ravine, with intermittent views across into the ravine and to the main summit ridge. Perhaps a mile in, the trail sharply diverts up and right from an older routing. Maybe 1/3 mile from there in a level-ish area, at height of land for the trail, is where the small cairn is. Looked to be a side trip of 0.2 or so each way.

I skipped on Blue b/c I had a hiking partner behind me, not sure how far, and didn't want to get things mixed up.

It has been almost 3 years since I was last up there. IMHO the approach to Mt. Blue is easiest from the Beaver Brook trail if you continue the ascent until you are due west of the Blue summit. If you turn right at that point you will have open woods and herd paths here and there that peter out. The approach from the south is steep with much krumholtz and blowdown.

GPS track and photos on Wikiloc: http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=1130661

Mt Jim is trivial, no more than 50' from the Asquam ridge trail with a well trod herd path.

GPS track and photos on Wikiloc: http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=164060

we met at Beaver Brook trailhead as planned and headed over to do car spot at Benton trailhead. We turned onto Tunnel Brook Rd and stopped to ask the first gentleman we met walking his dog if we were on the right road. "yes, but the road is washed out, you have to park at the gate and walk in 3/4 mile into trail head" ok, we can do that on the way out. Got to gate and asked a couple guys if we were at the right place "yes, we went in yesterday camped out and came back this morning, you've got a road walk of about 2-3 miles to get to trail head" we had time constraints later in the day and not knowing how far the road walk was, we choose to all drive back to Beaver Brook and go up and back from there. Beaver Brook is an awesome trail, Benton will be there another day. no side trips to Jim or Blue, they'll be there too on another trip