Vose Spur

Getting ready to tackle some of the bushwacks on the list. It's been 13 years since we did Vose Spur and wanted to see if anyone has done it recently and if they can update me.

Don't miss the rubble slide, great views from there and it's not too loose. Our route was to come down from Carrigain and then we mostly followed the herdpath down (which led us to the slide).

If you know where to look, all NEHH now have more or less easy to follow herdpaths (including the infamous one on PATN, the slide is a better alternative anyway).

So you hit Carrigan first then bushwacked from there? My friend needs Carrigan but never thought of doing it that way....can you give me more details. I had always heard it was a very tough bushwack from Carrigan to Vose Spur. And the last time I did it, I don't remember hitting a rock slide but the memory doesn't always remember everything.

There are two scree slopes that you could likely encounter: one west of and another southeast of Vose Spur. The west one (in between Vose and Carrigain) was absolutely incredible - especially in winter when we did it. The southeast one is hit by most of the various herdpaths ascending out of the notch, but not all.

I will pass on advise I got on this board: to take off out of the Notch early as opposed to at some "rock" by the side of the trail. It's far too steep of a route if you wait till the last second to start bushwhacking, while attacking the ridge to Vose early on is an easy walk through open woods and was almost never steep.

The Sikes said:

So you hit Carrigan first then bushwacked from there? My friend needs Carrigan but never thought of doing it that way....can you give me more details. I had always heard it was a very tough bushwack from Carrigan to Vose Spur.

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We just followed the ridge and it was not a very tough bushwack, but I guess it always depend on what you standard is

andrewb said:

I will pass on advice I got on this board: to take off out of the Notch early as opposed to at some "rock" by the side of the trail. It's far too steep of a route if you wait till the last second to start bushwhacking, while attacking the ridge to Vose early on is an easy walk through open woods and was almost never steep.

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I second this opinion. The rock is a convenient marker but the forest is more open and the ridge less steep if you start earlier.

I did the Vose->Carrigain loop last fall with another member of this board (and a few others that went as far as Vose). While I'm glad I did it and it was a fun experience, I probably won't do it again. The 'whack to Vose was easy enough from the 'big rock", and navigationally the trek from there to Carrigain was easy (didn't even end up using the compass, the ridge is very well defined, just go up), but extremely steep on the Carrigain side of the Vose-Carrigain col, and quite thick as well. We did find a faint herd path starting at the top of the false knob between the peaks that ran pretty much to the old bedsprings on Carrigain which made the going a good bit easier.

The talus field in the Vose-Carrigain col, as noted by others, was very cool. If I return to Vose Spur someday I will likely visit it again, though maybe only as a fairly short out-and-back from Vose.

FWIW, I thought it was easier from Vose to Carrigain than Carrigain to Vose. Of course the second time always seems easier.

Views from the talus field in the col.