Dry River Trail / Crawford Path / Mount Clinton Trail

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dailey7779

Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2011
Messages
340
Reaction score
21
Location
White Mountains
Date of Hike: Saturday, October 11th

Trails: Dry River, Crawford Path, Monroe Loop, Eisenhower Loop, Webster-Cliff, Mount Clinton

Trail Conditions: The Dry River Trail is in decent shape. The washed out sections have been relocated up on the banks, the footing is muddy and eroding on the reroutes. The rest of the trail is covered with foliage but the path is easy to follow albeit faint in spots. Dry River Shelter #3 is looking good. Behind the shelter the trail crosses the river pretty quickly and bangs an immediate left. All trails above treeline are in great shape. The Mount Clinton Trail, I'm basically repeating what Mike (NH Tramper) reported in his TC. The upper part to the junction of the Dry River Cutoff is fine. From here it's a different story, first off,half the sign was missing at this junction. After the junction the trail becomes narrow, wet, muddy, slick, and overgrown in spots but easy to follow until after one of the water crossings. (Each water crossing is flagged) . After one of the waters crossings the trail seems to head slightly left into a mossy mucky drainage but it doesn't. the trail is up on the right, we whacked from the mossy mini stream up a small embankment and were back on the logging grade. From here until the end the trail goes from obscure but ok to follow, to basically following an old grade similar to when bushwhacking out in the middle of nowhere, to walking in the woods on basically no path. At certain points we only knew we had been on the trail at water crossing where there was flagging. The last part of the trail parallels the Dry River for 0.2 miles. We decided to just head to the river and rock hop the banks until the cairns showing where to cross came in. Hardest trail to follow in the Whites! :p

Comments: Awesome day, I'm looking forward to heading back in there and trying to stay on the Mount Clinton Trail for all of it's length. Thanks Kenny and Whitney for a great adventure in the Dry River Wilderness! Report / Pictures
Name: Chris

Email: [email protected]
 
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