The Feathered Hat
Active member
Miles: Approx. 10
Time: 6 hours
Elevation gain: 3,100 feet
Perhaps you, too, are bored or even frustrated by the usual routes up Cannon Mountain: the long grind, broken only by the novelty of a ladder, up the Hi-Cannon Trail; the route past Lonesome Lake that includes the stiff climb up from the saddle just to the east of East Cannonball; and, above all, the steep, rutted, crowded mess that is the Kinsman Ridge Trail from the tram parking lot to the summit. All of these routes are fine in the winter, but in the summer and fall, well, not so much. At least for Tuckerman's and my taste.
So on the perfectly beautiful day that was Saturday the 26th, we made our way to the top of Cannon the quiet way: via the lovely old abandoned Tuckerbrook ski trail out of Franconia, which reaches almost to the top of Mittersill Peak. From there it's a nice walk up the Taft ski run to Cannon's summit.
Admittedly, one big attraction for us of this route is that we can start literally at our front door, making our way through the cross-country ski trails and mountain-bike paths in McKenzie Woods, just across State Route 116 from Franconia Inn (the Inn is our next-door neighbor), to reach the trailhead at the end of Tuckerbrook Road. I've described this hardly-used trailhead before: to get there, take Wells Road off of either 116 or Highway 18 (the road that goes from the base of Cannon Mountain ski area to downtown Franconia), then, where Wells makes a 90-degree turn, take the gravel Tuckerbrook Road, which is unsigned but hard to miss; the trailhead is less than a half-mile up that way. The old Tuckerbrook ski trail begins on the right, Old Mittersill Road is on the left. You'll know you're on Tuckerbrook when you see, just past the trailhead, one of my favorite trail signs in all the Whites: "Caution! Alpine Downhill Skiers!"
The trail follows an old logging road for a half-mile, traversing a beautiful hardwood forest:
After a short, steep climb, the route widens to ski-run width, though the smooth foot trail remains narrow and sometimes hidden among ferns:
At about the 1,800-foot elevation, the route makes a big turn to the left and continues upward, sometimes steeply, through the ferns. (This is not a trail to take after a rain or on a morning with heavy dew unless you don't mind soaking wet boots and pants.) At 2,800 feet you leave the hardwoods and head into the spruce, and the footing becomes noticeably rougher on the slanting quarter-mile traverse that begins this section. After the traverse the climb stays steadily steep, and in places the footpath disappears under small scrub spruce. But there's never any doubt you're on the ski trail, and the footpath is always easily found again. Up high, the view out over the Franconia environs opens up nice and wide:
At 3,500 feet the Tuckerbrook ski run finally joins the main Mittersill run, and from there it's a short climb up that newly brushed run to Mittersill's ledgy summit. Tuckerman, as always, investigated the peak's smells while I checked out the wonderful view of the two Kinsman peaks and the Cannonballs from this vantage:
And Cannon's summit is just ahead, up the Taft ski run:
It must be noted that hiking on Cannon Mountain's ski runs is not allowed. (I assume the same is true of the old Mittersill runs, which are now under Cannon's care and management. The abandoned Tuckerbrook run, however, is entirely outside Cannon's new Mittersill-inclusive boundaries.) After Tuckerman and I bagged Cannon we snacked with the crowd out on the tram house's deck, and a friendly Cannon employee asked me which trail we had taken to the top. "I probably shouldn't tell you," I said, but then I did -- he seemed like a guy who would understand. "It's okay," he responded. "But if you're going back down that way, don't let anyone see you." So we snuck through some trees to get back to the Taft run, which we needed to take to get back to the top of Mittersill.
But rather than go back exactly the same way, from Mittersill's peak we descended the mountain on the main Mittersill run under the old chairlift. Much of this run has been newly brushed out in anticipation of this coming ski season's reopening by Cannon Mountain of most of Mittersill's old terrain:
Walking down the steep old run isn't always easy, however -- the Cannon guy had cautioned us to be careful, and his warning was well-advised. There are lots of open granite slaps slippery with gravel:
There are also cool distractions, like the still-intact works at the top of the old Mittersill chairlift, where the big bullwheel waits, locked with anticipation, to pull skiers up the mountain once again:
Once we reached the bottom of Mittersill, I wasn't sure where to find trails that would lead us from Mittersill village back toward Franconia and home, though I knew there are some cross-country ski trails in the vicinity. With some lucky guesses Tuckerman and I were soon headed down one of those XC ski routes, the Cannon-Mittersill Connector, which links with the Old Mittersill Road trail. Nearing home, we found ourselves in a pocket of early autumn color...
...with this harbinger of the High Color to come in a few days:
It felt like Tuckerman and I had just about all of Cannon Mountain to ourselves -- the expected crowd at the summit, deposited for the most part by the tram, was the only humanity we saw all day, at least on the trails. There really is a way to climb Cannon in the summer and fall without joining a conga line. And now I can't wait to ski the old Tuckerbrook trail this coming winter -- it should be fabulous when the freshies are deep. Of course, this would be car-spot alpine skiing, though I suppose I could walk the mile to home in ski boots if I had to.
More photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99682097@N00/sets/72157622341043029/
Steve B
The Feathered Hat
[email protected]
________________________________________
Tuckerman's report for dogs:
Make sure to water up in Tucker Brook at the trailhead -- there's no water from there until the top of Cannon Mountain.
Be ready for lots of people on Cannon's summit and also a lot of dogs that cheated by using the tram. Do some extra marking just to let them know you made the ascent the way real dogs do.
No scary rock scrambles, but parts of the Mittersill ski run under the old chairlift are steep and slippery.
Old weird ski buildings. Mark them.
*** Three sniffs (out of four). T-Dog says check it out.
P.S. All day Big Boss Man kept telling me there would be a surprise waiting for me at home. I dreamed of a thigh bone from a moose, but it turned out he meant a new friend for me. She claims she's a Great Pyrenees and so already knows everything about mountains, but I know better. Besides, can you really trust a dog named after a pancake parlor? But Big Boss Man told me to play nice with Polly, and you know, she is kind of a looker. This just may work out.
Time: 6 hours
Elevation gain: 3,100 feet
Perhaps you, too, are bored or even frustrated by the usual routes up Cannon Mountain: the long grind, broken only by the novelty of a ladder, up the Hi-Cannon Trail; the route past Lonesome Lake that includes the stiff climb up from the saddle just to the east of East Cannonball; and, above all, the steep, rutted, crowded mess that is the Kinsman Ridge Trail from the tram parking lot to the summit. All of these routes are fine in the winter, but in the summer and fall, well, not so much. At least for Tuckerman's and my taste.
So on the perfectly beautiful day that was Saturday the 26th, we made our way to the top of Cannon the quiet way: via the lovely old abandoned Tuckerbrook ski trail out of Franconia, which reaches almost to the top of Mittersill Peak. From there it's a nice walk up the Taft ski run to Cannon's summit.
Admittedly, one big attraction for us of this route is that we can start literally at our front door, making our way through the cross-country ski trails and mountain-bike paths in McKenzie Woods, just across State Route 116 from Franconia Inn (the Inn is our next-door neighbor), to reach the trailhead at the end of Tuckerbrook Road. I've described this hardly-used trailhead before: to get there, take Wells Road off of either 116 or Highway 18 (the road that goes from the base of Cannon Mountain ski area to downtown Franconia), then, where Wells makes a 90-degree turn, take the gravel Tuckerbrook Road, which is unsigned but hard to miss; the trailhead is less than a half-mile up that way. The old Tuckerbrook ski trail begins on the right, Old Mittersill Road is on the left. You'll know you're on Tuckerbrook when you see, just past the trailhead, one of my favorite trail signs in all the Whites: "Caution! Alpine Downhill Skiers!"
The trail follows an old logging road for a half-mile, traversing a beautiful hardwood forest:
After a short, steep climb, the route widens to ski-run width, though the smooth foot trail remains narrow and sometimes hidden among ferns:
At about the 1,800-foot elevation, the route makes a big turn to the left and continues upward, sometimes steeply, through the ferns. (This is not a trail to take after a rain or on a morning with heavy dew unless you don't mind soaking wet boots and pants.) At 2,800 feet you leave the hardwoods and head into the spruce, and the footing becomes noticeably rougher on the slanting quarter-mile traverse that begins this section. After the traverse the climb stays steadily steep, and in places the footpath disappears under small scrub spruce. But there's never any doubt you're on the ski trail, and the footpath is always easily found again. Up high, the view out over the Franconia environs opens up nice and wide:
At 3,500 feet the Tuckerbrook ski run finally joins the main Mittersill run, and from there it's a short climb up that newly brushed run to Mittersill's ledgy summit. Tuckerman, as always, investigated the peak's smells while I checked out the wonderful view of the two Kinsman peaks and the Cannonballs from this vantage:
And Cannon's summit is just ahead, up the Taft ski run:
It must be noted that hiking on Cannon Mountain's ski runs is not allowed. (I assume the same is true of the old Mittersill runs, which are now under Cannon's care and management. The abandoned Tuckerbrook run, however, is entirely outside Cannon's new Mittersill-inclusive boundaries.) After Tuckerman and I bagged Cannon we snacked with the crowd out on the tram house's deck, and a friendly Cannon employee asked me which trail we had taken to the top. "I probably shouldn't tell you," I said, but then I did -- he seemed like a guy who would understand. "It's okay," he responded. "But if you're going back down that way, don't let anyone see you." So we snuck through some trees to get back to the Taft run, which we needed to take to get back to the top of Mittersill.
But rather than go back exactly the same way, from Mittersill's peak we descended the mountain on the main Mittersill run under the old chairlift. Much of this run has been newly brushed out in anticipation of this coming ski season's reopening by Cannon Mountain of most of Mittersill's old terrain:
Walking down the steep old run isn't always easy, however -- the Cannon guy had cautioned us to be careful, and his warning was well-advised. There are lots of open granite slaps slippery with gravel:
There are also cool distractions, like the still-intact works at the top of the old Mittersill chairlift, where the big bullwheel waits, locked with anticipation, to pull skiers up the mountain once again:
Once we reached the bottom of Mittersill, I wasn't sure where to find trails that would lead us from Mittersill village back toward Franconia and home, though I knew there are some cross-country ski trails in the vicinity. With some lucky guesses Tuckerman and I were soon headed down one of those XC ski routes, the Cannon-Mittersill Connector, which links with the Old Mittersill Road trail. Nearing home, we found ourselves in a pocket of early autumn color...
...with this harbinger of the High Color to come in a few days:
It felt like Tuckerman and I had just about all of Cannon Mountain to ourselves -- the expected crowd at the summit, deposited for the most part by the tram, was the only humanity we saw all day, at least on the trails. There really is a way to climb Cannon in the summer and fall without joining a conga line. And now I can't wait to ski the old Tuckerbrook trail this coming winter -- it should be fabulous when the freshies are deep. Of course, this would be car-spot alpine skiing, though I suppose I could walk the mile to home in ski boots if I had to.
More photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99682097@N00/sets/72157622341043029/
Steve B
The Feathered Hat
[email protected]
________________________________________
Tuckerman's report for dogs:
Make sure to water up in Tucker Brook at the trailhead -- there's no water from there until the top of Cannon Mountain.
Be ready for lots of people on Cannon's summit and also a lot of dogs that cheated by using the tram. Do some extra marking just to let them know you made the ascent the way real dogs do.
No scary rock scrambles, but parts of the Mittersill ski run under the old chairlift are steep and slippery.
Old weird ski buildings. Mark them.
*** Three sniffs (out of four). T-Dog says check it out.
P.S. All day Big Boss Man kept telling me there would be a surprise waiting for me at home. I dreamed of a thigh bone from a moose, but it turned out he meant a new friend for me. She claims she's a Great Pyrenees and so already knows everything about mountains, but I know better. Besides, can you really trust a dog named after a pancake parlor? But Big Boss Man told me to play nice with Polly, and you know, she is kind of a looker. This just may work out.
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