SpencerVT
Member
My wife and I climbed Mt Mary, Pilot and Hutchins on Saturday. Perfect weather. We headed up the Fox Brook towards Mt Mary. The old log rd type trail had us on the wrong side and we needed to cross over the brook.
However, the snowmelt runoff has turned the brooks into a raging torrent of Amazonian whitewater from hell. This forced us to go up the brook for way over a mile until we found a reasonably safe place to cross and bushwhack to the summit. The water was so intense there was simply no safe place to cross anywhere, you would be instantly swept away and washed out into the Atlantic Ocean in like 8 minutes; it was going so fast it passed Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What felt like a long ascent to Mt Mary was rewarded with the cool summit birdhouse-type summit register and then we checked out the amazing cabin in the col between Mary and Pilot. Snow above 3200' feet requiring snowshoes. The ridge from Mary, over the Pilots and then onto Hutchins was the most open comfortable woods one could ask for. Totally open the entire ridge to Hutchins, it was a great route to snowshoe.
From Hutchins we descended staying on the ridge above the Cummings Brook. (on the northwest side of the brook). This ridge is a gem in New Hampshire. I cannot emphasize enough how awesome it was. So open, you could play rounds of golf. Grassy open fields and spacious glades, which afforded views into Vermont and of the sunset. This was one of the best trailless ridges I have encountered. Total hike took 9 hours including the stop at the cabin and the snow slowing our pace a bit. This was a great bushwhack.
However, the snowmelt runoff has turned the brooks into a raging torrent of Amazonian whitewater from hell. This forced us to go up the brook for way over a mile until we found a reasonably safe place to cross and bushwhack to the summit. The water was so intense there was simply no safe place to cross anywhere, you would be instantly swept away and washed out into the Atlantic Ocean in like 8 minutes; it was going so fast it passed Dale Earnhardt Jr.
What felt like a long ascent to Mt Mary was rewarded with the cool summit birdhouse-type summit register and then we checked out the amazing cabin in the col between Mary and Pilot. Snow above 3200' feet requiring snowshoes. The ridge from Mary, over the Pilots and then onto Hutchins was the most open comfortable woods one could ask for. Totally open the entire ridge to Hutchins, it was a great route to snowshoe.
From Hutchins we descended staying on the ridge above the Cummings Brook. (on the northwest side of the brook). This ridge is a gem in New Hampshire. I cannot emphasize enough how awesome it was. So open, you could play rounds of golf. Grassy open fields and spacious glades, which afforded views into Vermont and of the sunset. This was one of the best trailless ridges I have encountered. Total hike took 9 hours including the stop at the cabin and the snow slowing our pace a bit. This was a great bushwhack.
Last edited: