HuiYeng
Active member
What would my life be if I don't hike? I love that almost every Monday when I'm still nursing my aching knees from a weekend of hiking, I'm on a long email thread planning the next weekend. It's so good to have friends that share the same passion.
Just before last weekend backpacking trip to Great Gulf (NH Whites), Jason and I have already made plan to backpack the Seward Range. We both have "flexible schedule" so a weekday trip to ADK workout best for us, or for me anyway so that I can still have the weekend to hang out with other folks at the Barnes for the Columbus Day weekend. So as usual, I painted a beautiful picture in my head: Hike Marshall on Wednesday; backpacking Seward Range on Thursday and Friday; drive back to Barnes Field (Gorham NH) on Saturday, more hiking on Sunday and Monday. Brilliant!
But as always, the reality like to mess with my picture perfect plan, I caught a cold from the Great Gulf backpacking weekend, and it wasn't getting better by Tuesday. But some fresh mountain air may be just what the doctor would order, that'd cure just about anything! So as plan, my loaded up my gears and gallons of water/OJs and boxes of tissue paper into my car and headed to ADK anyway. I spent a relatively comfortable night in my car at South Meadows road. Drove up to the Loj the next morning and started my hike to Marshall as planned. Kinda.
Day 1: Mt Marshall Wednesday October 8
THE PLAN:
The plan was to hike in from the Loj via Indian Pass, a quick visit to Rocky Falls; continue to Cold brook Trail, first take a detour to search for the plane crash site, find the crash site, take couple of victorious pictures next to the plane (the pilot survived the crash), then head back up the Cold Brook herdpath to Marshall. From Marshall descent from Herbert Brook herbpath to Lake Colden and take Avalanche Lake trail out back to the Loj, couldn't have planned it any better than that!
THE REALITY:
Indian Pass trial is wide and gradual. I was enjoying myself walking down the leaves padded trail and the workout actually did unclog my stuffy nose and I was feeling relatively good. In no time I arrived at the Rocky Falls. The falls is a lot smaller and than I've expected, but nonetheless it is a beautiful spot. I pulled out my map and located the lean-to just above the falls and a campsite near the falls. Made my way back to the main trail and continued my quest. Somehow after leaving the falls I was feeling sick again, and began to sneeze more. The abundant leaves on the ground made perfect material to blow my nose with. By the time I got to the junction of Cold Brook trail, I was feeling the cold all over again. I scrawled my way up the trail, and was glad I found the cairn marking the herbpath entrance with no problem. As plan, I would first try to search for the crash site before heading up the herdpath. Based on the information I gathered from Skyclimber, I located the boulder and even the fairly obvious herdpath that supposedly will lead me to the crash site. I followed the herbpath as close as I could but the patches of snow on the ground lured me into thinking that they were the debris of the crash and I eventually wandered off the herbpath. I was already behind my schedule because of the cold, and really didn't want to spend more time wandering in the woods by myself. So I bushwhacked my way back to the Cold Brook Trail, and made my way up to Mt Marshall.
The Cold Brook HP is very easy to follow, it goes up somewhat steeply at the beginning and reaches a false summit, and then drops down to a swampy col before the last climb up to the summit. Somehow, I thought the col is where the Herbert Brook HP merges with Cold Brook HP, but I must be wrong or blind, I couldn't find the junction. The rest of the hike up to the summit was supposedly easy, but I still managed to lost the trail. Just below the summit there is a big boulder to climb, it was a bit icy on the surface so I decided to climb around it and made it to the top but lost the trail after that. There was some patches of snows on the ground around there but thankfully a pink ribbon on a branch guided me back to the trail.
At the summit of Marshall, I ran into a guy John and his husky Furbits, who came up via Herbert Brook HP. Perfect, so I decided to hike down with them via Herbert Brook HP. The cold has obviously impaired my trail-finding ability, but I didn't know it actually can affect people around me too. Somehow neither John nor Furbits could find their way back down Herbert Brook HP and we all ended up descended via Cold Brook HP. With John and Furbits joined my team, we made another effort to try to locate the crash site but yielded no result. I tucked the tail that I don't have between my legs, acknowledged that today's just not my day. A quick hike down to the Lake Colden interior outpost where John and Furbits and I parted way. I hiked as quickly as my weary body could out to the Loj, a quick hot shower and hot meal later, I was back to South Meadows and fall asleep under steady rain throughout the night.
... to be continued...
Just before last weekend backpacking trip to Great Gulf (NH Whites), Jason and I have already made plan to backpack the Seward Range. We both have "flexible schedule" so a weekday trip to ADK workout best for us, or for me anyway so that I can still have the weekend to hang out with other folks at the Barnes for the Columbus Day weekend. So as usual, I painted a beautiful picture in my head: Hike Marshall on Wednesday; backpacking Seward Range on Thursday and Friday; drive back to Barnes Field (Gorham NH) on Saturday, more hiking on Sunday and Monday. Brilliant!
But as always, the reality like to mess with my picture perfect plan, I caught a cold from the Great Gulf backpacking weekend, and it wasn't getting better by Tuesday. But some fresh mountain air may be just what the doctor would order, that'd cure just about anything! So as plan, my loaded up my gears and gallons of water/OJs and boxes of tissue paper into my car and headed to ADK anyway. I spent a relatively comfortable night in my car at South Meadows road. Drove up to the Loj the next morning and started my hike to Marshall as planned. Kinda.
Day 1: Mt Marshall Wednesday October 8
THE PLAN:
The plan was to hike in from the Loj via Indian Pass, a quick visit to Rocky Falls; continue to Cold brook Trail, first take a detour to search for the plane crash site, find the crash site, take couple of victorious pictures next to the plane (the pilot survived the crash), then head back up the Cold Brook herdpath to Marshall. From Marshall descent from Herbert Brook herbpath to Lake Colden and take Avalanche Lake trail out back to the Loj, couldn't have planned it any better than that!
THE REALITY:
Indian Pass trial is wide and gradual. I was enjoying myself walking down the leaves padded trail and the workout actually did unclog my stuffy nose and I was feeling relatively good. In no time I arrived at the Rocky Falls. The falls is a lot smaller and than I've expected, but nonetheless it is a beautiful spot. I pulled out my map and located the lean-to just above the falls and a campsite near the falls. Made my way back to the main trail and continued my quest. Somehow after leaving the falls I was feeling sick again, and began to sneeze more. The abundant leaves on the ground made perfect material to blow my nose with. By the time I got to the junction of Cold Brook trail, I was feeling the cold all over again. I scrawled my way up the trail, and was glad I found the cairn marking the herbpath entrance with no problem. As plan, I would first try to search for the crash site before heading up the herdpath. Based on the information I gathered from Skyclimber, I located the boulder and even the fairly obvious herdpath that supposedly will lead me to the crash site. I followed the herbpath as close as I could but the patches of snow on the ground lured me into thinking that they were the debris of the crash and I eventually wandered off the herbpath. I was already behind my schedule because of the cold, and really didn't want to spend more time wandering in the woods by myself. So I bushwhacked my way back to the Cold Brook Trail, and made my way up to Mt Marshall.
The Cold Brook HP is very easy to follow, it goes up somewhat steeply at the beginning and reaches a false summit, and then drops down to a swampy col before the last climb up to the summit. Somehow, I thought the col is where the Herbert Brook HP merges with Cold Brook HP, but I must be wrong or blind, I couldn't find the junction. The rest of the hike up to the summit was supposedly easy, but I still managed to lost the trail. Just below the summit there is a big boulder to climb, it was a bit icy on the surface so I decided to climb around it and made it to the top but lost the trail after that. There was some patches of snows on the ground around there but thankfully a pink ribbon on a branch guided me back to the trail.
At the summit of Marshall, I ran into a guy John and his husky Furbits, who came up via Herbert Brook HP. Perfect, so I decided to hike down with them via Herbert Brook HP. The cold has obviously impaired my trail-finding ability, but I didn't know it actually can affect people around me too. Somehow neither John nor Furbits could find their way back down Herbert Brook HP and we all ended up descended via Cold Brook HP. With John and Furbits joined my team, we made another effort to try to locate the crash site but yielded no result. I tucked the tail that I don't have between my legs, acknowledged that today's just not my day. A quick hike down to the Lake Colden interior outpost where John and Furbits and I parted way. I hiked as quickly as my weary body could out to the Loj, a quick hot shower and hot meal later, I was back to South Meadows and fall asleep under steady rain throughout the night.
... to be continued...
), and then drove me around to multiple hotels until we found a place with a vacancy.
