The Feathered Hat
Active member
Trail: Kinsman Ridge
Miles: 4, up and back
The dogs needed to get out, I needed to get out, Cindy needed us out of the house, and the crown of Cannon stared down at our place in Franconia seeming to demand: Get the hell up here.
So then... those were BIGEarl's and TrailTrotter's tracks from the day before that we followed part of the way. Ah hah! Either of you happen to lose a blue water bottle? Tuckerman found it and then Polly stole it. It isn't usable anymore. Just so you know.
As Earl noted, the middle part of the Kinsman Ridge Trail, halfway to the summit from the tramhouse, is a mess. To wit:
Somewhere in there is the trail. In fact, it's more or less just to the right of the fallen tree.
Up a little higher the trail wasn't quite so messy, but the snow from the day before was soft, slick, and sticky. Here's a view:
You've got to watch yourself and your balance at certain points in the mid-section. Where the snow isn't slippery, there's ice on the rocks. Both the ice and snow cover are fairly thin where the trail is rockiest, but it's still easy to find yourself suddenly sliding. (I wore Microspikes for most of the trip and felt reasonably sure-footed, but snowshoes would not have been overkill up above the viewpoint at the top of the Cannon Cliffs. I post-holed maybe four times on the hike -- but, alas, that's four kittens dead, of course.)
At the junction with the Kinsman Glades I was surprised to see that virtually all of the tracks went right, into the Glades. The path of the Kinsman Ridge Trail, turning left, was untracked. The dogs and I had a good time on this section of the route up to the viewpoint, Tuckerman especially:
While Polly, as usual, waited with her stoic, queenly dignity:
I understand why some hikers opt for the Glades, but going up I always prefer the regular trail route. You never know what kind of amazing view might greet you from the top of the Cannon Cliffs. This one of Mt. Liberty, for example:
And this one of the Cannon summit tower:
The views, at least, distracted me from the fact that the dogs were going nuts following about three dozen rabbit tracks in the snow, and the snow itself was balling like taffy on my Microspikes -- at times it was like walking on basketballs. The summit probably got three or four inches of wet snow on Saturday, judging from the look of things just beneath the tower:
The staircase up to the top of the tower is closed, with screwed-in boards, until the summer season, though if you're so inclined you can easily scoot under the boards. We didn't. The views we had already seen gave us pleasure enough.
We came down the ski trail to the Glades, and then used the Glades to cut over back to the Kinsman Ridge Trail because going down the icy rocks on the KRT below the summit would have been much harder for the dogs than going up.
All in all, a good hike. The weather was nicer at the top than I expected, not too windy, and (rather amazingly, I thought) we didn't see another person all afternoon. The mountain had gone to the dogs -- literally. When we got home, Cindy rewarded us for giving her some privacy for the afternoon by grilling up swordfish steaks and uncorking a superb bottle of old-vine Chablis.
A few more photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99682097@N00/sets/72157623709610441/
The Feathered Hat
stevebjerklie at yahoo dot com
____________________________________________
Tuckerman's and Polly's Report for Dogs
Some mud down low, but not enough for our taste.
Some icy rocks in the mid-section: keep your claws out.
Rabbit tracks! Tons of them! We loved running all through the woods sniffing, sniffing, sniffing.
There's some water, not a lot, in the mid-section.
For Tuck, his third ascent of Cannon, and for Polly, her first. She's got five of the 48 now and Tuckerman has 15.
***Three sniffs (out of four). T-Dog and P-Dog say check it out.
Miles: 4, up and back
The dogs needed to get out, I needed to get out, Cindy needed us out of the house, and the crown of Cannon stared down at our place in Franconia seeming to demand: Get the hell up here.
So then... those were BIGEarl's and TrailTrotter's tracks from the day before that we followed part of the way. Ah hah! Either of you happen to lose a blue water bottle? Tuckerman found it and then Polly stole it. It isn't usable anymore. Just so you know.
As Earl noted, the middle part of the Kinsman Ridge Trail, halfway to the summit from the tramhouse, is a mess. To wit:
Somewhere in there is the trail. In fact, it's more or less just to the right of the fallen tree.
Up a little higher the trail wasn't quite so messy, but the snow from the day before was soft, slick, and sticky. Here's a view:
You've got to watch yourself and your balance at certain points in the mid-section. Where the snow isn't slippery, there's ice on the rocks. Both the ice and snow cover are fairly thin where the trail is rockiest, but it's still easy to find yourself suddenly sliding. (I wore Microspikes for most of the trip and felt reasonably sure-footed, but snowshoes would not have been overkill up above the viewpoint at the top of the Cannon Cliffs. I post-holed maybe four times on the hike -- but, alas, that's four kittens dead, of course.)
At the junction with the Kinsman Glades I was surprised to see that virtually all of the tracks went right, into the Glades. The path of the Kinsman Ridge Trail, turning left, was untracked. The dogs and I had a good time on this section of the route up to the viewpoint, Tuckerman especially:
While Polly, as usual, waited with her stoic, queenly dignity:
I understand why some hikers opt for the Glades, but going up I always prefer the regular trail route. You never know what kind of amazing view might greet you from the top of the Cannon Cliffs. This one of Mt. Liberty, for example:
And this one of the Cannon summit tower:
The views, at least, distracted me from the fact that the dogs were going nuts following about three dozen rabbit tracks in the snow, and the snow itself was balling like taffy on my Microspikes -- at times it was like walking on basketballs. The summit probably got three or four inches of wet snow on Saturday, judging from the look of things just beneath the tower:
The staircase up to the top of the tower is closed, with screwed-in boards, until the summer season, though if you're so inclined you can easily scoot under the boards. We didn't. The views we had already seen gave us pleasure enough.
We came down the ski trail to the Glades, and then used the Glades to cut over back to the Kinsman Ridge Trail because going down the icy rocks on the KRT below the summit would have been much harder for the dogs than going up.
All in all, a good hike. The weather was nicer at the top than I expected, not too windy, and (rather amazingly, I thought) we didn't see another person all afternoon. The mountain had gone to the dogs -- literally. When we got home, Cindy rewarded us for giving her some privacy for the afternoon by grilling up swordfish steaks and uncorking a superb bottle of old-vine Chablis.
A few more photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99682097@N00/sets/72157623709610441/
The Feathered Hat
stevebjerklie at yahoo dot com
____________________________________________
Tuckerman's and Polly's Report for Dogs
Some mud down low, but not enough for our taste.
Some icy rocks in the mid-section: keep your claws out.
Rabbit tracks! Tons of them! We loved running all through the woods sniffing, sniffing, sniffing.
There's some water, not a lot, in the mid-section.
For Tuck, his third ascent of Cannon, and for Polly, her first. She's got five of the 48 now and Tuckerman has 15.
***Three sniffs (out of four). T-Dog and P-Dog say check it out.
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