Swan's Traverse

[Mohamed Ellozy]

Most "death Marches" are long trips with lots of ups and downs, but no brutal sections. Swan's Traverse (never done by Bradfod Swan, he merely proposed it) was designed to be brutal. From Appalachia, December 1958, pp. 257-258:

... I set out to devise a route from the Ravine House in Randolph to Pinkham Notch Camp that was reasonably direct yet would go "over all the humps", utilizing notoriously hard trails. Fancy loops, to include especially tough sections of trail, were not induged in, but two of the hardest headwalls -- King Ravine and Great Gulf -- were made parts of the route.

The route was up the Airline, Short Line, King Ravine and Airline trails to the summit of Adams, down by the (no longer maintained) Adams Slide Trail (the notorious "Beast of the East") to the Great Gulf Trail, up that trail to the summit of Washington. Down by Lion's Head to Hermit Lakes, the up the Boot Spur Link (so that it should not be too easy), and finally down Boot Spur to Pinkham.

First done by Jim O'Kane, Hutmaster at Madison, who began by going down the Valley Way before doing it. His time was 5:22 on June 30, 1958. Chris Goetz did it twice that summer, August 10 and 20, in 4:59 and 4:32 respectively. See an interesting article by Chris' father, Klaus Goetz, in the same issue, pp. 203-211.

With the Beast of the East gone, I suppose we should substitute Star Lake and Madison Gulf trails for it.

Incidentally, the prize that Brad Swan offered for those doing it was a free season's pass to the Star Lake bathing beach

 

[chiptrnr]

Mohamed,

Ah, interesting. I went back to my 1936 & 1964 WMG's to recreate the Swan Traverse. It is either 13.55 or 13.9 miles using past or current milages. Vertical gain is ~ 8,650' with a total loss of ~7,925'. While the distance does not qualify as a "Death March", the difficulty should.

I haven't descended the Adams Slide trail. I went up it in the early 90's. It was easy to follow. Indeed, someone was clearing brush near one of Emily Klug's caves. I'm not sure if I could find the start of the AST descending.

Changing the route to include the Star Lake & Madison Gulf trails would add to the difficulty and length. The added distance is ~4 miles with ~ 1,600 of elevation change. Alternately one could descend the Buttress Trail to the 6 Husbands & the Great Gulf- adds only 1.4 miles.

 

[Papa Bear]

Chris Goetz's name rings a bell. He and Richard Adler were the first to climb Mount Caubvick/d'Iberville, the highest peak in Quebec and Labrador. That was after kayaking about 200 miles and hiking across the northern Labrador mountain wilderness for about 40 miles.

His report was in the June 1974 Appalachia: "Sketches of an Arctic Trip". Worth reading if you have access to old copies of that journal.

Interesting that he was an avid NH climber 15 years earlier.

Back to Swan's traverse. 4 or 5 hours sounds pretty impressive. That would just get me to Adams! (or maybe a little further).

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

More on Swan's Tarverse

The genesis of Swan's Traverse is as interesting as the route. More quotes from the Appalachia note referred to above:

Swan's Traverse came into being as a joke ... It originated one night at Madison Hut, in 1953 or 1954. I had been remarking on the way some hikers paid absolutely no attention to the contour lines on the guidebook maps, and to show how serious this oversight could be, I set out to devise a route from Ravine House to Pinkham Notch Camp that was reasonably direct ...

OK, a straight line from Adams to Washington will get you down into the Great Gulf, with the need to climb out of it, so that segment is legitimate. Also it may well be argued that the King Ravine Trail is as direct a way as any to get from Ravine House (not too far from Appalachia) to the summit of Adams. But the climb up the Boott Spur Link is pure perversity, deviating considerably from the shortest path, which is probably down Lions Head and Tucks.

In his note Swan states that the guidebook time is a flat 13 hours. Klaus Goetz gives the distance as "a little less than 13 miles" with 8456 feet of elevation gain. Using the current book time formula gives a book time of 10:43, I would love to know how book time was calculated in earlier editions of the guidebook.

Chiptrnr,

Thanks for pointing out that Madison Gulf takes the hiker quite a bit lower than the Adams Slide would have. The Butress is much closer to the original, also somewhat closer to a straight line. But the Star Lake Trail goes the wrong way darn it, and this is a poor substitute for the Adams Slide in terms of directness.

 

[chiptrnr]

olde tymes

1936 WMG Tenth edition " times,.. are based on a speed of two mph, plus a half hour for every thousand feet ascended. ...The results will be reliable only on standard trails and they will probably fail on excessively steep grades...."

I can check my first edition tomorrow as I do not have it in my home library.

The following is from " Walking Guide to the Mount Washington Range", W.H. Pickering, 1882. This predates the first edition WMG by 25 years.

Carriage Road: 8 miles 3hrs. up 2 hrs down
Tuckermans starting form the 2 mile mark on the carriage road 6m 3.75u 2.75d
Great Gulf 7.25m 4.25u 3.5d
Huntington Ravine 6.5m 6.5u 5.25d
Lowes to Adams 4m 2.75u 1.75d
King Ravine to Adams 4.5m 3.25u 2.5d
Crawford to F6.1 8m 4.25u 3.5d
the Great Range 10.5m 10.25u 7reverse
Note: much of these routes invloved trailess passage. The "Great Range" was from Washington (F6.1) over the Presi's to Madison , bushwacking down the Osgood Ridge till a line of blazes takes one into the Great Gulf. The Osgood trail continued to the Glen House site. The first time I did the Osgood/GG TRails they started at the Auto Road/Glen House. That was in the mid 70's. It had a messy swampy traverse over tote roads to thePeabody River near Long Island Rapids. That section is now abandoned.

 

[JohnL]

I checked out this traverse as a potential hike and came up with 15.0 miles as its length. Here's the breakdown from the WMG:

Appalachia to Adams 4.6 mi 4600 ft
Adams Slide Tr 1.2 mi (est)
Six Husbands Tr 0.5 mi
Great Gulf Tr 3.0 mi 2850 ft
Gulfside Tr to Wshngtn 0.4 mi 350 ft
Wshngtn to Hermit Lake 2.1 mi
Boott Spur Link 0.6 mi 850 ft
Return to Pinkham 2.6 mi
TOTAL 15.0 mi 8650 ft

Could the trail length measurements have been that much different back in the '50's?

JohnL

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

Idle Googling led me to this recent report of a trip up the Abandoned Adams Slide Trail , the once notorious "Beast of the East", and I remembered this thread that I had started many years ago. Given the number of strong hikers we have here, my questions are:

• Has any VFTTer done the "Beast of the East"?
• Has any VFTTer attempted any of the variations on Swan's Traverse discussed years ago in this post?
• Does anyone plan to attempt either of the above?

 

[DougPaul]

Given the number of strong hikers we have here, my questions are:

• Has any VFTTer done the "Beast of the East"?
• Has any VFTTer attempted any of the variations on Swan's Traverse discussed years ago in this post?
• Does anyone plan to attempt either of the above?

A number of VFTTers have reported hiking it: https://encrypted.google.com/search...rg&hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=

I did it back in the 1970s when it was still an official trail. Descent from Adams to GG as part of a 2-day hike.

It is rather steep: 2300 ft in 1.25 mi according to the 1969 WMG. (It is not mentioned in the 1976 WMG.) It is shown on the USGS 25K topo.

Doug

 

[RoySwkr]

[*]Has any VFTTer done the "Beast of the East"?

I was up it years ago not long after it was abandoned, I didn't consider it as difficult as several nearby ravine trails

[*]Has any VFTTer attempted any of the variations on Swan's Traverse discussed years ago in this post?

I thought that you had from the title

I had been remarking on the way some hikers paid absolutely no attention to the contour lines on the guidebook maps, and to show how serious this oversight could be...

Supposedly at one of the AMC leadership schools, the student in charge of planning the day's hike from Lakes to Madison Hut chose Great Gulf headwall and Buttress Trail. Unfortunately the leaders vetoed this.