Weather was iffy, chance of showers/thunderstorms, heavy humidity, perfect for a visit to scrubby, flat-topped, viewless 3472' Mt. Kelsey in northern New Hampshire.
I drove up the logging/ATV road adjacent to the Log Haven Restaurant, off rte 26 east of Dixville.
The gravel road was easily driveable for over a mile where a solid wood plank bridge gave me further encouragement. Unfortunately, just ahead, a trio of ditches across the road ended my vehicular travel. A 4x4 could get through, but not my Geo Prizm. I backed down, over the bridge, and parked at a wide turnout.
Hiking toward the north base of Kelsey on the road, I took a left fork as the topo showed a bridge across Clear Stream. The bridge turned out to be a massive rusty steel culvert; the grassy old road, though, was washed out, a yawning chasm in front of the pipe. Crossing, though, was no problem.
Soon I began the 'whack, heading up through friendly woods towards Kelsey's summit. Moose paths and remnants of a nearly obliterated old logging track zigzagging up the slope, helped.
I recalled Doc Ross's post from last year about the difficulty of locating the canister... said it was camoflaged in the extensive blowdown and dead spruce spires that stretch across half of Kelsey's broad summit. Fortunately, he mentioned the canister was on the east side of the blowdown.
While the high point seemed to be amongst the "living" conifers on the north side, there was no good location for a jar in that thick section with toppled trees beneath. So I probed the exposed blowdown areas bordering the highest area. After a tedious search, I was ready to give up. The bugs had found me, big time, and the fun quotient had dipped to about a minus five by this time.
But I gave it one more try, this time picking my way through the highest blowdown area, moving from east to west. And there it was, a tiny jar with sun-bleached pink top lashed to a very dead tree sprouting from between two small boulders. You'd only see it if you happened to be in the vicinity, facing west... even then, it seemed to blend in with the dead wood; hence camoflage.
I signed in...the second of '07...and decided to decorate the location with a couple of bands of surveyors' tape I'd harvested from the Adirondacks' MacNaughton herd path last year. I'm not big on using the stuff for routes through the woods, but its use at the canister might save some other stumblebum an hour or two of frustrating thrashing.
Then again, that dead tree trunk is so feeble, it might not survive the next big blow.
Back at the bottom, I'd planned on continuing along the logging road into Kelsey notch, then following the snowmobile/Cohos Trail up to Dixville Peak. But the skies were ominous, and I retreated to the car...just in time. The heavy rain that came would've dampened more than my spirits if I'd gone on to Dixville.
Instead, I saved the 3490' Dixville for Sunday morning. Climbing the vertical Table Rock Trail was cool, but there was no view from the rocky outcrop as the mountain was socked in. I plodded along the route cobbled from ski trails, snowmobile routes and the Cohos Trail toward Dixville Peak, wallowing through interminable mud wallows, feeling like I was on a typical Adirondack trail. Happily, though, someone had brushed out the overgrown sections and the only blowdown was one easily skirted tree.
The "summit" was socked in...surrounding trees most likely obscure the view anyway... and I headed back.
The hike's highlight came at Table Rock, where the clouds and fog had lifted, allowing the bird's eye view of the Balsams and the cliffs behind it. Given the day that had started so dreary, I had the little perch to myself. Excellent.
I considered taking the longer path back down to rte. 26, but decided instead to gamble on the steep, slippery Table Rock Trail descent. I nearly killed myself. My saturated Vibram soles were like Vaseline on the slickrock. I went slower and slower and eventually got down. Whew!
Before leaving the North Country, I visited nearby Beaver Brook Falls, which was beautiful in full flow.
jt
pix:
http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/...ey Dixville/?action=view¤t=IMG_1524.jpg
I drove up the logging/ATV road adjacent to the Log Haven Restaurant, off rte 26 east of Dixville.
The gravel road was easily driveable for over a mile where a solid wood plank bridge gave me further encouragement. Unfortunately, just ahead, a trio of ditches across the road ended my vehicular travel. A 4x4 could get through, but not my Geo Prizm. I backed down, over the bridge, and parked at a wide turnout.
Hiking toward the north base of Kelsey on the road, I took a left fork as the topo showed a bridge across Clear Stream. The bridge turned out to be a massive rusty steel culvert; the grassy old road, though, was washed out, a yawning chasm in front of the pipe. Crossing, though, was no problem.
Soon I began the 'whack, heading up through friendly woods towards Kelsey's summit. Moose paths and remnants of a nearly obliterated old logging track zigzagging up the slope, helped.
I recalled Doc Ross's post from last year about the difficulty of locating the canister... said it was camoflaged in the extensive blowdown and dead spruce spires that stretch across half of Kelsey's broad summit. Fortunately, he mentioned the canister was on the east side of the blowdown.
While the high point seemed to be amongst the "living" conifers on the north side, there was no good location for a jar in that thick section with toppled trees beneath. So I probed the exposed blowdown areas bordering the highest area. After a tedious search, I was ready to give up. The bugs had found me, big time, and the fun quotient had dipped to about a minus five by this time.
But I gave it one more try, this time picking my way through the highest blowdown area, moving from east to west. And there it was, a tiny jar with sun-bleached pink top lashed to a very dead tree sprouting from between two small boulders. You'd only see it if you happened to be in the vicinity, facing west... even then, it seemed to blend in with the dead wood; hence camoflage.
I signed in...the second of '07...and decided to decorate the location with a couple of bands of surveyors' tape I'd harvested from the Adirondacks' MacNaughton herd path last year. I'm not big on using the stuff for routes through the woods, but its use at the canister might save some other stumblebum an hour or two of frustrating thrashing.
Then again, that dead tree trunk is so feeble, it might not survive the next big blow.
Back at the bottom, I'd planned on continuing along the logging road into Kelsey notch, then following the snowmobile/Cohos Trail up to Dixville Peak. But the skies were ominous, and I retreated to the car...just in time. The heavy rain that came would've dampened more than my spirits if I'd gone on to Dixville.
Instead, I saved the 3490' Dixville for Sunday morning. Climbing the vertical Table Rock Trail was cool, but there was no view from the rocky outcrop as the mountain was socked in. I plodded along the route cobbled from ski trails, snowmobile routes and the Cohos Trail toward Dixville Peak, wallowing through interminable mud wallows, feeling like I was on a typical Adirondack trail. Happily, though, someone had brushed out the overgrown sections and the only blowdown was one easily skirted tree.
The "summit" was socked in...surrounding trees most likely obscure the view anyway... and I headed back.
The hike's highlight came at Table Rock, where the clouds and fog had lifted, allowing the bird's eye view of the Balsams and the cliffs behind it. Given the day that had started so dreary, I had the little perch to myself. Excellent.
I considered taking the longer path back down to rte. 26, but decided instead to gamble on the steep, slippery Table Rock Trail descent. I nearly killed myself. My saturated Vibram soles were like Vaseline on the slickrock. I went slower and slower and eventually got down. Whew!
Before leaving the North Country, I visited nearby Beaver Brook Falls, which was beautiful in full flow.
jt
pix:
http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/...ey Dixville/?action=view¤t=IMG_1524.jpg
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