Audrey is temporarily unable to post to VFTT, she wrote the following trip report:
The gate was open, so we drove up to the grassy pullout just before the road descends to the stream. I wish we'd investigated the road further, as you'll soon hear...
We started up on a compass beeline from the car. Mohamed had an altimeter but it wasn't behaving very well. There was nothing very thick or steep, and we found herd paths about halfway up. A snack and some major flyswatting were in order at the summit.
Descending, we trended more to the left so as to conserve altitude. That route was a bit thicker. We hit the brook at about 2300' and started up towards Signal (magnetic North, as PB had suggested) in dense hobblebush, avoiding the patches of spruce we started to encounter to our left. At 3050' we reached the bump shown on the map, navigated through some wet spots, found a footprint which we imagined to belong to PBs group, and then cruised to the summit. I walked around to check out some bumps that looked similar in height.
The descent was, again, more leftward-trending, since we assumed we'd thus hit the continuation of the road. The woods were more open towards the bottom, although we hit some 5 to 10 foot drops in the mid section that added a bit of spice. We intersected a very well-maintained road and turned left, walked about a mile and got increasingly suspicious, although its bearing seemed OK. We had been on it too long and it refused to descend to the stream.
Luckily, I glanced to the right and saw a beaver pond, which fixed our location on the map. So, we took a right into the woods, past the pond and along its outlet stream for a short distance until we reached the main branch and then climbed a couple of hundred feet to the correct road, about a half mile below the car.
We later surmised that the other road might have been the one that forks right not far from 302, and that both roads may connect. If we had turned right instead of left after popping out of the woods, we may have been at the car much sooner.
Travel times: 1 hour to Butterfield, 50 minutes down to the brook, 1.5 hours to Signal, 1.25 hours down to the road and then 1 hour to flounder back to the car with many consultations, a bit of dickering, and examination of some impressive bear scat. Excellent trip!
East Mt. was an anticlimax but a good leg stretcher. We encountered a young man at the gate who is somehow connected to the owners. His uncle owns a cabin off Radar Road somewhere. He had unlocked the gate so he and his friends could drive up to the beaver pond and do some fishing. He warned us about the "locals" who apparently pillage tourists' cars regularly.
Travel time: 1 hour 35 minutes up.
I will never again complain about the unsightly summits of Redington or Sugarloaf.
We celebrated with some of Mohamed's excellent frosty beer - Red Hook Sunrye.
The gate was open, so we drove up to the grassy pullout just before the road descends to the stream. I wish we'd investigated the road further, as you'll soon hear...
We started up on a compass beeline from the car. Mohamed had an altimeter but it wasn't behaving very well. There was nothing very thick or steep, and we found herd paths about halfway up. A snack and some major flyswatting were in order at the summit.
Descending, we trended more to the left so as to conserve altitude. That route was a bit thicker. We hit the brook at about 2300' and started up towards Signal (magnetic North, as PB had suggested) in dense hobblebush, avoiding the patches of spruce we started to encounter to our left. At 3050' we reached the bump shown on the map, navigated through some wet spots, found a footprint which we imagined to belong to PBs group, and then cruised to the summit. I walked around to check out some bumps that looked similar in height.
The descent was, again, more leftward-trending, since we assumed we'd thus hit the continuation of the road. The woods were more open towards the bottom, although we hit some 5 to 10 foot drops in the mid section that added a bit of spice. We intersected a very well-maintained road and turned left, walked about a mile and got increasingly suspicious, although its bearing seemed OK. We had been on it too long and it refused to descend to the stream.
Luckily, I glanced to the right and saw a beaver pond, which fixed our location on the map. So, we took a right into the woods, past the pond and along its outlet stream for a short distance until we reached the main branch and then climbed a couple of hundred feet to the correct road, about a half mile below the car.
We later surmised that the other road might have been the one that forks right not far from 302, and that both roads may connect. If we had turned right instead of left after popping out of the woods, we may have been at the car much sooner.
Travel times: 1 hour to Butterfield, 50 minutes down to the brook, 1.5 hours to Signal, 1.25 hours down to the road and then 1 hour to flounder back to the car with many consultations, a bit of dickering, and examination of some impressive bear scat. Excellent trip!
East Mt. was an anticlimax but a good leg stretcher. We encountered a young man at the gate who is somehow connected to the owners. His uncle owns a cabin off Radar Road somewhere. He had unlocked the gate so he and his friends could drive up to the beaver pond and do some fishing. He warned us about the "locals" who apparently pillage tourists' cars regularly.
Travel time: 1 hour 35 minutes up.
I will never again complain about the unsightly summits of Redington or Sugarloaf.
We celebrated with some of Mohamed's excellent frosty beer - Red Hook Sunrye.
