Jazzbo
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Sorry to borrow Big Earl's tag line, but that's what we had yesterday. But we did have a comic encounter with some moose at the end. FF to end for that story. I don't usually like long TR's, but this is a long TR for a long tough day.
Let me start by saying I would not recommend attempting this route in winter. This is one of those ideas that seemed like a good idea at the time. Five of us (Dr D, Onestep, Oncoman, Peakbagger, and myself) joined forces to attempt a traverse of the Pliny Range and Weeks Range. Fortunately we were well equipped and in reasonably good shape to deal with the situation. The latest AMC Maps indicates the total distance of 12.2 miles. It turned out be a 15+ hour snowshoe tramp that entailed a great deal of trail breaking and route-finding. I’m sure some of our younger fireballs would have done this in much less time than we did.
The winter parking lot was plowed, but very icy. No one wanted to get stuck in it, so we drove up Cottage Road to the summer trailhead and parked there. It’s nice the town plows the lot (probably for the hikers) but it ain’t no use unless it gets sanded as well. We managed to get underway at 8:00AM. There were many other folks snowshoeing up the trail to Starr King and Waumbek. We passed them and made it to Waumbek around 11:00.
At Waumbek we discovered a steel crampon fractured on Oncoman’s MSR Denali snowshoe. Not a good omen for a long day on a remote ridge. At first we tried using electrical ties that many people carry, but these just we’re strong enough for this application. We managed to make a pretty good field repair using a piece of 6 mm climbing rope I carry along just in case. Oncoman made the remaining 8 more miles on this. Judging from the wear and tear I observed on crampon teeth, IMHO it wasn’t manufacturing defect, but simply a fact of too many miles. Oncoman needs to get a new pair of Denali’s. The Leatherman Wave multi-tool also proved to be helpful winter gear tool in removing the small ring. We lost half and hour dealing with this and moved on.
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The sun began breaking through clouds as we proceeded along to the end of Pliny Range ridge. The 10-12 inches of new snow from last week’s storm and 2-3 inches from Friday night’s snow showers coated the tree trunks with snow making it hard spot yellow blazes. Thus began our all day struggle to stay on the trail. It seemed we spent as much time off the trail as on it.
We descended into the col between the Pliny Range and the Weeks Range and managed to make it to the summit of South Weeks at 2:00. This was pretty late time to arrive at approximate ½ way point and so much unbroken trail remaining. Rather than turn back and return the way we came we opted to continue figuring we’d be walking out by headlamp at 8 PM or so. NOT!!!!!
We were further lulled into false sense of security by making it to Middle Weeks by 3:00. I snapped a couple of pictures on Middel Weeks.
Onestep and Oncoman.
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Dr D's summit photo on Middle Weeks.
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We thought we should make it to North Weeks by 5:00 just around dark. We promptly lost the trail and descended into the very deep col that lay before North Weeks. This col is down at 3200’ and summit is at 3901’ making for a 700' climb. The climb to the summit was arduous with steep climbs through thick spruce in deep snow. We took 3+ hours to reach the summit at 6:00. We adjusted layers and hydrated ASAP and headed north on the newly rediscovered trail and promptly lost it again. No matter as we just held to our compass bearing and followed staying just right of the ridge line down to Willard Notch. On the way down we spotted the bright orange halogen light at the hatchery. It made it seem like we only had a short way to go. NOT!!!
We arrived at the York Pond Trail and turned right with only 2.4 miles to go. It was getting pretty late and we really didn’t want to lose the trail now. The wind was kicking up and we knew it was sub-zero. Oncoman had a massive ice formation on his mustache and beard. We managed to stay on the trail, but were still troubled by the snow-coated tree trunks. We were able to detect indentations in the snow of the treadway and lanes in the forest. It would have been nice if there were more blazes. We began to see the light at the hatchery again which helped some in navigation. Progress was slow.
It was getting later and all of us were suffering from the cold. The York Pond Trail descends some 1200’ as it slabs down the side of hill from the junction. Things got a little hairy when we arrived in the lowlands where we again lost the trail. The terrain becomes very irregular with many meandering stream beds. It was tiring climbing in and out of the stream beds. We feared wasting time wandering in this area so we asked Oncoman to check his GPS one more to minimize wandering. Pierre’s hands were shaking from the cold. We were feeling apprehensive. We appeared to have 0.8 miles to go. We resumed following the NE bearing the trail was supposed to follow. We were very pleased when 2 minutes later we popped out on the trail again.
We spotted a blaze from time to time, but we did go long stretches without seeing them which didn’t do much to bolster our confidence. The trail seemed to have a packed trail underneath the snow and the breaking was easier. Then low and behold we came to the junction with the Bunnel Notch Trail. We were happy now! This section indeed had some packed trail under the snow and breaking was even better. Oncoman went into high gear and beat us all back to Dr D’s car. It was now 11:20PM.
Amazing that headlamps can go 5+ hours with no brownouts. I put new Lithium Ion batteries to the test.
Now for some comic relief. We got started at 11:50PM. Driving along shortly after passing the fish hatchery buildings, we all yelled and Dr D came to a screeching halt when we came upon a cow moose and her calf standing in the road. What followed was a lesson in mother – calf behavior. The road was lined with high snow banks. We watched in awe for a time, and would have watched longer, but we were anxious to get back to the other cars. We started up slowly and the two moose trotted along to match our speed. When they wandered over to the side of the road, Thom’s first impulse was to try to pass by them. Instead of letting us pass, the mother broke into a run and the calf followed. We slowed down to 2 MPH again and attempted to pass them numerous times with the same result. The mother seemed reluctant to leap over them since the calf might not be able to follow. So we simply puttered along at 2 MPH hoping to come to a turnout or section side enough to pass them. The mother moose finally decided to jump the snow bank and after some trepidation the calf followed. So ended our amusing moose encounter.
Speaking of moose we observed numerous signs of moose yards all along the summit ridges. Many of them had the little hollows where the moose were bedding down. There were many fresh tracks and scat. How do they survive up there? What do they eat???
I bought a bag of popcorn for the ride home and noticed I had hard time picking up the popcorn since my finger tips were numb. Must have a touch of frostbite.
Let me start by saying I would not recommend attempting this route in winter. This is one of those ideas that seemed like a good idea at the time. Five of us (Dr D, Onestep, Oncoman, Peakbagger, and myself) joined forces to attempt a traverse of the Pliny Range and Weeks Range. Fortunately we were well equipped and in reasonably good shape to deal with the situation. The latest AMC Maps indicates the total distance of 12.2 miles. It turned out be a 15+ hour snowshoe tramp that entailed a great deal of trail breaking and route-finding. I’m sure some of our younger fireballs would have done this in much less time than we did.
The winter parking lot was plowed, but very icy. No one wanted to get stuck in it, so we drove up Cottage Road to the summer trailhead and parked there. It’s nice the town plows the lot (probably for the hikers) but it ain’t no use unless it gets sanded as well. We managed to get underway at 8:00AM. There were many other folks snowshoeing up the trail to Starr King and Waumbek. We passed them and made it to Waumbek around 11:00.
At Waumbek we discovered a steel crampon fractured on Oncoman’s MSR Denali snowshoe. Not a good omen for a long day on a remote ridge. At first we tried using electrical ties that many people carry, but these just we’re strong enough for this application. We managed to make a pretty good field repair using a piece of 6 mm climbing rope I carry along just in case. Oncoman made the remaining 8 more miles on this. Judging from the wear and tear I observed on crampon teeth, IMHO it wasn’t manufacturing defect, but simply a fact of too many miles. Oncoman needs to get a new pair of Denali’s. The Leatherman Wave multi-tool also proved to be helpful winter gear tool in removing the small ring. We lost half and hour dealing with this and moved on.
The sun began breaking through clouds as we proceeded along to the end of Pliny Range ridge. The 10-12 inches of new snow from last week’s storm and 2-3 inches from Friday night’s snow showers coated the tree trunks with snow making it hard spot yellow blazes. Thus began our all day struggle to stay on the trail. It seemed we spent as much time off the trail as on it.
We descended into the col between the Pliny Range and the Weeks Range and managed to make it to the summit of South Weeks at 2:00. This was pretty late time to arrive at approximate ½ way point and so much unbroken trail remaining. Rather than turn back and return the way we came we opted to continue figuring we’d be walking out by headlamp at 8 PM or so. NOT!!!!!
We were further lulled into false sense of security by making it to Middle Weeks by 3:00. I snapped a couple of pictures on Middel Weeks.
Onestep and Oncoman.
Dr D's summit photo on Middle Weeks.
We thought we should make it to North Weeks by 5:00 just around dark. We promptly lost the trail and descended into the very deep col that lay before North Weeks. This col is down at 3200’ and summit is at 3901’ making for a 700' climb. The climb to the summit was arduous with steep climbs through thick spruce in deep snow. We took 3+ hours to reach the summit at 6:00. We adjusted layers and hydrated ASAP and headed north on the newly rediscovered trail and promptly lost it again. No matter as we just held to our compass bearing and followed staying just right of the ridge line down to Willard Notch. On the way down we spotted the bright orange halogen light at the hatchery. It made it seem like we only had a short way to go. NOT!!!
We arrived at the York Pond Trail and turned right with only 2.4 miles to go. It was getting pretty late and we really didn’t want to lose the trail now. The wind was kicking up and we knew it was sub-zero. Oncoman had a massive ice formation on his mustache and beard. We managed to stay on the trail, but were still troubled by the snow-coated tree trunks. We were able to detect indentations in the snow of the treadway and lanes in the forest. It would have been nice if there were more blazes. We began to see the light at the hatchery again which helped some in navigation. Progress was slow.
It was getting later and all of us were suffering from the cold. The York Pond Trail descends some 1200’ as it slabs down the side of hill from the junction. Things got a little hairy when we arrived in the lowlands where we again lost the trail. The terrain becomes very irregular with many meandering stream beds. It was tiring climbing in and out of the stream beds. We feared wasting time wandering in this area so we asked Oncoman to check his GPS one more to minimize wandering. Pierre’s hands were shaking from the cold. We were feeling apprehensive. We appeared to have 0.8 miles to go. We resumed following the NE bearing the trail was supposed to follow. We were very pleased when 2 minutes later we popped out on the trail again.
We spotted a blaze from time to time, but we did go long stretches without seeing them which didn’t do much to bolster our confidence. The trail seemed to have a packed trail underneath the snow and the breaking was easier. Then low and behold we came to the junction with the Bunnel Notch Trail. We were happy now! This section indeed had some packed trail under the snow and breaking was even better. Oncoman went into high gear and beat us all back to Dr D’s car. It was now 11:20PM.
Amazing that headlamps can go 5+ hours with no brownouts. I put new Lithium Ion batteries to the test.
Now for some comic relief. We got started at 11:50PM. Driving along shortly after passing the fish hatchery buildings, we all yelled and Dr D came to a screeching halt when we came upon a cow moose and her calf standing in the road. What followed was a lesson in mother – calf behavior. The road was lined with high snow banks. We watched in awe for a time, and would have watched longer, but we were anxious to get back to the other cars. We started up slowly and the two moose trotted along to match our speed. When they wandered over to the side of the road, Thom’s first impulse was to try to pass by them. Instead of letting us pass, the mother broke into a run and the calf followed. We slowed down to 2 MPH again and attempted to pass them numerous times with the same result. The mother seemed reluctant to leap over them since the calf might not be able to follow. So we simply puttered along at 2 MPH hoping to come to a turnout or section side enough to pass them. The mother moose finally decided to jump the snow bank and after some trepidation the calf followed. So ended our amusing moose encounter.
Speaking of moose we observed numerous signs of moose yards all along the summit ridges. Many of them had the little hollows where the moose were bedding down. There were many fresh tracks and scat. How do they survive up there? What do they eat???
I bought a bag of popcorn for the ride home and noticed I had hard time picking up the popcorn since my finger tips were numb. Must have a touch of frostbite.
