Spur of the moment hike to Vose Spur 6/6/09

We met for breakfast at Highland Ctr. You can learn a lot about a person by eating breakfast with them. For example MichaelJ likes milk a lot!



Rocket21 wonders where he put his glasses?



It's been dry spring. Sawyer River Road was super dusty. We got on the trail and set a brisk pace and were soon at the big rock. Due to dry spell, water crossings proved to be trivial. Bugs were sorta bad, but I don't thank as bad as they could be (again IMO due to dry weather).

Timmus and Una Dogger celebrate summiting Vose Spur. Too bad we have to tell them this is just big rock indicating the start of the Bush Whack and not the actual summit.



We followed a drainage for short time and then worked westward and upward until we reached a herd path that leads up the spiny ridge that leads up to talus field. Terrain leading up to talus were mighty steep, but relatively open woods.



The talus field has super views of Mount Tremont massif and Sandwich Range to the south. Rocket21 pointed out Mt Shaw in Ossippee Range. Views were great, but mixture of clouds and sun made for tricky light conditions for photos. Here are some of mine:

View towards Mt Tremont, Bear Mt et all



Signal Ridge Mount Carrigain



Bob and view of talus field. Looks steep doesn't it?



We met two other hikers on Vose Spur. One fellow was another VFTT member named Van who was using print-out of map he downloaded from Bob&geri's web site. He was cosmic coincidence. Other hiker had descended down to Vose Spur from Carigain. We were impressed! Even more impressive was he was on his way to bag Lowell and Anderson next. We returned to cars by 3:30 for total hiking time of 6.5 hours. Thanks everyone for this spur of the moment opportunity to bag Vose Spur.

Nice job, Jazzbo - great to hike with you (as well as Bob & Geri, una_dogger & MichaelJ & Terra again, as well as with timmus and Mark for the first time)! I'll try and post some additional photos later on.

It was a great day for my #96.

Glad you could make it to join us on short notice.

I was very surprised how easy this whack was, just a steep up through fairly open woods to the spine of the ridge was my plan, somewhat to the left of the approach taken by others. I was feeling very lucky that the route up the ridge proper has seen so much travel of late that a full blown trail now exists.

I guess that could be taken as good or bad news, depending how you look at it.

I have more to say , and pics from vose as well, but they will just have to wait for my combined report from NE Cannonball, PatN, Vose Spur, Scar Ridge and Mendon tommorrow. My 4 day weekend is not over yet and I got two more long drives and one more peak to get before I am home to download tracklogs and pics!

Special thanks to MichaelJ and Rocket21 for hiking the truly tough ones with me!

Nice pics and commentary, Jazzbo, and it was fun hiking with you again.

una_dogger said:

I was very surprised how easy this whack was, just a steep up through fairly open woods to the spine of the ridge was my plan, somewhat to the left of the approach taken by others.

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The scars on my arms attest to the fact that somewhat left is far better than somewhat right. Although most of them came from trying to "shortcut" down to Nancy.

Taking several people who had been there before and could get you on the easy route was definitely the smart way.

jniehof said:

The scars on my arms attest to the fact that somewhat left is far better than somewhat right. Although most of them came from trying to "shortcut" down to Nancy.

Taking several people who had been there before and could get you on the easy route was definitely the smart way.

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Since I almost wnet with you guys, I'm anxious to read some details on your descent down the north face of Vose Spur.

I feel so bad - my first trip up Vose Spur with Periwinkle was a saga of despair, having managed to hit a horrible spruce-and-blowdown patch that really soured the hike for us. This time up we aced every landmark, barely had to push through anything, and the sunny, blue skies made the immense views from the talus slope (scree field?) incredible. Sorry, Peri!!!

I'll have more to say and photos to post, but they'll go into u_d's combined trip report thread (and I won't have them done for at least another day, anyway). For now I'm just scratching all the blackfly bites...

Oh Jniehof, I am sooo sorry ! If its any consolation, I am still bearing my war wounds from Nancy a couple weeks ago, and Scar Ridge yesterday was a never ending siege of spruce abuse!!! (Mendon, today, however, was a gem and a real sweet time)

Hey all, it was great to spend a day in the mountains with somme vftt'r again ! Bob and Geri are definitely celebrities Sabrina, you did a great job bringing us all to the summit, and I wish you the best finish ever on Goose eye. I wish I could be there, but that backpack idea is CRAZY ! Just kidding

I had a blast, thanks for having me in the group, and I must say orange suits me perfect

PICS of the weekend

timmus said:

Hey all, it was great to spend a day in the mountains with somme vftt'r again ! Bob and Geri are definitely celebrities Sabrina, you did a great job bringing us all to the summit, and I wish you the best finish ever on Goose eye. I wish I could be there, but that backpack idea is CRAZY ! Just kidding

I had a blast, thanks for having me in the group, and I must say orange suits me perfect

PICS of the weekend

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Thanks, Joo-lie! So great to hike with you! And to think, we both actually needed that peak!! GREAT pictures, I especially like the beer/milk one.

jniehof said:

Taking several people who had been there before and could get you on the easy route was definitely the smart way.

Click to expand...

Sheesh! Surely you aren't suggesting I couldn't have gotten there on my own!?! LOL!

They were nice enough to not stop me from plowing ahead and picking my own line...but yes, I had no doubt we'd get there...my only concern was if they'd kill me for the path I'd chosen.

After multiple recent bushwhacks, una_dogger was a sight to see - covered in scratches, wearing two different shoes...Bob decided to take some photos.



On the way, Bob decided to play with Terra



Terra - "Is he for real?!?"



timmus and Mark



Jazzbo - "Are we there yet?"



Arriving in the talus field



Soon things became steep



Bob celebrates after encountering a *second* hiker using the map from his web site.



I followed a different herd path and came out at a higher point in the field - only Terra noticed me at first



Heading down the talus field



More fun with Terra



How a couple celebrates a hike - one with a beer and the other with milk (!)

Heh-heh! Milk ... it does a body good.

GREAT pictures, Jeremy!!!!

I got a real chuckle out of that first one...

It was a great day! Not much to add that others haven't already said, but here is the link to our trip report and photos.

http://rbhayes.net/latest/VoseSpur-June-09/index.htm