Catching the Carters - The Non-Paradox Trip!

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Tom Rankin

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I can't believe we did not see Paradox yesterday! :eek:

We started from 19MB TH at 7:00 on Saturday. It was cloudy, and cool, but no rain was predicted. The trail starts out soft and smooth, with the Brook to the right. After a while, we passed a dam, which did not look too old, but not too young either. Does anyone know what it was/is used for?

After an hour we got to the trail junction and went right towards the Hut. The trail is a little rougher here and a little steeper. Around 9:10 we were at the hut. Aside from the crew, it was empty. We had some water and a snack and chatted with the 'Jester' for a few minutes before heading on our way.

The lakes were beautiful. They were almost dead calm, but not quite still enough for a perfect reflection picture. We could see up to both Wildcat A and Carter Dome from here, and both sides were very impressive. We started up around 9:35 and slowly plodded our way up to Carter Dome. There is a spring about half way up, down a short path, so I stepped aside and filled up our water bottles. We arrived at the top around 11:00. We had another break here and admired the views just past the summit. I had been here before, but I did not remember the wreckage of the old fire tower, just off in the woods.

Continuing on, we dropped down a short way and made our way up to Hight. This peak is easy from Carter Dome, but we could see that it was very steep coming up from the South Carter side. The views were great here! We also met Eric, who is working on the 48 x 12 grid!

Dropping down to Zeta Pass, we stopped at the intersection to get some water and another snack. Then the ascent of South Cater began. It was about 500' and we were at the summit by 12:45. The top is pretty much viewless, so we pretty much just kept going, heading on to Middle Carter. We got there around 1:30. Again, after a short drop, we found a marvelous view point just past the summit. The Northern Pressies were right in our face, and we could see North Carter and Moriah as well.

This was the end of our peakbagging for the day, so we turned around and headed back almost 6 miles to the car. It took us till 4:20 to get back to the trailhead.

The bugs were out today, but if you kept moving you were fine. No snow this weekend, but we chatted with 2 skiers who had gone to Tucks, and they got in a several good runs!

Totals: 15 miles, 4,600' of elevation gain, in about 9.3 hours.

Weekend totals: 24 miles, 8000' of elevation gain! No wonder I'm a little sore and tired right now! :eek:

It was another great weekend in the Whites! Laurie now has 39 of the 48! :)
 
Jeepers, looks like Jon and I missed running into a bunch of hiking celebrities! I was even informed by ultra-celebrity Paradox that he had made a rocket21 sandwich by climbing Hight and Wildcat C. Busy day in the Cats-Carters!
 
While we're in the neighborhood, is Dolly Copp Road passable in a regular car? And if so, does it save time cutting off the corner from Rt. 16 to Rt. 2 heading West, avoiding Gorham?

I've only driven it once this spring and, while it was passable for cars (don't take it too fast, as there are some potholes and rocks, it didn't seem to save me any time. Triple Falls is pretty neat after recent rainfall, though!
 
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