East Osceola, Osceola via Greeley Ponds, Osceola Trails from the water ville Valley

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Silverfox

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Dec 13, 2007
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Location
Meredith New Hampshire
Some pretty dire wind and weather predictions from Mount Washington and a lack of essential gear and required aclimatazation lowered our goals today from Washing ton to Ike jaunt to Osceolas. When Sabrina arrived at 8:30 I suggested we leave a car and start our hike from the Livermore Area and make a loop out of it..This turned out to be a great move..

Still some color as we headed in past a menacing skull on the side of the trail..Halloween is coming!! This stretch of trail in excellent shape..an old road with some good bridges that gradually gets narrowers as you ascend.. A great dark colored moose abruptly bounded out of a swampy trail and headed immediately away from us with terra, ever the herder, in hot pursuit.. She eventually answered the masters voice and i was put out on point to see what we could find. His tracks seemed on the trail for a bit then he must have taken off..after a rock hop brook crossing we saw no more tracks..Here the trail winds around nicely through mixed wood..we heard voices and enjoyed a nice chat with howard and Dr D just before arriving at the first of the ponds..

Still some color through this section and we lingered a bit admiring the primative beauty of this area. The mount osceola Trail branches off in a beech and maple forest..climbing gradually at first but soon reaching a rough and slabby slide..We slowed our pace a bit here as some icy spots were starting to form..good views from the faces of all the slide areas here mostly towards Tripyramids where golden color stretched half way up the slopes.

After one last scramble we reached the summit ridge and enjoyed the narrow but excellent viewpoint there for awhile..no wind..bright sun...excellent

After tapping the cairn on East we headed over to the main peak stopping for a brief snack in the low point before the chimney.. With the fake knee I opted for the bypass and Sabrina and Terra led the way..still pretty steep no doubt. the mud all through this section was frozen which made for great footing...Started to see lots of people by now heading over to East and we met a couple of groups on the summit when we reached the incredible views offered there..We were shocked at the lack of wind and though it was cool we relaxed for more that the usual couple of minutes..Quite icy on the upper ledges down to around 3500 feet..we passed several groups with kids and dogs in places..we picked our way carefully and both agreed that one more slip was bringing out the micros but we hit dryer ground before that happened..

The lower section of the Osceola trail can be a big rough and tedious but the rocks were mostly dry and we proceeded along at a good pace remarking that it was nice to have made this into a traverse rather than an in and out on the same trail..

This turned out to be a nice choice for the day we thought.. Plenty of foliage..predomiantly good trail bed with a few slippery or steep spots..many excellent viewpoints..a moose siting..I checked at the MWO site awhile back and winds were in the 20's with temps in the teens about when we would have summited...not brutal for January but perhaps a bit much for today.. a good day out with Sabrina and Terra and i had a special biscuit for Terra since I sadly had to miss the carriagin event...

a few pics of the day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverfox777/sets/72157622572984946/
 
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