hikersinger
Member
Final route & conditions:
This trip was to be a full traverse of the Carter/Moriah range, starting from the north. I was joining a group that planned to do the Gorham to Carter Notch hut stretch the first day, with hike out 19-mile the next; but I decided to go up a day earlier via Stony Brook to stay over at Imp and make it a 3-day. This would have cut the 10ish-hour trip (book time anyway) effectively in half.
Conditions at the bottom were pretty balmy, quite comfortable and well-packed, though a bit soft. I decided to leave my snowshoes in the car, which turned out to be a really bad decision.
I made quick time up to the Carter-Moriah trail junction, then stashed my pack and bagged Moriah. I was cognizant of the time so I hauled it a bit; with cairns mostly buried it was easy to lose trail on a few of the ledges if you didn't pay attention, but it was soon obvious if you did get off-trail.
Returned to the Stony Brook junction and continued along Carter-Moriah. This is where it got real sketchy. The trail was not broken out at all, which was a surprise to me; though in retrospect, it should not have been! Looking back at reports aggregated at trailsnh.com, all of them covered Stony Brook up to Moriah, or the Carters from the other direction. It's now more apparent to me that the stretch of the Carter-Moriah trail between Stony Brook and North Carter is just not as traveled as the rest of the range.
I had a (WMG) map, along with downloaded topo maps on my phone along with GPS and compass to guide me, but I still managed to lose the trail a short distance in. Daylight was waning, and with the still-high snow depth (7-8'?), many tree blazes were either buried or tough to see. I decided to forge along the contour line, knowing Imp was essentially straight ahead as long as I didn't venture too far downhill or uphill.
Around the time darkness came, I found Imp site 2, then quickly found a few others. I made a quick call to the AMC to see if they had a map of the Imp area, but alas they did not. (I had been there a year ago in October but I didn't remember where the shelter was in relation to the sites.)
Thankfully, I walked past site 5, found what looked like an outhouse, then walked a bit further and found the shelter building. I was so relieved, to say the least. I entered it and hunkered down; it apparently hadn't been used for almost a month, by the log book entries anyway. (This, too, was a surprise to me - I thought the shelters were used a bit more than that in winter, though I suppose I couldn't base that on any first-hand knowledge.)
The next day, I awaited word from my friends who started up Carter-Moriah from Gorham. I knew mobile phone reception was very clear in the area between the Stony Brook/Carter-Moriah junction and the Imp shelter, so they were going to call when they were at the junction. The expected time came and went, though, and no word. I had set myself a time of 1:00pm to head out if I didn't hear from them, as I knew I didn't want to continue hiking along the Carters, breaking trail without showshoes. I left at 1:00, relatively easily found my way up the spur trail to the Carter-Moriah junction, then followed the real trail back to the Stony Brook junction. (I eventually ran into my own tracks from the previous night, so it turns out I was on-trail for the first 1/3 of the distance to Imp; I veered straight/downhill to the right a bit, instead of climbing up to the left and around the hump.)
Once back to the Stony Brook junction, I tried my darndest to contact my friends, but couldn't reach any of them. At this rate, it was very unlikely they would be able to continue along over the Carters to the hut, since they were two hours behind schedule and had some trail-breaking to do. They'd surely run into darkness before hitting the hut. So I left messages with them saying I was hiking down, and to contact me.
About 15 minutes down Stony Brook, I heard from them. They got a late start, by around two hours, which explained the delay. They assessed their options and decided to descend as well. One of them did decide to continue, but ended up turning back one mile beyond the Imp spur trail junction because of snowshoe issues (he was renting them, and they gave him two lefts!). Regardless of the snowshoe issues, I think it was best he turned back.
We hit Moat Mountain (the smokehouse/brewery, of course) afterwards for a great meal, and decided we'd give this another try soon. The mountains, and the hut, will be there next time.
Lessons learned:
I look forward to trying this hike again; I know we'll do better next time. Photos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151158686474567.1073741827.570654566&type=3
- Stony Brook to Carter-Moriah trail (pretty well-packed)
- stowed pack and took Carter-Moriah trail to Mt. Moriah and back to Stony Brook junction (mostly packed, a bit difficult to keep trail on some ledges due to drifts and buried cairns)
- Carter-Moriah trail (ish) to Imp Shelter for the night (had to break trail, lost trail about 1/3 way in and ended up bushwhacking to shelter - buried or poor blaze markings)
- Carter-Moriah trail back to Stony Brook and down (broke trail up to actual Carter-Moriah trail and back to Stony Brook, all the way, managed to stay on trail the whole time, I believe)
- left snowshoes in the car, really bad decision!
- started 2:20pm, reached Mt. Moriah at 5:50pm
- backtracked along Carter/Moriah trail to Imp shelter, ended up bushwhacking along east side of the "hump" referred to in the WMG
- walked into Imp site 2 shortly after complete darkness, found sites 1 and 3 through 5, then mercifully found the shelter just beyond and to right/downhill from 5 and an outhouse (?) building
- started out from Imp shelter next day at 1:00pm (long story), got back down to Stony Brook at about 5pm
This trip was to be a full traverse of the Carter/Moriah range, starting from the north. I was joining a group that planned to do the Gorham to Carter Notch hut stretch the first day, with hike out 19-mile the next; but I decided to go up a day earlier via Stony Brook to stay over at Imp and make it a 3-day. This would have cut the 10ish-hour trip (book time anyway) effectively in half.
Conditions at the bottom were pretty balmy, quite comfortable and well-packed, though a bit soft. I decided to leave my snowshoes in the car, which turned out to be a really bad decision.
I made quick time up to the Carter-Moriah trail junction, then stashed my pack and bagged Moriah. I was cognizant of the time so I hauled it a bit; with cairns mostly buried it was easy to lose trail on a few of the ledges if you didn't pay attention, but it was soon obvious if you did get off-trail.
Returned to the Stony Brook junction and continued along Carter-Moriah. This is where it got real sketchy. The trail was not broken out at all, which was a surprise to me; though in retrospect, it should not have been! Looking back at reports aggregated at trailsnh.com, all of them covered Stony Brook up to Moriah, or the Carters from the other direction. It's now more apparent to me that the stretch of the Carter-Moriah trail between Stony Brook and North Carter is just not as traveled as the rest of the range.
I had a (WMG) map, along with downloaded topo maps on my phone along with GPS and compass to guide me, but I still managed to lose the trail a short distance in. Daylight was waning, and with the still-high snow depth (7-8'?), many tree blazes were either buried or tough to see. I decided to forge along the contour line, knowing Imp was essentially straight ahead as long as I didn't venture too far downhill or uphill.
Around the time darkness came, I found Imp site 2, then quickly found a few others. I made a quick call to the AMC to see if they had a map of the Imp area, but alas they did not. (I had been there a year ago in October but I didn't remember where the shelter was in relation to the sites.)
Thankfully, I walked past site 5, found what looked like an outhouse, then walked a bit further and found the shelter building. I was so relieved, to say the least. I entered it and hunkered down; it apparently hadn't been used for almost a month, by the log book entries anyway. (This, too, was a surprise to me - I thought the shelters were used a bit more than that in winter, though I suppose I couldn't base that on any first-hand knowledge.)
The next day, I awaited word from my friends who started up Carter-Moriah from Gorham. I knew mobile phone reception was very clear in the area between the Stony Brook/Carter-Moriah junction and the Imp shelter, so they were going to call when they were at the junction. The expected time came and went, though, and no word. I had set myself a time of 1:00pm to head out if I didn't hear from them, as I knew I didn't want to continue hiking along the Carters, breaking trail without showshoes. I left at 1:00, relatively easily found my way up the spur trail to the Carter-Moriah junction, then followed the real trail back to the Stony Brook junction. (I eventually ran into my own tracks from the previous night, so it turns out I was on-trail for the first 1/3 of the distance to Imp; I veered straight/downhill to the right a bit, instead of climbing up to the left and around the hump.)
Once back to the Stony Brook junction, I tried my darndest to contact my friends, but couldn't reach any of them. At this rate, it was very unlikely they would be able to continue along over the Carters to the hut, since they were two hours behind schedule and had some trail-breaking to do. They'd surely run into darkness before hitting the hut. So I left messages with them saying I was hiking down, and to contact me.
About 15 minutes down Stony Brook, I heard from them. They got a late start, by around two hours, which explained the delay. They assessed their options and decided to descend as well. One of them did decide to continue, but ended up turning back one mile beyond the Imp spur trail junction because of snowshoe issues (he was renting them, and they gave him two lefts!). Regardless of the snowshoe issues, I think it was best he turned back.
We hit Moat Mountain (the smokehouse/brewery, of course) afterwards for a great meal, and decided we'd give this another try soon. The mountains, and the hut, will be there next time.
Lessons learned:
- Always take your snowshoes along! You can never assume that trails will be broken out.
- Leave way more time than you think you need; I'm usually a pretty fast hiker, but still I ran out of time and was in a very dicey situation because of it
- Until I'm way more experienced, I'll be with someone when I stay at a shelter overnight in winter; I was well-equipped for a stay in the shelter, but had I needed to bivouac or the like, I would have had a very rough time. (My 20-degree bag was not quite enough for even the shelter though.)
- A little more homework on the planned routes, conditions, time needed, etc.; I think I would have been more apt to speak up to the rest of the group, to make sure they realized the difficulty/length of the hike that day.
I look forward to trying this hike again; I know we'll do better next time. Photos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151158686474567.1073741827.570654566&type=3
