woodstrider
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WALLFACE MOUNTAIN “DIVIDE” BUSHWHACK
OCTOBER 19,2013
ROUTE; A” circular” bushwhack and trail hike; starting and finishing at Scott Pond, travelling over the summit of Wallface Mountain from one watershed (St. Lawerance Seaway) to another (Hudson River) and up the Brook that drains from the Wallface Ponds, around the NE shore of Lower Wallface Pond and so to the end of the Wallface Pond Trail and back to Scott Ponds Splash Dam.
TIME: 6.25 hours
COMMENTS: Pretty much what you’d expect for a mostly off-trail hike in the Adirondacks; lots of steep ups and downs through dense taiga forests, unexpected cliffs, vest-pocket spruce-meadows or vlys, swimming through the trees and few views. At the end of it I was pock-marked with bruises and scratched about the face and wrists- looking like some unsuccessful suicide. All for the chance to visit the top of a peak that few people give a rat’s ass about (To paraphrase Boardman and Tasker, if anyone remembers them), but maybe for a chance to be fully alive for a time.
DETAILS (You got ‘em) Some sections were easier to travel then others. I found lots of tangles of old and large wind-thrown trees, moldering away and covered with mosses and embedded in thick new growth- which I named “HASH”- that represented impediments to my route up the large draw which I used as part of the route to Wallface Mountains summit. At one point I found myself on an old logging road, narrow and at times lined with corduroy, which seemed to march straight up the draw to a small notch- but near to that notch it was wiped out by HASH, so I left the draw and just went for the summit up the flank. That was some hard going. Lots of HASH.
The summit ridge itself was surprisingly easy to travel and I passed over it twice, zig-zagging around in an effort to pass over the highest piece of real estate up there- which would probably be the top of one of the several large and moss-covered boulders . So I did a little “River Dance” on several of those and since nothing screamed out “This is it” (well- I did see a quart sized vitamin water bottle inverted and stuck on the end of a long branch that was leaning up against one of those boulder :-D), I called it good enough. I walked west out along the ridge and then down the pleasant slope, loosing around 350 vertical feet and hitting that small notch in around 15 minutes.
After a very short break at the notch in a fallow fern field I dropped into the drainage of the Wallface Ponds. Another drop of some 500 vertical feet and I hit a very pretty area-a steep draw with a small feeder brook running down it which I followed down-water to the main brook. I turned to follow this main brook- the outlet of the Wallface Ponds- now following up water. First travelling mostly north and then mostly west as the brook turned up and into a steep sided gorge of wet mossy rock, my brook soon became a series of waterfalls that drop right from the lip of Lower Wallface Pond for 3 or 400 vertical feet.
I carefully chose my route up this gorge. As new terrain appeared before me I scanned for the best route up, crossing from one side to the other or even choosing to go up the brook itself-whichever way was best- until I climbed over the edge of the Pond. My focus was complete and my mind and physical self were never more fused. I was completely alive.
By the time that I had climbed up over that lip, I was ready for a change and I got it big time when I stepped from under the dense forest cover to stand at the edge of a large pond (Lower Wallface Pond). Open to the unbounded sky surrounded by the fir covered hills and mountains flat as a table it was the biggest and flattest pond that I ever saw and I felt like a castaway, alone and lost on the edge of a vast and endless wilderness. Then I got a grip and made my way around the NE shore of this pond until I picked up the MacNaughton “bushwhack” trail which led me in a few minutes to the end of the marked Wallface Ponds Trail. Another 1.2 miles of some of the wettest, muddiest and fall prone hiking of the day brought me back to my camp where I spent a pleasant evening roasting squirrels and drinking Balsam needle tea for my dinner. And, no, squirrel does not taste like chicken- not at all.Take that Bear Grylls. (only joking Broheim).
OCTOBER 19,2013
ROUTE; A” circular” bushwhack and trail hike; starting and finishing at Scott Pond, travelling over the summit of Wallface Mountain from one watershed (St. Lawerance Seaway) to another (Hudson River) and up the Brook that drains from the Wallface Ponds, around the NE shore of Lower Wallface Pond and so to the end of the Wallface Pond Trail and back to Scott Ponds Splash Dam.
TIME: 6.25 hours
COMMENTS: Pretty much what you’d expect for a mostly off-trail hike in the Adirondacks; lots of steep ups and downs through dense taiga forests, unexpected cliffs, vest-pocket spruce-meadows or vlys, swimming through the trees and few views. At the end of it I was pock-marked with bruises and scratched about the face and wrists- looking like some unsuccessful suicide. All for the chance to visit the top of a peak that few people give a rat’s ass about (To paraphrase Boardman and Tasker, if anyone remembers them), but maybe for a chance to be fully alive for a time.
DETAILS (You got ‘em) Some sections were easier to travel then others. I found lots of tangles of old and large wind-thrown trees, moldering away and covered with mosses and embedded in thick new growth- which I named “HASH”- that represented impediments to my route up the large draw which I used as part of the route to Wallface Mountains summit. At one point I found myself on an old logging road, narrow and at times lined with corduroy, which seemed to march straight up the draw to a small notch- but near to that notch it was wiped out by HASH, so I left the draw and just went for the summit up the flank. That was some hard going. Lots of HASH.
The summit ridge itself was surprisingly easy to travel and I passed over it twice, zig-zagging around in an effort to pass over the highest piece of real estate up there- which would probably be the top of one of the several large and moss-covered boulders . So I did a little “River Dance” on several of those and since nothing screamed out “This is it” (well- I did see a quart sized vitamin water bottle inverted and stuck on the end of a long branch that was leaning up against one of those boulder :-D), I called it good enough. I walked west out along the ridge and then down the pleasant slope, loosing around 350 vertical feet and hitting that small notch in around 15 minutes.
After a very short break at the notch in a fallow fern field I dropped into the drainage of the Wallface Ponds. Another drop of some 500 vertical feet and I hit a very pretty area-a steep draw with a small feeder brook running down it which I followed down-water to the main brook. I turned to follow this main brook- the outlet of the Wallface Ponds- now following up water. First travelling mostly north and then mostly west as the brook turned up and into a steep sided gorge of wet mossy rock, my brook soon became a series of waterfalls that drop right from the lip of Lower Wallface Pond for 3 or 400 vertical feet.
I carefully chose my route up this gorge. As new terrain appeared before me I scanned for the best route up, crossing from one side to the other or even choosing to go up the brook itself-whichever way was best- until I climbed over the edge of the Pond. My focus was complete and my mind and physical self were never more fused. I was completely alive.
By the time that I had climbed up over that lip, I was ready for a change and I got it big time when I stepped from under the dense forest cover to stand at the edge of a large pond (Lower Wallface Pond). Open to the unbounded sky surrounded by the fir covered hills and mountains flat as a table it was the biggest and flattest pond that I ever saw and I felt like a castaway, alone and lost on the edge of a vast and endless wilderness. Then I got a grip and made my way around the NE shore of this pond until I picked up the MacNaughton “bushwhack” trail which led me in a few minutes to the end of the marked Wallface Ponds Trail. Another 1.2 miles of some of the wettest, muddiest and fall prone hiking of the day brought me back to my camp where I spent a pleasant evening roasting squirrels and drinking Balsam needle tea for my dinner. And, no, squirrel does not taste like chicken- not at all.Take that Bear Grylls. (only joking Broheim).
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) of anyone who got to the summit from Indian Pass.
