Bushwhack On North Twin From 2nd Crossing To Ridge?

DayTrip · Mar 2, 2014

I did North and South Twin Friday and was going over my GPS route, etc this morning and noticed that the Garmin 24K Topo map shows a trail that goes roughly from the 2nd river crossing on North Twin Trail, heads East and skips the 3rd crossing, more directly climbs the ridge and rejoins the North Twin Trail roughly where the sharp bend that bears left is now (about 3700'). Is that an old trail route from days gone by?

I find the Garmin topo maps to have a variety of errors on them when compared to actual trail routes but this one is distinctly a separate trail from the current route, which is also on the map. If this was in fact a trail route at some point I'd be curious to know if it is still worn enough to be followed in summer. Looks like it follows a smaller stream and could be a potentially nice route if it in fact exists.

Any of you historians out there know anything about it or is it just an error in the map?

Bob Kittredge · Mar 2, 2014

Don't know about Garmin, but a while ago I noticed this interesting "fact" on Google Maps. If you Google Map "Haystack Road, Bethlehem, NH", follow the road to it's end and zoom in a couple times until the North Twin Trail shows up. Then follow the trail south. Somewhere between the second and third crossing, the "Appalachian Trail" crosses the river and the NT Trail running east/west. Has the AT been rerouted when I wasn't looking? Perhaps Garmin relies on Google Maps (or vice versa) for its info.

RoySwkr · Mar 2, 2014

DayTrip said:
I did North and South Twin Friday and was going over my GPS route, etc this morning and noticed that the Garmin 24K Topo map shows a trail that goes roughly from the 2nd river crossing on North Twin Trail, heads East and skips the 3rd crossing, more directly climbs the ridge and rejoins the North Twin Trail roughly where the sharp bend that bears left is now (about 3700'). Is that an old trail route from days gone by?

There is a previous discussion on this topic, I'll let somebody else find it

DayTrip · Mar 2, 2014

RoySwkr said:
There is a previous discussion on this topic, I'll let somebody else find it

I'm not talking about the widely known bushwhack of the river crossings or the Little Haystack Road bushwhack. I'm talking about what I assume was an old trail route up the ridge from roughly the 2nd river crossing. I tried searching under "bushwhack", "old trail", "North Twin" and "North Twin Trail" but didn't pull anything up (I generally have bad luck with the search feature. Never seen to call something what everyone else does). Was this old thread awhile ago (i.e. years ago)?

Lefty E · Mar 2, 2014

Referenced in the book 4000 Footers of the White Mts. in the North and South Twin Mts. chapter (pgs. 330, 331), are two old trails: Twin Range Trail and Little River Trail. It might be the Twin Range Trail as the Little River Trail went up and around S Twin to the Guyot Col...however I do not use a GPS and don't look at those maps..I m hoping some forum members might have old maps and/or WMG and could tell you exactly what you (and now me of course) want to know!! Also got some info on lost hiking trails from the franklinsites dot com hiking site......

madmattd · Mar 3, 2014

Bob Kittredge said:
Don't know about Garmin, but a while ago I noticed this interesting "fact" on Google Maps. If you Google Map "Haystack Road, Bethlehem, NH", follow the road to it's end and zoom in a couple times until the North Twin Trail shows up. Then follow the trail south. Somewhere between the second and third crossing, the "Appalachian Trail" crosses the river and the NT Trail running east/west. Has the AT been rerouted when I wasn't looking? Perhaps Garmin relies on Google Maps (or vice versa) for its info.

Google Earth also shows the AT going through the Walker Brook Drainage below Lafayette (and up Lincoln's Throat)...and Google Maps has a trail "Lincoln's Throat" in the same area that arbitrarily becomes the AT in the ravine too. Lots of similar examples can be found if you're bored and spend a little while examining Google's trail depictions in the Whites.

DayTrip · Mar 3, 2014

madmattd said:
Lots of similar examples can be found if you're bored and spend a little while examining Google's trail depictions in the Whites.

I don't use Google Maps for that. It has many, may inconsistencies like that. This discrepancy was in my Garmin 24k topographical map. Considering what they charge for those maps (thankfully I got a free download of it when I bought my GPS) I was expecting a better degree of accuracy on them. Apparently not.

JCarter · Mar 3, 2014

DayTrip said:
I did North and South Twin Friday and was going over my GPS route, etc this morning and noticed that the Garmin 24K Topo map shows a trail that goes roughly from the 2nd river crossing on North Twin Trail, heads East and skips the 3rd crossing, more directly climbs the ridge and rejoins the North Twin Trail roughly where the sharp bend that bears left is now (about 3700'). Is that an old trail route from days gone by?

I find the Garmin topo maps to have a variety of errors on them when compared to actual trail routes but this one is distinctly a separate trail from the current route, which is also on the map. If this was in fact a trail route at some point I'd be curious to know if it is still worn enough to be followed in summer. Looks like it follows a smaller stream and could be a potentially nice route if it in fact exists.

Any of you historians out there know anything about it or is it just an error in the map?

Interesting. I think I've seen the spot where the "rejoin" is, and wondered if that was a re-route...

Yeah, completely ignore Google Maps for the AT through the Whites. It appears someone just dragged a pen across there are said "there be dragons here" and left it at that. The route from Franconia Notch to Crawford Notch doesn't follow any path that has ever been part of the AT.

If you look on the USGS Topos, it looks like the NT Trail used to stay on the west side of the river and head up the ridge. (I assume you meant "West?" if you head East from the 2nd crossing, you go up Mt Hale....which would be the old Fire Wardens Trail)

There's also an old Forest Road from Haystack Rd that looks like it gets awfully close to the old trail.

DayTrip · Mar 4, 2014

JCarter said:
If you look on the USGS Topos, it looks like the NT Trail used to stay on the west side of the river and head up the ridge. (I assume you meant "West?" if you head East from the 2nd crossing, you go up Mt Hale....which would be the old Fire Wardens Trail)

Yah I meant West going up the ridge. I haven't had much chance to research it further but people have given me a few leads. Was hoping somebody out there had very old AMC Maps or something that would show it. I remember a post some time back where one of the VFTT members referenced a 1963 copy of AMC Guide maps he had!

David Metsky · Mar 4, 2014

Here's the relevant USGS map from 1932 - http://docs.unh.edu/NH/frcn32ne.jpg

Lots of good stuff to pour over here - http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm

dclynch · Mar 4, 2014

The map is really neat.

Thanks for posting it Dave.

nartreb · Mar 4, 2014

One winter a friend of mine with a Garmin GPS and I got into a "discussion" about whether we'd missed the westward turn... We never found the trail that was marked on his GPS, but we did discover that that slope is a royal pain to bushwhack-traverse in winter.

JCarter · Mar 4, 2014

David Metsky said:
Here's the relevant USGS map from 1932 - http://docs.unh.edu/NH/frcn32ne.jpg

Lots of good stuff to pour over here - http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm

Interesting. That shows what looks like the 'modern' approach up the side of North Twin, with the current final river crossing. It also shows the NT Trail going all the way to Little River Rd, and includes the Fire Warden's Trail.

The TOPO that I posted I would have assumed is newer, since the FW Trail is gone, and Haystack Rd is shown. But it shows a different path up the ridge to North Twin, with a different crossing. I'm not sure of what this may is -- it is the "US Topo" Basemap included in ArcGIS Explorer, which is apparently a USGS map, but I can't locate a date on it.

Maps are so much fun.

DayTrip · Mar 4, 2014

Just to clarify what I'm talking about I took a screen shot of the map on my GPS. You can see the second trail clearly taking a different route. (Neither route particularly matches up well to my GPS track but there are clearly two trails marked). I pulled out my old 1987 maps and that route is not on them so it is at least that old, if it existed at all. Based on info in 4000 Footer Guide referenced from LeftyE in Post #5 it sounds like that portion may have been from the originally blazed trail and abandoned/rerouted in 1929 (?). So I'm guessing it probably doesn't have a visible track anymore. I've never done the official portion of the trail between the 1st and 2nd river crossings (always take the bushwhack) so I can't say whether there is a noticeable junction leaving in that vicinity.

RoySwkr · Mar 4, 2014

DayTrip said:
I'm not talking about the widely known bushwhack of the river crossings or the Little Haystack Road bushwhack. I'm talking about what I assume was an old trail route up the ridge from roughly the 2nd river crossing.

So am I

DayTrip said:
I tried searching under "bushwhack", "old trail", "North Twin" and "North Twin Trail" but didn't pull anything up (I generally have bad luck with the search feature. Never seen to call something what everyone else does). Was this old thread awhile ago (i.e. years ago)?

If it was easy I would do it

IIRC, it was a couple of years ago and people thought it was a map error not a trail.

The 1932 USGS map posted by DM would seem to show the present route, and the 1948 AMC guide says it leaves Little River 1.1 mi from the Hale firewarden's trail which agrees with the present location

JCarter said:
There's also an old Forest Road from Haystack Rd that looks like it gets awfully close to the old trail.

That's actually a fairly recent road with a good footway at least as far as the brook crossing (bridge out but smaller than Little River), it might be a viable high-water approach if the trail was actually where the quad shows it

Motabobo · Mar 5, 2014

Well I can't help myself and add a bit to what's already been said. See below links. I have since acquired all WMGs and so will need to investigate in that direction as well. Here's hoping someone can make sense of all this...

Please PM me if you have additional info. Thanks

DayTrip · Mar 5, 2014

Motabobo said:
Well I can't help myself and add a bit to what's already been said. See below links. I have since acquired all WMGs and so will need to investigate in that direction as well. Here's hoping someone can make sense of all this...

Research

Maps

Please PM me if you have additional info. Thanks

Cool. I guess I'll have no choice but to go up there this summer and wander around to see what I can come up with so I can satisfy my curiosity. Seems like more than a map error with Garmin but it sounds like any evidence of those old routes is long gone. Oh well.

RoySwkr · Mar 5, 2014

Motabobo said:
Well I can't help myself and add a bit to what's already been said. See below links. I have since acquired all WMGs and so will need to investigate in that direction as well. Here's hoping someone can make sense of all this...

Research

Maps

Please PM me if you have additional info. Thanks

Thanks JSR.

As near as I can tell, the 1929 15' quad shows the approximate current route of the trail - while it is possible that the trail was moved somewhere else in between and then moved back that seems doubtful as nobody seems to have found any indication of same

And the 1917 WMNF map shows a changed route, then again on 1937 to the present route - but since the USGS shows this route as of 1929 I speculate that maybe the 1917 route was not correct and was finally corrected. Did the 1914 route ever exist? Who knows, and certainly gone by now.

I'm more convinced than ever that the 7.5' quads were simply in error, I'm not sure why that surprises anyone as I can show you plenty of places they were definitely wrong.

Motabobo · Mar 6, 2014

RoySwkr said:
As near as I can tell, the 1929 15' quad shows the approximate current route of the trail

That means that the older 15' quad was more accurate than the 7.5' quads...

JCarter · Mar 6, 2014

RoySwkr said:
And the 1917 WMNF map shows a changed route, then again on 1937 to the present route - but since the USGS shows this route as of 1929 I speculate that maybe the 1917 route was not correct and was finally corrected. Did the 1914 route ever exist? Who knows, and certainly gone by now.

I'm more convinced than ever that the 7.5' quads were simply in error, I'm not sure why that surprises anyone as I can show you plenty of places they were definitely wrong.

Kind of disappointing that the oh-so-wizzy-and-modern ArcGIS appears to be using 90-year-old maps that are full of fiction rather than any of the newer versions. And it looks like Garmin has the same issue. Are they afraid of copyright on USGS maps?

Bushwhack On North Twin From 2nd Crossing To Ridge?

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