south hitchcock, mt. hitchcock 3/16/14

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bryan

New member
Joined
Mar 2, 2004
Messages
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Location
southeastern, nh
date: 3/16/14

trails: discovery trail, forest road 397, bushwhack

conditions: parking at discovery trailhead was well plowed. we started briefly on discovery trail then bushwhacked a short distance up to pick up the trail again near the start of the forest road. on the usgs map i have the road is shown as forest road 397 though there are no signs noting this. i believe this road appears on many trail maps for the area. the road is a bit grown in at times, but very easy to follow as it heads up a drainage towards the south peak of hitchcock. we were generally sinking in 1-1.5 feet into dense unconsolidated snow. at times higher up closer to 2 feet. we continued on the road until it appears to end in a bit of a clearing. beyond this we continued on an older and much less obvious section of road up the drainage well above and to the east of the brook. near the base of the climb up south peak we crossed the brook and attacked the slope along the path of least resistance. woods were scrappy, but never thick with consistent steep climbing, but only one or two real steep pitches. we topped out a bit west of the summit and continued along the summit plateau to the highpoint. we followed the ridgeline down to the col with the main peak of hitchcock in good woods and started up managing to stay in decent, but scrappy woods up to the summit. some pockets of deeper snow in spots up high. descending we gladly followed our tracks back out and found that the snow had compacted pretty well after our first pass. water crossings were mostly buried in snow with some small open patches of water.

equipment: snowshoes.

comments: nice day to tackle a couple hitchcock summits. slow going given the snow conditions. pretty cold most of the day particularly when the wind made it through the trees. though a mostly viewless route there were some nice looks to the surrounding summits on the forest road and some from the slopes of south hitchcock. thanks to jeremy and amy for a great hike.

bryan

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