Cedar Brook Trail herd path that bypasses Cedar Brook crossings

What happened to it? Are there so many red-liners anymore that the herd path has become forgotten?

I remember the herd path as being very distinct and obvious in 2000, but Monday I tried following it and it just kind of petered out and didn’t really lead anywhere. And the three other hikers whom I asked about it didn’t seem to know much. They were resigned to getting wet.

Are you talking about on the way to the Hancocks? If so, yea it petered out when I followed it back in the fall too, in the middle of some mildly thorny stuff... I read somewhere that there may be some reroute work coming on that trail, I wonder if they are going to eliminate those 2 crossings, especially since the stretch between them is so badly eroded from Irene 3 years ago.

madmattd said:

Are you talking about on the way to the Hancocks? If so, yea it petered out when I followed it back in the fall too, in the middle of some mildly thorny stuff... I read somewhere that there may be some reroute work coming on that trail, I wonder if they are going to eliminate those 2 crossings, especially since the stretch between them is so badly eroded from Irene 3 years ago.

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I have heard similar stories about making that heard path the 'official route' to help with erosion. I don't remember where I saw it though. Maybe on a Forest Service planned worked PDF.

TJsName said:

I have heard similar stories about making that heard path the 'official route' to help with erosion. I don't remember where I saw it though. Maybe on a Forest Service planned worked PDF.

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There was a thread here on VFTT about 2014 proposals that mentioned it. I remember reading. Not sure what subject it was under or who posted it but it's on VFTT somewhere in the past month or so.

It was Rolling Rock but it is not a link, just a thread. Maybe he can share source info with us, if any.

http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthre...ance-Work-Schedule-2014&highlight=cedar+brook

madmattd said:

Are you talking about on the way to the Hancocks? If so, yea it petered out when I followed it back in the fall too, in the middle of some mildly thorny stuff...

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Note that the brook crossed on the normal route to the Hancocks is North Fork not Cedar Brook.

There used to be 5 crossings but the herd path on the lower 2 is now officially the trail. The herd path for the next 2 was never very good and may be what you tried. Apparently the plan is to eliminate them also.

RoySwkr said:

There used to be 5 crossings but the herd path on the lower 2 is now officially the trail. The herd path for the next 2 was never very good and may be what you tried. Apparently the plan is to eliminate them also.

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Yes, that herd path (the latter one) is the one we took. It was in the far section of the Cedar Brook Trail shortly before it meets the Hancock Loop and we were definitely not on the trail, I know it runs on the other side of the river/stream there, and is where I recall seeing a lot of erosion which presumably occurred during Irene's tirade.

DayTrip, thanks for finding that thread, that is where I recall seeing it now. Based on the wording there I suspect the trail will be relocated fairly far to the right (if outbound to the Hancocks) of the stream, as that will enable a route that gets up and out of the boggy areas that the herd path dumped us in.

RoySwkr said:

Note that the brook crossed on the normal route to the Hancocks is North Fork not Cedar Brook.

There used to be 5 crossings but the herd path on the lower 2 is now officially the trail. The herd path for the next 2 was never very good and may be what you tried. Apparently the plan is to eliminate them also.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Cedar Brook itself is on the north side of the height-of-land and crosses the Pemi East Side trail. As far as I remember, the Cedar Brook Trail never crosses Cedar Brook itself, just a bunch of its tributaries.

My bad regarding the name of the brook.

I guess that what I remembered as the herd path is now the official trail.

During my return from Mount Hancock, I made the first two crossings without any difficulty (from Hancock Loop Trail to Cedar Brook Trail, then the first crossing back to the eastern side), then found the herd path which I had been on earlier and took that past the badly eroded section. I passed over that messy section on my way up and all I could think was, Bradley Pond Trail.

Going out to Mount Hancock, I bushwhacked past those last two crossings up to Hancock Loop and my legs got pretty scratched up. During the hike back down, I noticed that there seemed to be the possibility of a herd path heading from Hancock Loop south, but the ground was too soft to check it out very far. Besides, I would have crossed over it on my way out, and I didn’t notice anything, or I would have taken it.

By the way, if anyone is interested, Hancock’s South Link was still covered with ice and snow on Monday, while the North Link was probably half and half. I had to keep stopping to put on or take off my MicroSpikes coming down North.

A couple of people warned me that the Ridge Link was mushy, but, by carefully staying on the monorail, the footing was fine.