Henry's Ledge and Fall Foliage

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Jazzbo

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Waltham, MA Jazzbo & Marty meet Bigfoot on Kenne
I’ve been wanting to make return visit to Henry’s Ledge for some time. I first visited in July 2012 with Scott McFadden. Henry’s Ledge offers a unique view of East Branch of the Pemigewasset River and encompasses an extensive region of northern hardwood forest. For this reason, I wanted to return during peak foliage season. Lately I’ve been riding my mountain bike as far as possible into East Branch country to maximize my time in Pemigewasset Wilderness. I also wanted to spend time hunting for a couple of logging railroad points of interest; Camp 15 and a railroad bed used for short lived spur line used to cross the East Branch just west of Cedar Brook which was used to access for logging the north slopes of Mount Hitchcock. NETC reports etc indicated foliage was peak in Pemi and NOAA weather indicated October 12 was good time to attempt this.

I hiked up a drainage located not far from principal bridge crossing at Franconia Brook. The total mileage for the trip was 13.5 miles of which roughly 6.0 miles was by bike and 3.5 miles was fairly strenuous bush whacking. I succeeded in locating an old logging tote road that runs above west side of valley of the drainage. The terrain on west bank of drainage is littered with small boulders. The tote road is relatively easy to spot (for my trained eye) due to builders having been shoved boulders off to either side to make way for the sleds. I followed this tote road for most of the ascent up the valley, but for some strange reason or other visual cues weren't as obvious and I could not follow it on way out for any length of time on way down. I unwisely chose a route along the middle of the ridge leading to the ledge which entailed much energy wasting pointless ups and downs (PUD’s).

The views from Henry’s Ledge during peak foliage on decent sunny day was very fine, although colors were muted some by high clouds. Nevertheless, I took great number of photos of which I'll insert some here.

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The next photo is zoom on Owlshead Pinnacle another off-trail ledge which I wouldn't mind visiting some time.

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I opted to bypass the PUD’s on my exit staying to north of the track I took going in which entailed well-mannered hardwoods terrain with good footing. The forest and terrain to northwest slope looked inviting as possible descent route, but I decided to stick with the devil I knew. Maybe another time I’ll try an approach from Franconia Brook side. Possibilities are endless in bushwhack hiking!

I got seriously dehydrated on way out. Both legs were cramping badly with still more than half mile back to trail. I was forced to go directly to brook to refill my water bottle and drink heavily. It was good to refill and drink, but terrain along brook had some boot sucking sections and tangled vegetation making for some hard traveling and continuing leg cramps.

Back on Bond Cliff Trail, I still had time for some extra exploring. First, I quickly succeeded in finding the short RR spur that was part of logging Camp 15. My coolest find was using my trusty Garmin 66i to locate the 100-year-old RR spur that was used for a time to cross the East Branch to a log landing on south bank and was used to access the North Slope of Mount Hitchcock. I had Waypoint on my device from a hike to Stillwater I did earlier this year where I found remains of the log landing and RR spur on the south bank.

The location where roadbed spur begins from Bond Cliff Trail is not obvious. I hiked along keeping the waypoint in view until I reached a point where it would be logical to set off in proper direction. I stepped off and low and behold I began to see indications of cuts in either side of the forest floor in the direction I was going. I nailed it! The cuts ranged between 1 to 3 feet high on either side along one stretch. The roadbed ended briefly as it crossed an intermittent stream bed (must have been short trestle) and picked up on the other side. Then I was right on north bank of East Branch and site of the bridge crossing.

The roadbed is somewhat grown in and many blowdowns impeded my passage. My leg cramps had improved but were still a problem. This little side trip got me right up to sunset. I hurried back to my hidden bike and rode as fast as I could to make it back to Lincoln Woods TH in last bit of daylight closing out another great day in the mountains!!!
 
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I wonder if the speck of white with the evergreen band behind it in the first two photos is the big wash out along the Lincoln Woods trail from Irene. Also sent PM, thanks.
 
Hi Tom!!! Good question! I tried digital zooming in digital photo, but results were fuzzy. If it had occurred to me I could have used 40X optical zoom on my nifty Canon SX740 which really rocks. Check out this photo taken last week from East Rattlesnake on Squam Lake.

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Just for kicks I zoomed in on a power boat zipping around on lake and obtained this zoom shot. Of course I was seated holding camera steady on my knee to minimize camera shake. I wasn't paying attention to amount of zoom. I just zoomed until the boat showed up in viewfinder and took my shot.

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The location where roadbed spur begins from Bond Cliff Trail is not obvious. I hiked along keeping the waypoint in view until I reached a point where it would be logical to set off in proper direction. I stepped off and low and behold I began to see indications of cuts in either side of the forest floor in the direction I was going. I nailed it!

Bravo! I've usually been in a hurry to get in or out at that point, and seeing nothing obvious from the trail, I never went in to explore further. Good to know the indications are there and where they're supposed to be. :)

And yeah, I know I'm behind on email....
 
Bravo! I've usually been in a hurry to get in or out at that point, and seeing nothing obvious from the trail, I never went in to explore further. Good to know the indications are there and where they're supposed to be. :)

And yeah, I know I'm behind on email....

Oddly enough retracing the spur back to the trail, I came across this 6 foot length of rail right maybe 8 or 10' off from Bond Cliff Trail. That's a pretty good clue of where it starts. And yeah, an email would be nice! :mad:

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