Jazzbo
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2005
- Messages
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Rick, Barbara, Jen-San, Pat, Steve, and I met at 7 Dwarfs on Little River Road. We were given a grand tour of stuffed Bears, Moose, Deer etc. We got a late start 9:15 or so. We attained the summit by 12:30 so we made pretty good time. We crossed the old rickety bridge and took the old trail that parallels the river rather than going up to Haystack Road. We walked along with Brian and Sli74 for a while until we turned off for the Fire Warden Trail. They were on their way to North & South Twin.
The Little River was 75% iced over. There was pronounced channel of open water with periodic ice bridges; many looking like they were still pretty strong.
I guess the river last week got high enough at this point to overtop the ice banks and flowed across the ice/snow bridge.
Down low the snow looked old and rotten. The snow began to look nicer as we gained elevation.
The Fire Warden Trail leaves the bushwhack trail shortly after the first water crossing on the North Twin Trail. The BW trail crosses a tributary coming down from the east and then the Fire Warden Trail leaves the BW Trail on the left and begins to climbing the south side of the valley drained by the tributary you just crossed. The beginning of the trail is at 2100’ elevation and climbs the stream valley by long series of gentle switch backs for the most part passing through a unique stand of mature open birch forest. If you had to choose an adjective for this trail it would be "Mellow".
The sun came out.
Nice shot of the birch forest.
Should you be doing an out and back, your descent will be bathed in afternoon sun which is nice on sunny late winter day in spring conditions like we had. The trail provides a continually evolving view to the west of the Peak Above the Nubble (PATN).
There wasn’t much evidence of BC skiers in the birches. No old tracks or anything like that. It did look like some snowboarders had been through, but tracks looked very old. The old tracks provided a pretty firm base for snowshoeing so trail breaking was fairly easy. It didn’t look like area had received any new snow in last 1-2 weeks. On the way out we saw fresh ski tracks so some skiers had been through while we were up top. They must have liked the conditions they found because we observed lots of fresh tracks zigzagging all through the birches.
At the summit, we encountered Markk from VFTT. Mark had brought a steel square edged shovel and was using it to carve out big blocks of snow and piling it south end of the summit opening. He's built a 12’+ high viewing platform enabling you to enjoy the nice views that Mount Hale is capable of offering if only it had a little viewing tower.
Barbara! You are so nice. She knew my birthday was Monday so she brought along some tasty summit cupcakes and everyone sang happy birthday to me.
We left at 1:15 or so. We stopped briefly at the bend in the trail where it begins descending back into the stream valley. Jen and I made a quick detour to get a better view of the rocky knob that lies to the north. We think perhaps the abandoned Tuttle Brook Trail ascends over or by this knob from the Tuttle Brook Valley. We made good time making it back to 7 Dwarfs by 4:15 giving us plenty of time for a stop in Lincoln at the Mountain Wanderer on the way back south. We saw MEB and Little Sister walking down Little River Road. We saw Steve and Dr D at Mountain Wanderer. It was another really great VFTT day in the mountains.
The Little River was 75% iced over. There was pronounced channel of open water with periodic ice bridges; many looking like they were still pretty strong.
I guess the river last week got high enough at this point to overtop the ice banks and flowed across the ice/snow bridge.
Down low the snow looked old and rotten. The snow began to look nicer as we gained elevation.
The Fire Warden Trail leaves the bushwhack trail shortly after the first water crossing on the North Twin Trail. The BW trail crosses a tributary coming down from the east and then the Fire Warden Trail leaves the BW Trail on the left and begins to climbing the south side of the valley drained by the tributary you just crossed. The beginning of the trail is at 2100’ elevation and climbs the stream valley by long series of gentle switch backs for the most part passing through a unique stand of mature open birch forest. If you had to choose an adjective for this trail it would be "Mellow".
The sun came out.
Nice shot of the birch forest.
Should you be doing an out and back, your descent will be bathed in afternoon sun which is nice on sunny late winter day in spring conditions like we had. The trail provides a continually evolving view to the west of the Peak Above the Nubble (PATN).
There wasn’t much evidence of BC skiers in the birches. No old tracks or anything like that. It did look like some snowboarders had been through, but tracks looked very old. The old tracks provided a pretty firm base for snowshoeing so trail breaking was fairly easy. It didn’t look like area had received any new snow in last 1-2 weeks. On the way out we saw fresh ski tracks so some skiers had been through while we were up top. They must have liked the conditions they found because we observed lots of fresh tracks zigzagging all through the birches.
At the summit, we encountered Markk from VFTT. Mark had brought a steel square edged shovel and was using it to carve out big blocks of snow and piling it south end of the summit opening. He's built a 12’+ high viewing platform enabling you to enjoy the nice views that Mount Hale is capable of offering if only it had a little viewing tower.
Barbara! You are so nice. She knew my birthday was Monday so she brought along some tasty summit cupcakes and everyone sang happy birthday to me.
We left at 1:15 or so. We stopped briefly at the bend in the trail where it begins descending back into the stream valley. Jen and I made a quick detour to get a better view of the rocky knob that lies to the north. We think perhaps the abandoned Tuttle Brook Trail ascends over or by this knob from the Tuttle Brook Valley. We made good time making it back to 7 Dwarfs by 4:15 giving us plenty of time for a stop in Lincoln at the Mountain Wanderer on the way back south. We saw MEB and Little Sister walking down Little River Road. We saw Steve and Dr D at Mountain Wanderer. It was another really great VFTT day in the mountains.
Not that its in the wilderness....
