BIGEarl
Well-known member
March 19, 2010: Hancocks
Trails: Hancock Notch Trail, Cedar Brook Trail, Hancock Loop Trail
Summits: North Hancock and South Hancock
Hikers: Trail Trotter (Sue) and me
The plan for the day was a Double-Double starting with The Hancocks and finishing on The Osceolas. We’ve done this combination before but this time was a little more difficult than expected.
On schedule, we left the trailhead lot just after 6:00am but waited until we crossed the Kancamagus Highway and actually got onto the trail before putting our snowshoes on. With the time change daylight arrives an hour later and we had some headlight hiking at the start. The conditions were mild, ~38 degrees, no wind, and the sky was clear.
The Hancock Notch Trail was broken by snowshoe traffic, ski traffic, and some bare booters. In other words, the first part of our hike had a trail that was pretty beat up due to the postholes. Fortunately, after roughly .6 miles the bare booters must have decided they weren’t enjoying things and turned around. From there the trail was in great shape. The Hancock Notch Trail has quite a few blowdowns but all are relatively easy to get past. The snow was soft due to the warm temperature. I should have brought my snowshoe tails along – the extra flotation would have helped. We arrived to the Hancock Notch – Cedar Brook trails junction generally on plan, made the turn, and set off for the Hancock Loop Trail.
There are several stream crossing on the Cedar Brook Trail. A bypass route has been broken out that stays on the East side of Cedar Brook and rejoins the trail a short distance after the fourth crossing. This bypass seems to drift further from the stream than usual but it’s a good route. Even though the stream crossings were still solid, the trail showed no evidence of traffic and we followed the course of least resistance (broken trail). Soon we rejoined the formal trail route and continued to the final crossing of Cedar Brook and on to the junction with the Hancock Loop Trail.
After making the turn onto the Hancock Loop Trail there was one more crossing of Cedar Brook before the climb starts. Initially, the climb is relatively moderate on a route that runs above the brook. Eventually, the trail starts to climb the slope and eventually reaches the loop split. Here, we had a decision; hike South first or hike North first. The trail to South Hancock showed no signs of traffic. I started out to check the firmness of the snow and soon returned. Since the route to North Hancock was tracked out we decided to head there first. We could break out the trail from South Hancock on our descent.
The “north” loop headed to the brook crossing is very clearly tracked out. From the brook crossing, which is also where the steep climb starts, things get a little confusing. We noticed some tracks coming down the brook bed but thought they were probably from hikers looking for the trail to North Hancock. A number of tracks climbing to North Hancock headed off in different directions. We were on-trail at the beginning but soon lost the blazes. I was interested in staying with the actual trail if possible and we started our trail finding activities; a slow process that can burn valuable time. After a while we split up; Sue went low and I went higher on the slope and we worked our way along in the general direction needed. Eventually, Sue found a blaze, but so did I. I stepped onto the trail and waited for Sue. The actual trail was below both of us and Sue managed to locate it prior to a turn where it headed up the slope toward my location. Back together and on-trail we continued the climb. The day was warming quite a bit as the sun came up. Soon the snow was very soft making for poor footing and a difficult climb. We continued climbing with only one significant stop along the way. Sue built a snowman and made friends with the local population at the same time (the facial features were made of fruit and nuts).
Reaching the summit area, first we entered the blowdown field below the summit. Usually the views from this area are limited but with several feet of snow to stand on we had terrific views to enjoy. The same was true at the actual summit that we reached a few minutes later. The snow depth has all of the scrub around the trail at the summit buried and we enjoyed great views – almost 360 degrees. We noted the time; the climb cost nearly 1.5 hours more than it should have. We got the summit pictures and were soon on our way to South Hancock.
The broken route between North Hancock and South Hancock generally follows the trail all of the way. The blazing is very clear in this section and easy to follow. The tough part is the depth of snow. We were on a trail surface that had us hiking in treetops. We were constantly getting caught by the branches or having to stoop and nearly crawl underneath. It seemed like we were moving well across this section of our hike but in fact we were running slower than planned. In the end we reached South Hancock and spent an extra 30 minutes in the crossing. Now, we’re roughly two hours behind plan. This was making a second hike to the Osceolas unlikely.
On the south summit it was surprising to see the trail descending to the loop split tracked out since the trail was not broken at the loop split. With very little hesitation we started down. The steep descent went well. There is no ice to contend with and the MSR snowshoes were perfect. We were able to generally just walk down the steep slope. At some point roughly 2/3 of the way down the tracked route left the trail. I think both of us were focused on staying with the tracked route more than concentrating on blazes. Once we realized we were off-trail it also seemed clear the route we were following was headed straight to the brook bed that we crossed before the climb to North Hancock.
Instead of retreating to locate the trail we stayed with the tracked route and descended to the brook. There, we made the left turn, followed the brook back to the actual trail, made another left and we were back on trail.
We hiked a reverse route to the trailhead. On the way we found very soft snow, much softer than earlier in the day. The temperature was now in the 50’s with no wind. Along the way we met a couple on skis that were scouting the area for a planned group ski the following day. We also met a couple on snowshoes.
A couple hours later than planned we hit the trailhead. Unfortunately, a hike to The Osceolas would probably end between 9:00 and 10:00pm and we decided to save it for another day. Every cloud has a silver lining; today we managed to see what I-93 southbound looks like in daylight.
Thanks Sue. Next time, let’s hike someplace where we don’t have to plow through treetops all day.
Pictures will follow.
Trails: Hancock Notch Trail, Cedar Brook Trail, Hancock Loop Trail
Summits: North Hancock and South Hancock
Hikers: Trail Trotter (Sue) and me
The plan for the day was a Double-Double starting with The Hancocks and finishing on The Osceolas. We’ve done this combination before but this time was a little more difficult than expected.
On schedule, we left the trailhead lot just after 6:00am but waited until we crossed the Kancamagus Highway and actually got onto the trail before putting our snowshoes on. With the time change daylight arrives an hour later and we had some headlight hiking at the start. The conditions were mild, ~38 degrees, no wind, and the sky was clear.
The Hancock Notch Trail was broken by snowshoe traffic, ski traffic, and some bare booters. In other words, the first part of our hike had a trail that was pretty beat up due to the postholes. Fortunately, after roughly .6 miles the bare booters must have decided they weren’t enjoying things and turned around. From there the trail was in great shape. The Hancock Notch Trail has quite a few blowdowns but all are relatively easy to get past. The snow was soft due to the warm temperature. I should have brought my snowshoe tails along – the extra flotation would have helped. We arrived to the Hancock Notch – Cedar Brook trails junction generally on plan, made the turn, and set off for the Hancock Loop Trail.
There are several stream crossing on the Cedar Brook Trail. A bypass route has been broken out that stays on the East side of Cedar Brook and rejoins the trail a short distance after the fourth crossing. This bypass seems to drift further from the stream than usual but it’s a good route. Even though the stream crossings were still solid, the trail showed no evidence of traffic and we followed the course of least resistance (broken trail). Soon we rejoined the formal trail route and continued to the final crossing of Cedar Brook and on to the junction with the Hancock Loop Trail.
After making the turn onto the Hancock Loop Trail there was one more crossing of Cedar Brook before the climb starts. Initially, the climb is relatively moderate on a route that runs above the brook. Eventually, the trail starts to climb the slope and eventually reaches the loop split. Here, we had a decision; hike South first or hike North first. The trail to South Hancock showed no signs of traffic. I started out to check the firmness of the snow and soon returned. Since the route to North Hancock was tracked out we decided to head there first. We could break out the trail from South Hancock on our descent.
The “north” loop headed to the brook crossing is very clearly tracked out. From the brook crossing, which is also where the steep climb starts, things get a little confusing. We noticed some tracks coming down the brook bed but thought they were probably from hikers looking for the trail to North Hancock. A number of tracks climbing to North Hancock headed off in different directions. We were on-trail at the beginning but soon lost the blazes. I was interested in staying with the actual trail if possible and we started our trail finding activities; a slow process that can burn valuable time. After a while we split up; Sue went low and I went higher on the slope and we worked our way along in the general direction needed. Eventually, Sue found a blaze, but so did I. I stepped onto the trail and waited for Sue. The actual trail was below both of us and Sue managed to locate it prior to a turn where it headed up the slope toward my location. Back together and on-trail we continued the climb. The day was warming quite a bit as the sun came up. Soon the snow was very soft making for poor footing and a difficult climb. We continued climbing with only one significant stop along the way. Sue built a snowman and made friends with the local population at the same time (the facial features were made of fruit and nuts).
Reaching the summit area, first we entered the blowdown field below the summit. Usually the views from this area are limited but with several feet of snow to stand on we had terrific views to enjoy. The same was true at the actual summit that we reached a few minutes later. The snow depth has all of the scrub around the trail at the summit buried and we enjoyed great views – almost 360 degrees. We noted the time; the climb cost nearly 1.5 hours more than it should have. We got the summit pictures and were soon on our way to South Hancock.
The broken route between North Hancock and South Hancock generally follows the trail all of the way. The blazing is very clear in this section and easy to follow. The tough part is the depth of snow. We were on a trail surface that had us hiking in treetops. We were constantly getting caught by the branches or having to stoop and nearly crawl underneath. It seemed like we were moving well across this section of our hike but in fact we were running slower than planned. In the end we reached South Hancock and spent an extra 30 minutes in the crossing. Now, we’re roughly two hours behind plan. This was making a second hike to the Osceolas unlikely.
On the south summit it was surprising to see the trail descending to the loop split tracked out since the trail was not broken at the loop split. With very little hesitation we started down. The steep descent went well. There is no ice to contend with and the MSR snowshoes were perfect. We were able to generally just walk down the steep slope. At some point roughly 2/3 of the way down the tracked route left the trail. I think both of us were focused on staying with the tracked route more than concentrating on blazes. Once we realized we were off-trail it also seemed clear the route we were following was headed straight to the brook bed that we crossed before the climb to North Hancock.
Instead of retreating to locate the trail we stayed with the tracked route and descended to the brook. There, we made the left turn, followed the brook back to the actual trail, made another left and we were back on trail.
We hiked a reverse route to the trailhead. On the way we found very soft snow, much softer than earlier in the day. The temperature was now in the 50’s with no wind. Along the way we met a couple on skis that were scouting the area for a planned group ski the following day. We also met a couple on snowshoes.
A couple hours later than planned we hit the trailhead. Unfortunately, a hike to The Osceolas would probably end between 9:00 and 10:00pm and we decided to save it for another day. Every cloud has a silver lining; today we managed to see what I-93 southbound looks like in daylight.
Thanks Sue. Next time, let’s hike someplace where we don’t have to plow through treetops all day.
Pictures will follow.
