arghman
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This is an odd retroactive trip report (from Aug. 9 2003) to advise those who have the bushwhacking bug. [I've done a lot of hiking since then but nothing much of note except for a few places I'm keeping secret.] I hope someone out there is keeping track of various places worth bushwhacking -- I'd add Mt. Kelsey to the "avoid" list unless you like being overwhelmed with spruce trees.
I dragged a friend with me last year up to the Phillips Brook Backcountry in northern NH. International Paper owns a few thousand acres to the south of Dixville Notch, and had granted a recreational lease to a company called Timberland Trails (http://www.phillipsbrook.org/) to operate yurts & ski trails & for other remote recreational purposes. Unfortunately IP did not renew this lease (one would hope they are not going to sell off their timber land, but I'm not optimistic), and I wanted to check it out before the yurts were gone.
The Phillips Brook land also includes all of Erving's Location, which is a small remote unincorporated township that was on my dwindling list of NH towns left to visit. (Here's an interesting article: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Erving's+Location) I needed a better excuse than that, though, to drag my friend there, so we looked at a topo map & decided to head up Mt. Kelsey (~3400ft); one of Timberland Trails' yurts was located on an old woods road about a mile from the summit, and it looked like a relatively short bushwhack.
This mountain isn't that steep but is covered with small boulders, which in turn are covered with moss and decaying downed spruce trees, with live spruce trees growing thickly up towards the sky. Good timber country, but it makes it rather hard both to see where you're going and put your foot on solid ground. The valley has been timbered sometime in the last 10-15 years, so it's not that bad until you get probably 1/3 mile from the summit. (That last 1/3 mile probably took us an hour to push through all the spruce trees.)
The top is rather flat; the western side of the summit is full of downed spruce trees, scattered like pick-up sticks, probably from the 1998 ice storm. I've never been anywhere else where I've "postholed" in the summertime. There were spots where we had to make our way over the trees & moss, and the ground might have been 5 or 6 feet below.
My friend brought a pair of Garmin Rino 120's which actually picked up the GPS signals fairly well through the forest cover, and used them to try to find the geographic summit. I went looking around for the canister/jar at the top & was about to give up when there it was. (If anybody is crazy enough to go there on purpose, bring a new canister & notebook; the one there was a glass jar with a rusted-out lid, no paper inside.)
Anyway, whenever I see a bushwhack trip listed in AMC Outdoors, and I start to get the bug again, I just think back to last year and it cures me pretty quick.
[On the other hand I'd give the Timberland Trails yurts a definite thumbs up.]
I dragged a friend with me last year up to the Phillips Brook Backcountry in northern NH. International Paper owns a few thousand acres to the south of Dixville Notch, and had granted a recreational lease to a company called Timberland Trails (http://www.phillipsbrook.org/) to operate yurts & ski trails & for other remote recreational purposes. Unfortunately IP did not renew this lease (one would hope they are not going to sell off their timber land, but I'm not optimistic), and I wanted to check it out before the yurts were gone.
The Phillips Brook land also includes all of Erving's Location, which is a small remote unincorporated township that was on my dwindling list of NH towns left to visit. (Here's an interesting article: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Erving's+Location) I needed a better excuse than that, though, to drag my friend there, so we looked at a topo map & decided to head up Mt. Kelsey (~3400ft); one of Timberland Trails' yurts was located on an old woods road about a mile from the summit, and it looked like a relatively short bushwhack.
This mountain isn't that steep but is covered with small boulders, which in turn are covered with moss and decaying downed spruce trees, with live spruce trees growing thickly up towards the sky. Good timber country, but it makes it rather hard both to see where you're going and put your foot on solid ground. The valley has been timbered sometime in the last 10-15 years, so it's not that bad until you get probably 1/3 mile from the summit. (That last 1/3 mile probably took us an hour to push through all the spruce trees.)
The top is rather flat; the western side of the summit is full of downed spruce trees, scattered like pick-up sticks, probably from the 1998 ice storm. I've never been anywhere else where I've "postholed" in the summertime. There were spots where we had to make our way over the trees & moss, and the ground might have been 5 or 6 feet below.
My friend brought a pair of Garmin Rino 120's which actually picked up the GPS signals fairly well through the forest cover, and used them to try to find the geographic summit. I went looking around for the canister/jar at the top & was about to give up when there it was. (If anybody is crazy enough to go there on purpose, bring a new canister & notebook; the one there was a glass jar with a rusted-out lid, no paper inside.)
Anyway, whenever I see a bushwhack trip listed in AMC Outdoors, and I start to get the bug again, I just think back to last year and it cures me pretty quick.
[On the other hand I'd give the Timberland Trails yurts a definite thumbs up.]
