WinterWarlock
Active member
I met up with Bill (billandjudy from ADKHighPeaks) on Saturday night, then drove to the Corey's Rd trailhead and arrived around 8:30.
First, the day was perfect - blue skies and nice temp...and dry. As we signed in to the register, we saw that there were only two other groups there, but that we had missed PinPin by a day..he had done all four the day before. We knew the hike to Ward's Brook was about 6 miles or so, so trudged through in just over two hours. At that point the GPS said we had averaged 2.8mph, which I thought was pretty good...of course, it changes after that point!
We crossed paths a couple of times with two guys who were going to camp at the Blueberry lean-to, then must have pulled ahead as they dropped their gear. We also met a couple coming down from Seymour - they had summited around 10 after starting at 6AM...not us, our start time was 8:45 after enjoying Jim and Kathleen's breakfast at the Ark.
Anyway, as the trail turned off the road at the cairn just past Ward Brook lean-to, the scenery changed quickly. And I have to say, out of the (limited number) of High Peaks I've now done, I think this is my favorite so far. The trail and woods are beautiful, and change back and forth from rocky slabs, deep boreal woods, and fun climbing. As we came up on the small slide, we waited too long to go out to it from the trail, because by the time we did, we were already at the cairn to turn back in...no matter, because the small amount of water, and the great amount of moss/algae was very slippy. Each step I took I would slide down a couple feet, and since we were headed up, we figured that wasn't going to help us at all.
As we got closer to the summit, there were some excellent views thru the tress, and about 100 feet short of the summit, we found a small overlook off the right side of the trail. From there we had excellent views of Ampersand Lake and Mountain, the Sewards, and lots more. We also noticed that many of the trees are starting to show their fall colors already...seems early, but maybe it's from all the rain this year.
We made the summit in about 4h10m, took a few pics, and as turned around, the two lean-to'rs showed up (hence the picture of both of us!) We took their pics too, then went back to the overlook for lunch. The bugs there were horrible - I swear they had more of my tuna pack than I did! We ate quickly, and headed down...stopped along the way to refill the water, and made it back to the cars by 5PM...
Bill had said it had taken Mudhook eight hours for this route, so he figured it wold take us 9 (and I was thinking 10), so just over eight hours was pretty darn good for me. And, it is a beautiful and remote place...there were only six people on the entire Seward side on Sunday...try that on Cascade!
All in all a great day - and one I look forward to going back to.
My pics will be posted, of course, when I get back and have them developed! Man, I gotta get rid of that film stuff...
First, the day was perfect - blue skies and nice temp...and dry. As we signed in to the register, we saw that there were only two other groups there, but that we had missed PinPin by a day..he had done all four the day before. We knew the hike to Ward's Brook was about 6 miles or so, so trudged through in just over two hours. At that point the GPS said we had averaged 2.8mph, which I thought was pretty good...of course, it changes after that point!
We crossed paths a couple of times with two guys who were going to camp at the Blueberry lean-to, then must have pulled ahead as they dropped their gear. We also met a couple coming down from Seymour - they had summited around 10 after starting at 6AM...not us, our start time was 8:45 after enjoying Jim and Kathleen's breakfast at the Ark.
Anyway, as the trail turned off the road at the cairn just past Ward Brook lean-to, the scenery changed quickly. And I have to say, out of the (limited number) of High Peaks I've now done, I think this is my favorite so far. The trail and woods are beautiful, and change back and forth from rocky slabs, deep boreal woods, and fun climbing. As we came up on the small slide, we waited too long to go out to it from the trail, because by the time we did, we were already at the cairn to turn back in...no matter, because the small amount of water, and the great amount of moss/algae was very slippy. Each step I took I would slide down a couple feet, and since we were headed up, we figured that wasn't going to help us at all.
As we got closer to the summit, there were some excellent views thru the tress, and about 100 feet short of the summit, we found a small overlook off the right side of the trail. From there we had excellent views of Ampersand Lake and Mountain, the Sewards, and lots more. We also noticed that many of the trees are starting to show their fall colors already...seems early, but maybe it's from all the rain this year.
We made the summit in about 4h10m, took a few pics, and as turned around, the two lean-to'rs showed up (hence the picture of both of us!) We took their pics too, then went back to the overlook for lunch. The bugs there were horrible - I swear they had more of my tuna pack than I did! We ate quickly, and headed down...stopped along the way to refill the water, and made it back to the cars by 5PM...
Bill had said it had taken Mudhook eight hours for this route, so he figured it wold take us 9 (and I was thinking 10), so just over eight hours was pretty darn good for me. And, it is a beautiful and remote place...there were only six people on the entire Seward side on Sunday...try that on Cascade!
All in all a great day - and one I look forward to going back to.
My pics will be posted, of course, when I get back and have them developed! Man, I gotta get rid of that film stuff...
