Nif
New member
The Pre-Amble
The weekend plans were set. I was meeting Arm Friday night in Jackson for a hike the next day. CBCBD was driving up and would meet Woody at the Frankenstein parking lot on Saturday at 9:00am, Dracula was going down. On Sunday we would all meet up with Mats and Leaf at 7:30am in Lincoln for some icicle wrestling in Kinsman Notch.
At 8:00pm on Friday Arm called to say he would be late, but Darl58 would be joining on Saturday and she would be going to Conway that evening as instructed. By 10:00pm Arm had decided to stay home on Friday, but would me us at 8:00am Saturday at the Irving in Glen. I should look for Darl, who I hadn't met yet. The car make and model was unknown, but she would be the one with the Mass plates....
By 10:30pm it was discovered that it was Woody that had gone down to a hockey match and Dracula was safe from CBCBD for another weekend. It was up to me track Doug down and break the news before he was out of cell phone range in the Standard Penthouse. I let him know about the Irving plan and told him he was welcome to join our growing little herd. It might be a little more radical than he was used to but what other offers did he have???
Sometime in the middle of all this I checked my e-mail and had a message from Mats that climbing on Sunday would be at Frankenstein or in a Ravine and Mark Synott would be there. Woo-Hoo!!! So I left him a message to figure out when and where....
At 7:30am Arm called to say he would be late and we would meet at 8:20am. At 8:05am CBCBD called to find out where the heck we were and went back to sleep. At 8:30 I found Darl and we woke Doug up. We decided that the Irving was a bad choice and elected to move the whole process to Patches instead and left several messages for Arm to that effect. At just before 9:00am Arm called to find out where we were. He had a message from Mats that we were going to Frankenstein on Sunday and had left him a message to find out when we were meeting.
The crew then all proceeded to have 2nd breakfast and stare at map of mountains in the Conway area while hemming and hawing and trying to figure out what to do. After discussing the various pros and cons of the selections in the area we decided to head in the general direction of Nancy.
The Actual Trip Report
We got to the Nancy trail head just before 10am and proceeded to bootup. To shoe or not to shoe was the question. There was a small amount of drifting on the trail and a somewhat breakable crust. With the encouragement of the sticker on the trail sign we decided snowshoes were in order. This turned out to be a good idea in the end given our route choice. It was pretty easy going and the trail was easy to follow, though a little brushy for a maintained trail (IMO) in a couple of sections at the start. The first river crossing required a jump or a careful step between the banks. Not too bad, but if the edges soften up it could be a little trickier.
The second river crossing was done through the use of a downed tree. Once again not too bad, but if the banks soften this could be a little trickier as well. We found ourselves at the junction between the marked trail and the old Firewarden Trail and with very little discussion decided we would try the old wardens trail to Bemis and bushwack across to Nancy. We followed what was the obvious wardens trail for a short while until it became thick and looked better in the woods to the left. I accepted the position of chief spruce trap finder/route ferreter and off we went. This section was fairly open and we weaved around for a while stopping briefly at an overlook to warm ourselves in the sun at take in the view. After following up the ridge again for a while we came back across the wardens trail and followed that again until just below the knob. This was fairly easy to follow but choked with spruce branches in a few sections.
At the knob we circumnavigated back to the left some then took a very direct line up it. The snow to this point flopped back and forth between soft and drifted to firmer and crusty. Overall not too bad.
On top of the knob we were more exposed to the wind and the surface went to very hard and icy on the open sections to soft and spruce trappy in the scrubbier sections. The area between the knob and the final approach to the summit of Bemis took the most weaving around and care. We found it best to bank to the left some, then back right, but there are limitless possibilites. We reached the final uphill at around 2pm and wound our way up. This area was pretty open and the snow basically good. Our route switchbacked what looked good. I am not sure if any of it was the old wardens trail or not however. We found a couple of decent sized spruce traps near the top here as well. By 2:45pm we were at the remains of old tower. The views were great and worth the trip. The summits of the pressies were clouded, but the rest clear.
I repined (the dictionary.com word of the day) over the plan to bushwack Nancy, and announced I wasn't going there today. So around 3:00 we headed back the way we came. The only glitch on the return was the howling coyote who was about to devour us all.
We finally saw him after a while, I think his tag said his name was Fido...we arrived back at the car at around 4:30.
I have no photos but if Arm, CBCBD, or Darl58 are will to post them some were taken.
The Post Script
We headed for the Red Parka for some Appies, then to Moat Moutain for some dinner. At around 7pm Annalisa called to say she had heard we were climbing at Frankstein the next day. We told her we had heard that too and did she know exactly when and where we were supposed to be on Sunday. It was discovered that it was 7:30am at the Frankstein lower lot and that's where we arrived the very next day. To read that tale please refer to Mats Roing post on climbing in JACKSON and the trolls of trollville....
The weekend plans were set. I was meeting Arm Friday night in Jackson for a hike the next day. CBCBD was driving up and would meet Woody at the Frankenstein parking lot on Saturday at 9:00am, Dracula was going down. On Sunday we would all meet up with Mats and Leaf at 7:30am in Lincoln for some icicle wrestling in Kinsman Notch.
At 8:00pm on Friday Arm called to say he would be late, but Darl58 would be joining on Saturday and she would be going to Conway that evening as instructed. By 10:00pm Arm had decided to stay home on Friday, but would me us at 8:00am Saturday at the Irving in Glen. I should look for Darl, who I hadn't met yet. The car make and model was unknown, but she would be the one with the Mass plates....
By 10:30pm it was discovered that it was Woody that had gone down to a hockey match and Dracula was safe from CBCBD for another weekend. It was up to me track Doug down and break the news before he was out of cell phone range in the Standard Penthouse. I let him know about the Irving plan and told him he was welcome to join our growing little herd. It might be a little more radical than he was used to but what other offers did he have???
Sometime in the middle of all this I checked my e-mail and had a message from Mats that climbing on Sunday would be at Frankenstein or in a Ravine and Mark Synott would be there. Woo-Hoo!!! So I left him a message to figure out when and where....
At 7:30am Arm called to say he would be late and we would meet at 8:20am. At 8:05am CBCBD called to find out where the heck we were and went back to sleep. At 8:30 I found Darl and we woke Doug up. We decided that the Irving was a bad choice and elected to move the whole process to Patches instead and left several messages for Arm to that effect. At just before 9:00am Arm called to find out where we were. He had a message from Mats that we were going to Frankenstein on Sunday and had left him a message to find out when we were meeting.
The crew then all proceeded to have 2nd breakfast and stare at map of mountains in the Conway area while hemming and hawing and trying to figure out what to do. After discussing the various pros and cons of the selections in the area we decided to head in the general direction of Nancy.
The Actual Trip Report
We got to the Nancy trail head just before 10am and proceeded to bootup. To shoe or not to shoe was the question. There was a small amount of drifting on the trail and a somewhat breakable crust. With the encouragement of the sticker on the trail sign we decided snowshoes were in order. This turned out to be a good idea in the end given our route choice. It was pretty easy going and the trail was easy to follow, though a little brushy for a maintained trail (IMO) in a couple of sections at the start. The first river crossing required a jump or a careful step between the banks. Not too bad, but if the edges soften up it could be a little trickier.
The second river crossing was done through the use of a downed tree. Once again not too bad, but if the banks soften this could be a little trickier as well. We found ourselves at the junction between the marked trail and the old Firewarden Trail and with very little discussion decided we would try the old wardens trail to Bemis and bushwack across to Nancy. We followed what was the obvious wardens trail for a short while until it became thick and looked better in the woods to the left. I accepted the position of chief spruce trap finder/route ferreter and off we went. This section was fairly open and we weaved around for a while stopping briefly at an overlook to warm ourselves in the sun at take in the view. After following up the ridge again for a while we came back across the wardens trail and followed that again until just below the knob. This was fairly easy to follow but choked with spruce branches in a few sections.
At the knob we circumnavigated back to the left some then took a very direct line up it. The snow to this point flopped back and forth between soft and drifted to firmer and crusty. Overall not too bad.
On top of the knob we were more exposed to the wind and the surface went to very hard and icy on the open sections to soft and spruce trappy in the scrubbier sections. The area between the knob and the final approach to the summit of Bemis took the most weaving around and care. We found it best to bank to the left some, then back right, but there are limitless possibilites. We reached the final uphill at around 2pm and wound our way up. This area was pretty open and the snow basically good. Our route switchbacked what looked good. I am not sure if any of it was the old wardens trail or not however. We found a couple of decent sized spruce traps near the top here as well. By 2:45pm we were at the remains of old tower. The views were great and worth the trip. The summits of the pressies were clouded, but the rest clear.
I repined (the dictionary.com word of the day) over the plan to bushwack Nancy, and announced I wasn't going there today. So around 3:00 we headed back the way we came. The only glitch on the return was the howling coyote who was about to devour us all.
We finally saw him after a while, I think his tag said his name was Fido...we arrived back at the car at around 4:30.
I have no photos but if Arm, CBCBD, or Darl58 are will to post them some were taken.
The Post Script
We headed for the Red Parka for some Appies, then to Moat Moutain for some dinner. At around 7pm Annalisa called to say she had heard we were climbing at Frankstein the next day. We told her we had heard that too and did she know exactly when and where we were supposed to be on Sunday. It was discovered that it was 7:30am at the Frankstein lower lot and that's where we arrived the very next day. To read that tale please refer to Mats Roing post on climbing in JACKSON and the trolls of trollville....
