Tripyramids and Sleepers

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timmus

Well-known member
Joined
May 17, 2005
Messages
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Location
St-Bruno, Qc. Avatar: At Guyot Shelter
Tripyramids and Sleepers, 5/6

The day really kicked in when I was driving (for the first time) on the Kancamagus Highway and saw the amazing views from up there. I was late for my 7:30 meeting with DrWu, but screw him ! it's so nice, I can't drive fast.

We left a car at the Downes Brook Tr parking lot, and started our hike on Sabbaday Brook Tr at 8:15am. The fall is really nice and it deserves few minutes break and many pics.

Then the crossings began... We took off our boots on 2 of the six (?) traverses of Sabbaday Brook. Very cold but also a lot of fun. I liked gripping my toes on the smooth rocks. That's all new for me, because there's not much of that in the ADK's, where I do most of my hiking. We went up the trail pretty easily, there's really no snow and very few ice patches.

As always, my slower uphill pace kept me behind, but that's OK because we both like to hike alone anyway. When we got on the North Tripyramid summit, two guys were there, and some other people (and big dogs) arrived right after us. We left for a more tranquille area. There was much more snow on the ridge, but it was packed enough to leave the snowshoes on our backpacks.

It was one of those limited time hikes, but the unexpected sunshine and nice conversations got our eyes away from our watches. Around 3pm, we were enjoying the South Slide, we stayed there for an half hour !

The snow got deeper on the Sleepers, so gaiters became a necessity for me, since I was wearing shorts and the snow was getting into my boots. When we went down from the East summit, we followed somekind of an old trail, very very wet, and then DrWu remembered seeing a double blue blaze. So we bushwacked back up to near the summit, and found the right trail leading to the Downes Brook Tr. Near the junction there was some gear and a tent with a sign saying: FREE STUFF. That was just weird. I wonder what happened to that person...

Going down the Downes Brook Tr, we were struggling with the enormous amount of snow, and snowshoes went from backpacks to feet. It was difficult to go down, we were post-holing a lot. Bizarre that Sabbaday Brook Tr was all dry and not this one. We noticed the Passaconaway Slide, and thought that would be a fun thing to do.

Back to river crossings. I managed to keep my feet dry until the third or fourth one, while DrWu didn't care anymore. I decided to go his way, and we laughed so much when we both went straight into 2 feet deep cold water !

Since we were both late on schedule, we took a faster pace. It's crazy how fast we can go down a trail when we turn off our brain and let our feet go by themselves. It's all about trusting our instinctive capabilities.

We got back to the parking lot at 6:15pm, changed clothes and rushed into our cars. We had a great hike, hiking with DrWu is definitly a lot of fun.

MY PICS

(Sorry if there's any mistakes in my writting)
 
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Timmus: Awesome TR -- I can't believe the "free stuff" bit! Did you take any pix of that? Too priceless!
 
Water Water, Everywhere!

A quick loop, right? I have to stop telling Jess that I'll be home by dinner time (this time we were supposed to go to a movie) and then show up so damn late. But it was the stream crossings, right? Or were we just lounging around on the South Slide for a while? Or, ohhh, I see -- Julie was late because she was hanging around at the viewpoints on the Kanc during the drive up!? I guess "it took longer than I thought" means "I stopped at the viewpoints..." :p :p :p :p

Anyway, this was quite a fun hike. Sabbaday is as lush and green as I remember it. If you like a trail with lots 'o moss, this is the one for you. Moss, everywhere. Water everywhere too -- about 8 crossings of Sabbaday Brook and then about 200 minor feeder stream crossings. We got to take our shoes off a few times crossing Sabbaday which I thought was pretty awesome. I liked wading through the icy cold water. I was a bit surprised though how high the stream was running considering how low the other streams were that I've seen in the past few weeks. In the back of my mind I was a little nervous about Downes Brook and its 875 crossings but we kept going and I said nothing (maybe they built bridges on it since the last time I went about a year ago).

Tripyramid is pretty cool. The woods from the junction of Sabbaday to North Tripyramid, in my opinion are yucky. They always strike me as dark and dreary and I try to get that section done quickly. But the woods heading over to Middle Tripyramid are really neat -- pretty and somewhat open. I love the steep little climb to Middle Peak. The views from the summit area area pretty good as well. Then, over at the South Slide there's some nice places to sit and relax in the sun. We sat & chatted & admired the views there for quite some time. I hope Jess doesn't read that. If you're reading this Jess, I'm just saying that stuff to make everyone happy -- we really looked at the views from the South Slide for about a minute, gave the finger and kept moving... :cool:

The Sleeper Trail wasn't what I expected... lots 'o snow! Pretty wet too and me in my trail runners & no gaiters, I got pretty durn wet! No big deal. Them shoes dry pretty quickly, I guess -- or at least they don't feel soaked. Along the Sleeper Ridge we met up with JCE and his group. The conversation went something like this:

JCE: Do you folks post on VFTT?
Wu: Yeah, we do!
JCE: You wouldn't happen to be Dr. Wu
Wu: Yes, I am! And this is Timmus!

Nice to be recognized, I guess. JCE told us about the free stuff near the junction. Free stuff? w-t-h? Well, when we got to the junction we saw a tent, pack, several sleeping bags, a bear line etc. and a sign that says "Free Stuff". What the hell? Either someone bolted (who bolts and leaves a weird sign like that) or someone else is playing a cruel joke. Um, what were we going to pack that crap out with though? Maybe it'll sorta be like an apartment up there -- you go and just sleep there, leave the stuff for the next hiker. I don't know. Maybe someday I will or someone will pack that stuff outta there.

On to the Downes Brook trail... yeah, like Julie said the first part stunk. Lots of water flowing underneath rotten corn snow. Even with snowshoes the crummy snow is collapsing underneath and we're going up to our hips in that stuff. Lots of scrapes and cuts! But at around 2500' the snow disappears and the trail turns nice and easy with about 10 incredibly fun stream crossings. I had a blast -- this might have been the funnest part of the day. We walked through a few of them (me in my trail runners... they got soaked but the squishy water left quick enough) and managed to stay dry on a few others. What a lot of fun -- some of the crossings are really wide too! So, aside from me smashing my knee and shin on a log, we had a blast on this part of the trail.

Then we were back at the cars, speeding away on the Kanc. This was a great hike though! Perhaps not as adventerous as some of the hikes I've heard about this weekend (Lindsay, Frodo, Spongebob) but it had its momements. And we got lucky with the weather: what we thought was going to be a crappy, rainy day turned out sunny and beautiful. We had about 10 minutes of rain but when it stopped, the sun came out and we dried up quick. And of course the conversation was great -- Julie is a lot of fun to hike with. Hope she comes back to the Whites soon so that we can tackle that Passaconaway Slide!

Pictures:
http://community.webshots.com/album/550186035jxzJbx

-Dr. Wu
 
Awesome TR and pics! This is a hike I've been wanting to do for a while and I'll probably wind up doing it this October! :p

It was a great day to be out and I'm glad to read that you two had so much fun while takin' it all in. That's the only way to do it! :D
 
The free Stuff photo is too funny. At least the took the time to set the tent up for display so shoppers know what they are getting.
 
dr_wu002 said:
JCE: Do you folks post on VFTT?
Wu: Yeah, we do!
JCE: You wouldn't happen to be Dr. Wu
Wu: Yes, I am! And this is Timmus!

I wish I had a nickel for everytime I've asked someone that same question over the last several weeks. Each time I did I got a blank stare :rolleyes: After reading this forum for the last 3 months I figured the woods would be crawling with you folks, what gives?? ;)

Enjoyed both TR's and all the photos, sounds like you folks had a great trip.

Thanks,
Chas.
 
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