Finally, my trip report!
I had a free weekend coming up, and I needed to get out and hike somewhere. I decided to go for an NE100 peak; furthermore, I decided I needed a challenge to renew my hiking confidence. Throw on a short drive from home, and that left me with a choice of Scar Ridge or Vose Spur. It was suggested to me that the latter was the better choice, and so my decision was made. The only question now was if I'd be soloing or have company. I didn't want a big trip and hadn't asked around very widely, and it was Periwinkle who finally stepped up when I changed my plan from Saturday to Sunday due to Friday's heavy rains. I had hopes that the clear weather and strong winds on Saturday would dry out the trees and lower the streams. I would get one of my two wishes.
I was a few minutes late picking up Periwinkle, but she had a hot cup of Mad River Blend waiting for me (you must try this awesome coffee!) and we were soon off. We made good time across the Kanc, through Bear Notch, and down Sawyer River Road, and finally started on the trail at 10am.
We immediately began bushwhacking. Neither of us wanted to start out with wet feet or have to de-boot at the first crossing, so we just plowed through the woods parallel to the bank until we popped out on the Signal Ridge trail just beyond the crossing.
From here it was a beautiful walk in the woods; the sun shone down from a crystal blue sky through barren birches as we followed the trail. We could see glimpses of the peaks ahead of us, snow-capped and imposing.
It took us a little under an hour to get to the Carrigain Notch Trail, which led us to our first actual major crossing. The water was not high, but was flowing just enough to limit the rockstepping options. I was able to stretch and jump, but Periwinkle didn't have the stride length and, balanced on a rock midstream, removed her boots and barefooted it through the cold water. This called for a snack break.
After that, it was another beautiful walk through very open woods with impressive views of Mt. Lowell's cliffs rising as we approached the notch. There was one spot where an s-shaped stream crosses the trail and while we had no problem, it was a bit tricky to follow the leaf-covered trail. Not long after that, at noon, we encountered the infamous boulder.
We counted 14 paces past the boulder, saw nothing, went further, and then there it was on our left — the herd path. The treadway was visible as a pattern of brown leaves heading up a gully, with one set of footprints in the mud, presumably from the day before. and with a little compass assistance we followed it up through open birch woods until we suddenly faced a small ledge of rock. It was only about 4' high, but lacking any way to pull ourselves up it, we had to skirt around the side. I tried to go right but failed as the tree I was using for support decided to commit suicide and almost took me downslope with it. I retreated and went left, following Periwinkle. We would not see footprints again until near the summit.
Above this point we followed a barely-visible path through some miserable spruces and deadfall. Periwinkle went a bit too far right and ended up struggling; I heard a few words I can't repeat here, something about inappropriate tree touching and intimacy with blowdowns. We pretty much just slogged through on our compass bearing until suddenly, magically, we rediscovered the herd path and followed it left along the contour for a few hundred feet, at which point we turned back up the slope.
The path then came out near the lower left corner of the open rock slope that we had been expecting. A little way up to our right was a large cairn, which we ignored. At the top left of the slope, however, we could see a tiny 3-stone cairn and aimed for it. This was the worse rock/talus slope/side I'd ever been on. The individual stones were small, and thus unstable and wobbly. Instead of going right up the fall line, we took a more switchback-like approach, keeping the slope at any point to our side so we could reach out with one hand for balance. It was worth it, though, because when we hit the top, we looked back and saw the most amazing view out past Mt Tremont and Mt Chocorua. We sat for a few minutes, soaking up the view and some of the sun's warmth.
Soaking. Yes. Did I mention the soaking? Every tree limb, every branch, every needle, every leaf, they were all still soaking wet with Friday's rain. This meant that each time we grabbed a tree for support or balance, it would shed a bucket of water on us. Every time we pushed through young firs, they would drench our jackets and pants. The mass of wet leaves on the ground quickly saturated my boots, as well as the rest of me in one spot where I had to literally crawl under a blowdown. Those moments in the sun with the southern view were a blessing.
From here, there was an extremely obvious and well-worn herd path heading steeply up. There were spots where I would pull myself up from step to step and wonder if there would be any way down except to fall. Soon the snow appeared, a couple of soft inches to make every step that much more slippery. We soon realized we weren't on a herd-of-hikers path, we were on a herd-of-animals path. We saw the very large tracks of a very large bear. Very fresh tracks. Going our way, anywhere from 2 hours to 5 minutes in front of us. This did not bring out the best feelings of safety and confidence I've ever had, but we weren't turning away; we spoke loudly, clanked our hiking poles together, and hoped really, really hard that we wouldn't see it.
About halfway from the rock slope to the summit a set of bootprints was visible coming down the slope then turning off to our right. I don't know why this person descended that way, turning off the herd path at that particular point, but now it was a cakewalk to get to the flat summit. An incredibly steep and very slippery cakewalk. Once up there, we found an intensely trampled route in the snow careening back and forth across the summit; clearly some number of people had been up there trying to find the canister. We wrapped around to the far side, took a sharp turn back to our left and found ourselves in a small clearing looking right at it. Vose Spur, 3862'. My 84th of the England Hundred Highest. Woo-hoo!
Inside the canister we found that not only had 1 person been up yesterday, but a group of 6 or 7 also had. Except right there on the summit we did not see anywhere near enough footprints to account for them; I wonder what their route was? We didn't ponder too hard, instead throwing on warm, dry jackets, writing our own messages into the register, taking and posing for pictures, and engaging in that favorite activity of hikers everywhere: snacking.
By now it was 3:30 and time to head down. With a goal of being back on a "real" trail by dark, we followed our own tracks, slpping and sliding down the steeps, sometimes quite treacherously as I managed to slash open my forehead on a branch. We chose not to follow the other hiker's track but remain on our own, crossing the rock slope and again and pushing through the thick, twisted, messy zone. Here we gave up entirely on any sort of herd path and just used Signal Ridge and Lowell as guides to point us in the right direction. We came out into the open birch forest again, and while I knew the herd path was to our right just over the crown of the visible ridgeline, the footing was so open and easy we just continued down a smooth gully until suddenly we were on the Carrigain Notch Trail, only a hundred or so feet beyond where we'd gone in. In my opinion, this was a far better route in the lower section.
We regrouped our thoughts, switched to dry clothes (I literally wrung out my dripping-wet gloves), and started out. We made it to within a quarter mile of the Signal Ridge Trail before we had to turn on our headlamps. We sloshed through the water crossings and made it back to the car in darkness at 7pm.
Periwinkle was a brave soul for coming along for this hike, and deserves a huge round of kudos. As she said numerous times, she didn't have to be there (who remembers "Clerks" ?), but she was, and her encouragement was definitely integral to my summitting this fine peak. Ah, the joys of peakbagging!
My full album of pics from this hike is
here. I have a video to post, too, but it's on the other computer 180 miles away at the moment.
