sli74
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LONG rambling report ALERT
This past weekend was our first time since September spending a night out in the woods and it was a long time coming. We haven't been doing as much winter backpacking as we'd like so this weekend was finally our time to get out there. Brian had only one request and that was to do the weekend's hike as an overnighter. And I had only one desire and that was to bag atleast one, maybe more of the 4000-footers I still need in winter, since that is a list I am still (if slowly) working on. Well, one wish out of 2 ain't bad . . .
Taking Brian's request into account, I planned for us to try a winter backpacking trip that would include all or some of the Twins, Galehead and Garfield. Initially, we planned on just going up Gale River Trail since we were familiar with that trail. We figured we'd set up camp once we got up near the Hut (or just past the Hut before the climb up South Twin), bag as many of those mountains as we could before getting back to the car on Sunday. Midday on Friday, we got a kind offer from MadRiver to help us spot our car and take us over to Seven Dwarfs so we could do a loop instead of an out and back.
Boy, was I excited at this offer because now I could not only tag the Twins and Galehead but I could also redline the North Twin trail, a trail I have never been to, not even in the summer, a point that would later become important. I read a bunch of reports on VFTT except the one that would have proved the most useful . . . which I read upon our return
.
So, we packed everything under the sun we could possibly need and more for this trip and headed up at 4am to NH. We got to the Beaver Brook Ski area parking lot and met MadRiver right on time at 7:30am. We also had the pleasure of meeting the famous Trish of TrishandAlex with whom we rode the few scant miles to the start of the snowmobile trail behind the Seven Dwarfs Motel. MadRiver pointed us in the right direction and gave us all kinds of info on the directions we would need to travel upon our descent to the car near the Gale River Road loop, information we unfortunately wouldn't end up needing on this trip.
Anyway, off we went at 8am, with snowshoes strapped to our feet and within 20 yards, the road split . . . WHAT? Argh, I tried digging deep into my memory of bikehikeskifish's report which I had read in detail and I couldn't remember any mention of turns in the road. Well, since one of the roads led towards Rt 3 and the other more southerly, we chose the road going south since that is the general direction of the summer trailhead. A little while later, we passed the abandoned trailer/bus-like thingy and soon after that, a set of tracks headed off to the right off the snowmobile trail.
So, once again less than 10 minutes into our hike, we stopped and scratched our heads trying to decide which way to continue. Out came the maps and the compass, which were basically useless in this case, and we scratched our heads some more. I remembered from the trip report that there was an Old North Twin trail somewhere, but was this it? Don't know, so we decided to stick with the snowmobile road. And wouldn't you know it, AGAIN within 10 minutes, we were at yet ANOTHER junction, this time the footpath with old faded prints went off to the left and the road went off to the right . . . and to complicate matters some more, there was a second set of prints a little further up the road that also went off to the left.
If I knew that getting to the trailhead was going to be this much trouble, I would brought a better map, a more detailed USGS map or a print out from the National Geographic map set I spent all that money on. I only had my AMC map for that area, figuring that we would be mostly traveling established trails anyway. The AMC maps does not show all these trails and roads and turns and options, so we figured that no way we were already at Haystack Road . . . I mean it had only been 30 minutes since we started and we had about 100 pounds of gear between us.
So, we chose to follow the road to the right figuring that it would eventually bring us to Haystack Road. WRONG. So, after about 5 minutes, we are obviously heading back towards Rt.3 and so the map and compass come out again and sure enough we were headed north. So, after some discussion we decide the take the second set of broken tracks off the road near the junction since those were newer, maybe as recently as the day before, so off we went . . . WRONG again !!!
Within 5 minutes, I knew we were going the wrong way, out came the map and compass (getting to be an old story now, huh?) and I knew we must be following tracks to Peak Above the Nubble but couldn't be sure because I just didn't think we could've already made it to Haystack Road. So, on we went following the mystery tracks, up the mystery mountain. By 9:30, we were in an open but brushy area with the wind whipping at us and I KNEW we had chosen the wrong footpath back at the junction in the road. I wanted to go back down there, a couple of hundred feet in elevation downhill and try again but now Brian was intrigued by where this trail went. I told him that there is nothing else in that area except PATN and I don't have any interest in bushwhacking a 100-highest peak with a 50 pound pack on my back. but he wanted to push on . . . SO . . .
Onward we went. Needless to say, we didn't climb any 4000-footers this weekend, we did however bushwhack up Peak Above the Nubble with packs so big they kept snagging and catching us and tripping us up. So, inspite of the slowly clearing skies and the gorgeous views that could've been had on South Twin that afternoon as the winds died and taunted us and our misstep, we summited with MUCH effort and too much gear the “mystery” mountain. The only solace we could take was that atleast we didn't have to break trail since Carl had broken it the day before and oncoman (who we met half way up) had further packed it that morning. However, I supoose if our two trailbreaking angels hadn't broken the trail, maybe we wouldn't have hiked PATN at all . . . the IRONY.
Once at the summit of PATN, my dear husband decided that his "honey" should be able to get her winter 4000-footer . . . maybe my sad eyes taking in the clear skies and North Twin just over there was too much for him to bear. So, here was his brilliant plan at which I balked . . . he wanted to bushwhack with those GIGANTIC backpacks though unbroken snow, spruce traps and walls of spruce and snow to North Twin, HA !!! I looked at him like he was kidding only to realize, he was serious . . . Ah, NO !!! Uh, NO !!! So, he says, "just give it 1 hour and if we haven't made some significant progress, we can turn back around and/or set up camp somewhere".
Oh, I am so easily convinced . . . so off we went, into the big white, spruce trap unknown. Forty minutes later, and a bazillion twisted ankles later, we come to another break in the trees and I almost fell over laughing as Mr.Optimistic says to me, "we are making okay time, don’t you think?” . . . UM, NO, we haven’t made even 15 minutes of progress in 40 minutes. So, I finally convinced him that we needed to go back and get to North Twin a different day, a different way. So, we finally accepted that this particular weekend would be something other than what was planned.
On the bright side, we bagged a 100-highest peak, camped at a BEAUTIFUL spot near the outlook a few hundred feet of elevation from the summit. It was a gorgeous calm night that became a windy crazy snowy morning. We talked and ate and slept in a tent for the first time in months. It was WONDERFUL. The next day we decided we didn’t have enough adventure in our weekend and so bushwhacked off the mountain heading for Rt. 3 a little more directly and found that breaking our own trail, atleast on the way down was easier than following the broken trail on the way up and also much for fun since we got a little more map and compass experience.
So, we will be going back to do the Twins and Galehead trip, this time equipped with Rocket21’s FABULOUS picture enhanced trip report showing the exact way to reach the summer trailhead for North Twin. Wish I had read that report before we left this time.
Anyone who read this all the way through, you are more bored than I am
This past weekend was our first time since September spending a night out in the woods and it was a long time coming. We haven't been doing as much winter backpacking as we'd like so this weekend was finally our time to get out there. Brian had only one request and that was to do the weekend's hike as an overnighter. And I had only one desire and that was to bag atleast one, maybe more of the 4000-footers I still need in winter, since that is a list I am still (if slowly) working on. Well, one wish out of 2 ain't bad . . .
Taking Brian's request into account, I planned for us to try a winter backpacking trip that would include all or some of the Twins, Galehead and Garfield. Initially, we planned on just going up Gale River Trail since we were familiar with that trail. We figured we'd set up camp once we got up near the Hut (or just past the Hut before the climb up South Twin), bag as many of those mountains as we could before getting back to the car on Sunday. Midday on Friday, we got a kind offer from MadRiver to help us spot our car and take us over to Seven Dwarfs so we could do a loop instead of an out and back.
Boy, was I excited at this offer because now I could not only tag the Twins and Galehead but I could also redline the North Twin trail, a trail I have never been to, not even in the summer, a point that would later become important. I read a bunch of reports on VFTT except the one that would have proved the most useful . . . which I read upon our return
. So, we packed everything under the sun we could possibly need and more for this trip and headed up at 4am to NH. We got to the Beaver Brook Ski area parking lot and met MadRiver right on time at 7:30am. We also had the pleasure of meeting the famous Trish of TrishandAlex with whom we rode the few scant miles to the start of the snowmobile trail behind the Seven Dwarfs Motel. MadRiver pointed us in the right direction and gave us all kinds of info on the directions we would need to travel upon our descent to the car near the Gale River Road loop, information we unfortunately wouldn't end up needing on this trip.
Anyway, off we went at 8am, with snowshoes strapped to our feet and within 20 yards, the road split . . . WHAT? Argh, I tried digging deep into my memory of bikehikeskifish's report which I had read in detail and I couldn't remember any mention of turns in the road. Well, since one of the roads led towards Rt 3 and the other more southerly, we chose the road going south since that is the general direction of the summer trailhead. A little while later, we passed the abandoned trailer/bus-like thingy and soon after that, a set of tracks headed off to the right off the snowmobile trail.
So, once again less than 10 minutes into our hike, we stopped and scratched our heads trying to decide which way to continue. Out came the maps and the compass, which were basically useless in this case, and we scratched our heads some more. I remembered from the trip report that there was an Old North Twin trail somewhere, but was this it? Don't know, so we decided to stick with the snowmobile road. And wouldn't you know it, AGAIN within 10 minutes, we were at yet ANOTHER junction, this time the footpath with old faded prints went off to the left and the road went off to the right . . . and to complicate matters some more, there was a second set of prints a little further up the road that also went off to the left.
If I knew that getting to the trailhead was going to be this much trouble, I would brought a better map, a more detailed USGS map or a print out from the National Geographic map set I spent all that money on. I only had my AMC map for that area, figuring that we would be mostly traveling established trails anyway. The AMC maps does not show all these trails and roads and turns and options, so we figured that no way we were already at Haystack Road . . . I mean it had only been 30 minutes since we started and we had about 100 pounds of gear between us.
So, we chose to follow the road to the right figuring that it would eventually bring us to Haystack Road. WRONG. So, after about 5 minutes, we are obviously heading back towards Rt.3 and so the map and compass come out again and sure enough we were headed north. So, after some discussion we decide the take the second set of broken tracks off the road near the junction since those were newer, maybe as recently as the day before, so off we went . . . WRONG again !!!
Within 5 minutes, I knew we were going the wrong way, out came the map and compass (getting to be an old story now, huh?) and I knew we must be following tracks to Peak Above the Nubble but couldn't be sure because I just didn't think we could've already made it to Haystack Road. So, on we went following the mystery tracks, up the mystery mountain. By 9:30, we were in an open but brushy area with the wind whipping at us and I KNEW we had chosen the wrong footpath back at the junction in the road. I wanted to go back down there, a couple of hundred feet in elevation downhill and try again but now Brian was intrigued by where this trail went. I told him that there is nothing else in that area except PATN and I don't have any interest in bushwhacking a 100-highest peak with a 50 pound pack on my back. but he wanted to push on . . . SO . . .
Onward we went. Needless to say, we didn't climb any 4000-footers this weekend, we did however bushwhack up Peak Above the Nubble with packs so big they kept snagging and catching us and tripping us up. So, inspite of the slowly clearing skies and the gorgeous views that could've been had on South Twin that afternoon as the winds died and taunted us and our misstep, we summited with MUCH effort and too much gear the “mystery” mountain. The only solace we could take was that atleast we didn't have to break trail since Carl had broken it the day before and oncoman (who we met half way up) had further packed it that morning. However, I supoose if our two trailbreaking angels hadn't broken the trail, maybe we wouldn't have hiked PATN at all . . . the IRONY.
Once at the summit of PATN, my dear husband decided that his "honey" should be able to get her winter 4000-footer . . . maybe my sad eyes taking in the clear skies and North Twin just over there was too much for him to bear. So, here was his brilliant plan at which I balked . . . he wanted to bushwhack with those GIGANTIC backpacks though unbroken snow, spruce traps and walls of spruce and snow to North Twin, HA !!! I looked at him like he was kidding only to realize, he was serious . . . Ah, NO !!! Uh, NO !!! So, he says, "just give it 1 hour and if we haven't made some significant progress, we can turn back around and/or set up camp somewhere".
Oh, I am so easily convinced . . . so off we went, into the big white, spruce trap unknown. Forty minutes later, and a bazillion twisted ankles later, we come to another break in the trees and I almost fell over laughing as Mr.Optimistic says to me, "we are making okay time, don’t you think?” . . . UM, NO, we haven’t made even 15 minutes of progress in 40 minutes. So, I finally convinced him that we needed to go back and get to North Twin a different day, a different way. So, we finally accepted that this particular weekend would be something other than what was planned.
On the bright side, we bagged a 100-highest peak, camped at a BEAUTIFUL spot near the outlook a few hundred feet of elevation from the summit. It was a gorgeous calm night that became a windy crazy snowy morning. We talked and ate and slept in a tent for the first time in months. It was WONDERFUL. The next day we decided we didn’t have enough adventure in our weekend and so bushwhacked off the mountain heading for Rt. 3 a little more directly and found that breaking our own trail, atleast on the way down was easier than following the broken trail on the way up and also much for fun since we got a little more map and compass experience.
So, we will be going back to do the Twins and Galehead trip, this time equipped with Rocket21’s FABULOUS picture enhanced trip report showing the exact way to reach the summer trailhead for North Twin. Wish I had read that report before we left this time.
Anyone who read this all the way through, you are more bored than I am
