bryan
New member
date: 12/10/13
trails: gordon pond trail, bushwhack, kinsman ridge trail
conditions: there are good directions for this unmarked trailhead in the white mountain guide. the hike starts up a private drive off 112 1.7 miles west from the junction of 112 and 3 in lincoln. just west and across the road there was room to park. i don't get the impression parking will be available/plowed there all winter, but may be wrong. due to a distinct lack of reading the trail description i led us wrong right near the start, but we corrected. basically stay on the main road/snowmobile trail to a metal gate. walk past the gate towards the swath for the high tension lines and you will start seeing blue blazes. after that the trail was well blazed and quite evident. over the course of the hike we saw up to 2-3 inches of new powder snow with drifting in spots. unfortunately much of this new snow was covering ice which made footing treacherous in spots. gordon pond trail did not have much ice underneath and mostly good footing until around the pond where partially frozen mud pits were just waiting for you to make a false step. i did a two footed plunge close to knee deep into one of them. as we approached the pond we followed a spur trail up to the pond itself and started our bushwhack first walking around the pond before taking a line towards the summit. the going was almost continuously scrappy and slow up to the summit with plenty of wet snow on the trees to make sure your neck didn't stay warm. back at the pond we picked up the trail to kinsman ridge which is were ice really started to be an issue. the new snow was covering a lot of hard water ice and the going down to kinsman notch was really slow and tedious. on the final descent some of this ice was softer and light traction gave good bite, but it was hit or miss. the water crossings on gordon pond trail were all pretty difficult due to hard ice on stepping stones and ill formed ice bridges. a couple of the crossings around the head of the drainage had real consequences were you to take a slip which was easy to do on the snow covered ice.
equipment: light traction is pretty much necessary for safe travel. we used both microspikes and hillsounds and found the extra aggressive spikes on the hillsounds more effective on the ice.
comments: today turned out to be a much more challenging day than we had planned on due to conditions. it was pretty cold and wet all day and the ice under the fresh snow was not a lot of fun to deal with. the bushwhack to wolf cub was by no means awful, but i got a laugh when cynthia talked about how nice shoal pond peak was compared to todays hike....hopefully the mountains will get a nice dump of snow soon to put all that ice to bed for the winter. thanks to cynthia for a good day of hiking.
bryan
[email protected]
trails: gordon pond trail, bushwhack, kinsman ridge trail
conditions: there are good directions for this unmarked trailhead in the white mountain guide. the hike starts up a private drive off 112 1.7 miles west from the junction of 112 and 3 in lincoln. just west and across the road there was room to park. i don't get the impression parking will be available/plowed there all winter, but may be wrong. due to a distinct lack of reading the trail description i led us wrong right near the start, but we corrected. basically stay on the main road/snowmobile trail to a metal gate. walk past the gate towards the swath for the high tension lines and you will start seeing blue blazes. after that the trail was well blazed and quite evident. over the course of the hike we saw up to 2-3 inches of new powder snow with drifting in spots. unfortunately much of this new snow was covering ice which made footing treacherous in spots. gordon pond trail did not have much ice underneath and mostly good footing until around the pond where partially frozen mud pits were just waiting for you to make a false step. i did a two footed plunge close to knee deep into one of them. as we approached the pond we followed a spur trail up to the pond itself and started our bushwhack first walking around the pond before taking a line towards the summit. the going was almost continuously scrappy and slow up to the summit with plenty of wet snow on the trees to make sure your neck didn't stay warm. back at the pond we picked up the trail to kinsman ridge which is were ice really started to be an issue. the new snow was covering a lot of hard water ice and the going down to kinsman notch was really slow and tedious. on the final descent some of this ice was softer and light traction gave good bite, but it was hit or miss. the water crossings on gordon pond trail were all pretty difficult due to hard ice on stepping stones and ill formed ice bridges. a couple of the crossings around the head of the drainage had real consequences were you to take a slip which was easy to do on the snow covered ice.
equipment: light traction is pretty much necessary for safe travel. we used both microspikes and hillsounds and found the extra aggressive spikes on the hillsounds more effective on the ice.
comments: today turned out to be a much more challenging day than we had planned on due to conditions. it was pretty cold and wet all day and the ice under the fresh snow was not a lot of fun to deal with. the bushwhack to wolf cub was by no means awful, but i got a laugh when cynthia talked about how nice shoal pond peak was compared to todays hike....hopefully the mountains will get a nice dump of snow soon to put all that ice to bed for the winter. thanks to cynthia for a good day of hiking.
bryan
[email protected]
