Middle Tripyramid (4,140 ft) & North Tripyramid (4,180 ft) 8-29-15

Distance: 11.9 mi.
Elevation: 2,863 ft (overall) 3,368 ft (total)
Time: 4:10 (Middle Tripyramid) 4:50 (North Tripyramid) 7:09 (Road) 7:29 (Total)
Trails: Sabbaday Brook Trail, Mt. Tripyramid Trail, Pine Bend Brook Trail, Road

The plan for today was to head up the Sabbaday Brook Trail to the Tripyramids, then over to the Sleepers and down the Downes Brook Trail. This plan changed part way through the day though. The only time I have been on the Sabbaday Brook Trail before (other than to the falls) was on an early winter hike last year where I descended this way trying to avoid some icy sections of Pine Bend Brook Trail. That decision didn't work out as well as I would have liked with a foolish bushwhack for a while and poor snow conditions down low. So knowing the brook crossings would be low today, I wanted to head back under better conditions and hike the entire trail properly.

At the first crossing

Following the old railroad bed

The hike to the falls was very easy with a wide smooth trail for the crowds that visit just the falls. Immediately after that, the trail gets narrower and rougher. It's still easy to follow though. As expected, the first river crossing was low and easy to navigate. Soon after I made the next two crossings with ease as well and was able to catch a quick glimpse of a Pine Marten near one of them.

After the first 3 crossings, the trail mostly follows and old railroad grade. This made for a gradual climb with a trail that was pretty wide. There were a couple wet spots, but not as bad as when I was here last winter. After a couple miles of walking, the trail drops down to the right and comes to the fourth crossing. Another easy one with low water levels today. Just above this area the brook splits and becomes a few smaller brooks that all feed back into this one. This would make each of the others brooks I would enjoy even smaller from here out.

Following the brook

The trail after this crossing starts to get a bit steeper, but not much. And while the brook it follows is now smaller, it follows closely and it looks like the trail could be very wet after heavy rains or during spring melt. It follows and crosses multiple stream beds that were dry today, but appear to flow well at times. The trail does cross the actual brook it is following twice during the climb before it reaches the last crossing which was just barely a trickle today.

Small last brook crossing

From here, the trail angles back left and follows the side hill for a while before turning right and heading steeply up to the saddle between the peaks. The steep sections starts out over a slab of bare rock that had good traction today. It then climbs over roots, rocks, and other obstacles more in the trees. There are a couple places where you need to watch your footing as there are spots you could step into and twist and ankle or knee. The trail levels back out briefly as it comes to the upper end at the junction with the Mt. Tripyramid Trail.

Steep section of rock

Originally I had planned to hit North Tripyramid then head south over Middle Tripyramids and then the Sleepers. But with the warmer than normal temps and almost complete lack of wind, I wasn't feeling like I was going to enjoy the extra distance. So instead I changed my plans here to just do the Tripyramids and then do a loop back to the car going down the Pine Bend Brook Trail.

The climb to Middle Tripyramid was quick with this trail being a bit rocky, but less steep than the top of the Sabbaday Brook Trail. At the summit there was already a group of people, but they left soon and I had the place to myself. After enjoying the summit a while, I headed back towards North Tripyramid. This section was easy as the elevation gain is about the same from the saddle, but over almost twice the distance. There was more people on North Tripyramid and I met a hiker who was doing consecutive loops up the North Slide. He was on his third trip up for the day and was hoping to get 2 or 3 more done before dark.

View from Middle Tripyramid

View from Middle Tripyramid

Blow down next to the trail between the peaks

View from North Tripyramid

The descent of Pine Pend Brook Trail is steep and rocky to start with some briefs sections that give relief. There is a nice nearly level section of trail that I have always enjoyed near the Scaur Ridge Trail junction. After this though, it gets steep again for quite a while. Footing was mostly good with a few places requiring care. Eventually the trail comes down into a ravine and becomes a bit easier. The brook in the ravine was completely dry today this high up. I was hoping to splash some cold water on my head, but was still happy the rocks would be dry and not slippery.

Rocky section of trail

Soon the trail becomes less steep and doesn't have as many rocks in it. It gets pretty easy from here back to the road with only a few muddy sections to navigate. The brook crossings in this section aren't too big and were easy to do today. Eventually there was water in the brooks and I enjoyed splashing myself with cool water at each good crossing. Getting to the end of the trail, I had to walk up the side of the road back to where I started. I knew either loop I would do today would include this. Unfortunately my feet got pretty sore in this section, but I did get to see an Ariel Atom driving down the road. I didn't even know you could get one of those in the US.

Small brook crossing

Had the temperature been just a bit lower today or had there actually been some wind, I think I would have stuck to my initial plan and climbed the Sleepers as well. But I'll just have to come back again to get East Sleeper checked off my New England Hundred Highest list. I started paying attention today, and I think I only felt the wind or saw the trees moving due to the wind a total of six times. That isn't much during a more than 8 hour period. And you can really start to tell this when you are already climbing hard and working up a sweat.

For all the pictures from the hike, just go HERE

Southern Presidential Range 5-5-15 thru 5-6-15

Since I was having computer problems around the time of this hike, I seem to have forgotten to put together anything about it. So a little bit late, here it is.

DAY 1

Distance: 5.11 mi.
Elevation: 2,368 ft (overall) 2,602 ft (total)
Time: 3:20 (Mizpah) 4:24 (Pierce) 5:11 (Mizpah)
Trails: Crawford Path, Mizpah Cutoff, Webster Cliff Trail

A friend of mine from college was coming to NH for a week this spring and was hoping to do some hiking while here before visiting family. Since she was bringing another friend, she wanted to give him a partial hut experience by staying at Mizpah Hut during self service season. This was fine with me since it would be a much cheaper way to stay at the hut. Being as the hut is so close to the trail head, I don't foresee myself paying full price to stay here at least until my daughter is old enough to hike and do an overnight here.

Even though it was already May, I knew there was still going to be snow higher up. I didn't expect it to be as deep as it was though. Leaving from the Highland Center where the others spent the night, the ground was still bare and there wasn't much mud. It didn't take long however to start coming across patches of ice in the trail. The last remains of the winter mono-rail. Gradually the ice become a constant fixture of the trail. there was just enough grit on the ice that you could still get good traction with careful foot placement.

Starting to see ice

The ice eventually turned into snow and a well established and solid mono-rail. The hard path wasn't overly wide, but it was stable and easy to distinguish. This meant not much sinking in. Up to the Mizpah Cutoff, conditions had been good. Being a regular hiker year round and knowing the conditions so far this spring, I had my snowshoes with me and should have put them on here. Being the largest hiker of the group and the most familiar with these trails, I was in the lead. With the lower use of this trail, the firm mono-rail wasn't as firm and became hard to find in some places. I especially started to sink in more and more. Many steps were seeing me sink in about knee deep into the snow.

Mizpah Cutoff

Finally I had had enough and put on my snowshoes (enough being stubborn). This made it easy going for me from here to the hut. But my friends didn't have any snowshoes, so they still had to go slowly. They were trying to find the hard spots before sinking in and even going as far as using large sticks to test conditions before taking their next step. Eventually we all made it to the hut and dropped off our overnight gear and extra supplies.

Leaving Mizpah for Pierce

From here we planned to summit Mt. Pierce and maybe venture a bit further depending on conditions. Without the others having snowshoes, we didn't want to get over ambitious with our plans. The hike up from the hut was a bit slow. I was still in the lead and using snowshoes, but my friends were finding lots of places where they were postholing. The snow was getting deeper as we went on and in places it was hard to push through the branches blocking the trail. Most of the branches were bent over into the trail due to the snow load on them. They then got stuck there, which meant they were across the trail even at a height that would normally be easy to pass through.

View from bare section of trail

In some places higher up the snow wasn't overly deep. This was mainly the few places were there is exposed rock in the summer that gets lots of sun. Just before the summit, I stuck my trekking pole into the snow just off trail. Trying to put it in handle first, I never did hit solid ground. Based on the length of my trekking pole, this meant the snow was still about 4 feet deep. The cairn at the summit of Mt. Pierce was just barely poking out of the snow. I know from being here before that this cairn is a little over 4 feet tall.

We spent some time above treeline in the sun and taking in the views. It was a gorgeous day out and it was nice to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt... even if I was still wearing snowshoes on my feet. The hike back down to the hut went a bit quicker being downhill. We also weren't quite as worried about getting wet from the melting snow since we had dry gear back in our bunks. It was amazing to see how much softer the snow had gotten though in the short time since we had come up through here.

Summit of Mt. Pierce

Coming back down to the hut

Back at the hut for the evening and in dry clothes again, we all made up our own meals and talked with the caretaker. She informed us we were to be the only guests for the night, so it should be very quiet. We enjoyed talking with her enough, we all spent the next few hours together in the kitchen just telling stories. The caretaker has hiked the AT before, and my college friend is hoping to hike it next year. So we went over lots of stories from her hike.

DAY 2

Distance: 5.12 mi.
Elevation: 248 ft (overall) 803 ft (total)
Time: 1:52 (Jackson) 4:14 (Parking Lot)
Trails: Webster Cliff Trail, Webster-Jackson Trail, Saco Lake Trail

After a small breakfast and a bit of time for things to warm up, we started our hike over towards Mt. Jackson. It's easy to tell this section of trail doesn't see much traffic in the winter. There was very little sign of tracks or anything firm snow underneath from past hikers. I was smart today and started off on my snowshoes, but my friends were going to have to hope for the best still. A little ways down the trail we did find some recent moose tracks. It had hiked down the trail briefly before venturing back into the trees.

The trail along the ridge was mostly easy to follow. It's a well established trail that is nice and wide by normal standards. In a couple places today though, the branches and trees were bent down across the trail. There were also a couple places were it wasn't clear which opening in the trees was the correct one. I believe the blazes might have been partially buried, but we were able to stay on course well. My friends were still constantly sinking into the show, but it had gotten to the point where we were all laughing about it. We even took a couple pictures of me standing on top of the snow with them sunk into the snow appearing much shorter than I am.

Webster Cliff Trail

Small bog near Mt. Jackson

The summit of Mt. Jackson was bare rock from the sun and it was another great day. Again, it was nice to be snowshoeing in shorts and a t-shirt with temps near 50. We finally starting seeing other hikers now too. Coming down the mountain, I stayed in my snowshoes as long as I could. With this trail much more traveled than the ridge, it was easier for all of us to stay on top of the snow. But things were softening up quickly. Once the snow became patchy, I took of my snowshoes and tied them to my pack. We had a nice smooth hike after this. there was a bit of mud in places, but he ground was mostly dry and quite firm (a relief to my friends). The hike down from here went smoothly with some others still headed up. We even went around the back side of Saco Lake so the others could see that short trail too.

Mt. Jackson summit

Mt. Jackson summit

Ice and snow coming down

View from Bugle Cliff

TOTALS
Distance: 10.23 mi.
Elevation Gain: 3,405 ft (total)
Time: 9:25

All in all this was a fun hike. It was nice to hang out with a college friend and meet one of her friends. I was certainly glad I brought my snowshoes just in case. It was interesting to see just how deep the snow could still be up high where down low you couldn't find much anywhere. It also dawned on me after this hike that from my first hike of the winter season where I saw snow until now had been 7 months. So for more than half a year now, I had been hiking in at least some snow for parts of my hikes. Over half the year with snow on the ground and still more to melt.

For all the pictures from the hike, just go HERE