Elevation: 2,580 ft (overall) 2,738 ft (total)
Time: 3:46 (East Sleeper) 7:10 (Total)
Trails: Downes Brook Trail, Kate Sleeper Trail, East Sleeper Spur
For today's hike, my plan was to head up to East Sleeper via the Downes Brook Trail and Kate Sleeper Trail. If I was still feeling good then, I'd head over to the Tripyramids and down Sabbaday Brook Trail. I knew this route would have plenty of brook crossings, so I had planed to wait until a time in the summer like now where the water levels would be low.
The trail starts off nice and gentle. It heads up one of many old logging routes in the white mountains. This keeps things pretty straight and without many major inclines or declines. As you get further up the trail, the route narrows down a bit, but stays easy to follow. The first crossing of the day would be considered the most difficult in my opinion. Today it was a simple hop over, but I can see where there wouldn't be many routes across as the water gets higher.
The first river crossing
The trail stayed nice until reaching the boundary of the Sandwich Range Wilderness. From here on up, the blow downs haven't been cleaned up as much. Wilderness rules regulate more strictly what trail maintenance can be done. All but two of the blow downs today were easy to step over. Two of thumb included a bit of climbing over or sitting on them and swinging your legs over. These could be a bit more troublesome to shorter hikers.
Entering Sandwich Range Wilderness
As you ascend, you keep crossing the river and working your way up through the valley on either side of the brook. There really isn't much of difficulty though here, it's just long with many crossings. Higher up, the trail does get a bit steeper and stays on the side hill more than flat ground down near the water. Getting closer to the ridge, I caught up with another group of hikers and ended up keeping a similar pace.
Crossing #6
The Kate Sleeper Trail has a small incline for a large section of it before finally getting a bit steeper shortly before East Sleeper. The trail goes through just a small section of trees that were blown down during Hurricane Sandy. Even though it only touches a small part of the blow downs, the work done through here is still impressive to open the trail back up. Especially when you realize it was done with hand saws. Going through the steeper sections of this trail is where I was starting to feel tired today. Being a larger hiker, when it's hot and there isn't a wind to cool things down, I sweat even more and can get tired more quickly.
Blow down patch
The spur trail to East Sleeper isn't marked with a sign for it, but there is one on the Kate Sleeper Trail for when you come back down it. This sign makes the intersection easier to spot. The spur trail is short and mostly flat out to the summit. Today it was a busy place with 7 other hikers from 2 separate groups. There were a lot of people out hiking for their New England Hundred Highest lists.
East Sleeper
Other hikers at the summit
While I felt fine after a rest at the summit, I decided to head back out the way I came in. I figured I could do the Tripyarmids as well today, but they weren't my primary goal and I think I would have been dragging butt on some of the climbs up to the peaks given how warm it was. I took a casual pace back down the trail enjoying the brook some more and even found old artifacts from a logging camp the trail passes through. I used my Sawyer Mini filter for the first time to filter some water and was happy with how easy it is to use. It was a nice hike back out to the car, but it is a long one and started to go by a bit slow at the end.
Shovel and bucket
Easy to step over blow downs
For all the pictures from the hike, just go HERE
Google Earth representation of the hike
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