‘The Captain’ Kicks Some Ass

In this case the ass was mine.

 

I’d heard of a seldom seen, little visited, untracked peak up the North Fork of the Sawyer River valley and between Mt. Carrigain and the Hancocks called ‘The Captain’ for it’s small scale resemblance to Yosemite’s ‘El Capitan’ that was known to be a challenging bushwhack and got it in my head to take a shot at it.

 

So, again, I headed north following a day of heavy rain. In fact the skies were still overcast with a low ceiling, to the point that twice I seriously considered turning around, thinking that there would be little point to putting in a bushwhack effort on unfamiliar ground on a day when conditions could be disorienting and there would be no views. However, as I came into the town of Bartlett I was happily surprised to see the mountains around Crawford Notch clearing off and plenty of blue sky showing! Adding to the scene an early morning rainbow , a rare treat, arced out of  the notch.

Turning off NH Rte. 302 I followed the seasonal Sawyer River Road up the river’s valley. Along the way I passed through the area where the ‘lost’  town of Livermore was located. Incorporated in 1876 at about the same time the Sawyer River Railroad was being constructed for logging purposes in the valley, the town was essentially abandoned by 1930 and the area was returned to unincorporated status by the New Hampshire legislature in 1951.

About six miles up the road is a gate and a trailhead parking area. Here I ended my drive, shouldered my pack, and headed up the North Fork Logging Road where it split off to the right from the Hancock Notch Trail just beyond the gate.

On a day that began with little prospect of good weather I soon found myself moving along in my lightest wool t-shirt under virtually cloudless skies. Not bad for mid November!

 

After two miles the maintained road ended and I found myself on a stabilized, but unmaintained, logging road. Soon I had the first glimpse of my destination, ”The Captain’.

The road shortly became more of as trail as it passed through a series of small clearings. It was in one of these clearings that I experienced a real treat as I came upon one of the most elusive creatures in The Northern Forest, a Fisher!

I was lucky to get a photo of this largest member of the weasel family in North America before it spotted me and loped off into the woods.

Moving on, the trail began to fade as the view of ”The Captain’ became more distinct and the bushwhack began.

Researching this hike online a found a few accounts posted by people who had made this trip. One thing that was noted was to head toward the western (left in photo) face where there is a notch between The Captain and the Hancock massive. To the east (right in photo) the valley is basically rimmed by escarpment wall. As the discernible route disappeared I found two sets of flagging that had been hung by fellow pilgrims to mark their progress. One was a single strung combination of orange and green, the other an eastward and upward progression of just green.

 

 Being an acknowledged master follower of false leads (and not just on the trail!), I, of course, chose to follow the single green marked route, although I strongly suspected that it marked a route I knew from an online post was abandoned well short of the goal. True enough, after half an hour of eastward veering, I was convinced that this was the case and decided to strike out generally westward directly toward The Captain.

 

After another half hour of picking, pushing, crawling, falling, and climbing my way through a mix of young growth and old blown down forest interspersed with pockets of mature trees I was brought up short by the appearance of twisted orange and green flagging a foot in front of my face! The western route!

Now, whether this was the best route I don’t know, but I took some comfort in the fact that at least someone had passed this way and appeared to be heading in the preferred direction. After an hour or so spent steadily ascending through a thickening, then thinning, forest of spruce/fir, over, around, and in one case under, tumbled moss covered boulders and switchbacking through exposed vertical ledges I came to the end of the flagged route at the smooth open face and overhanging ledges of The Captain’s primary wall.

After looking the situation over up, down,and literally, sideways, I decided my best shot at getting on top was to move clockwise around the base of the face until I could find my way up the less steep back (north) side. For the better part of the next two hours I did just that. Progress (often on hands and knees) was slow and I was continually getting abused by the terrain and vegetation in my sidling along. When I finally reached the point where I could move upward in a more direct way, maybe an hour from the top, it was early afternoon and I had to accept the fact that there was no way I was going to get on top and make it out in daylight. So, reluctantly, and like others before me, I stopped forward progress and began my return bushwhack.

 

Taking a route more direct than as I’d come I soon became aware of the toll the previous weeks battle with a flu and today’s climb, combined with inadequate hydrating along the way, had taken on my body as I now was experiencing waves of nausea and had to stop twice to get through bouts of dry heaves. Given my unfamiliarity with the terrain and the fact the sun was already behind the Hancock’s added to a concern growing in my mind.  It was with a mix of relief and confidence built on having chosen a good route that I soon cut the flagged route I’d come in on at a natural resting spot close to a small brook. Here I rested, gathered my thoughts, and drank stream water slowly for half an hour or so before resuming my exit.

 

In time, following the flagging, I found myself back on a trail and passing through the small openings and eventually the unmaintained logging road I’d come in on earlier. It was then that I had an experience of a type, that while not uncommon, or unusual, in Tasmania, I can’t recall ever happening in such a direct way here in New Hampshire.

 

On the last section of the unmaintained road, and with the maintained logging road in sight, I felt an urgency in my mind to turn and look behind me. As I did I saw, and experienced, the sight and sensation of a expanding burst of white light rush toward, envelope, and pass through me in what seemed a split second. Although I knew I’d just encountered some kind of manifestation of energy I tried to look for other reasons such as light reflecting off my glasses as I  turned, clouds, some trick of light, but nothing came of my efforts. It was what it was.

 

Not particularly perturbed by this I continued on my way the several miles to my car, reaching it at 4:30 as the oncoming evenings cool gloom grew more established by the minute.

 

…

This Post Under Construction

Water figures a great deal in my life, always has, yet I’ve written little of where I’ve spent so much time, on or in close proximity to oceans. Many of my travels in Tasmania have been along the largely undeveloped or wild coasts, often for weeks at a stretch. So, over time, I thought I’d post some thoughts and images, changing the photos every few days.

Contrail Tent & Mabel Bay

 

Foraged Mussels-Mabel Bay

 

Into The Wild Blue Wander

With an improving forecast following a house bound day of driving rain I knew by the next dawn I’d be heading to the epicenter of  le grand cascades in New Hampshires White Mountains, Crawford Notch. Silver Thread, The Flume, Ripley, Arethusa are well known, impressive, and easily accessible, but I had my sights set on the less visited Nancy Cascades high in the Nancy Ravine. So, northbound I went.

 

 

 

 

White Horse Ledge, North Conway

 

 

 Nancy Cascades, Nancy Ravine, Nancy Brook, Nancy Pond, Nancy Mountain are all named features in the area and refer to the unfortunate Nancy Barton, who after discovering that her lover had set off from their home north of the notch for Portsmouth during the winter of 1778  without the sandwiches she’d made for him, followed, only to freeze to death along the route through the notch. Or something like that.

  

The Nancy Pond Trailhead is on the west side of NH Rte. 302 when heading north in Crawford Notch and the trail itself weaves it way through a hardwood and later spruce/fir forest up the Nancy Brook drainage while crossing the brook several times. After the previous days rain the brook was way up and crossings were challenging. I often had to hunt up and downstream for a spot where I could boulder hop over or cross on a fallen tree. At 2.4 miles the forested headwall of the ravine was reached by where the base of the 300+’ Nancy Cascades ends in an 80′ waterfall.  

Nancy Cascade

From here the trail took a number of switchbacks up the steep headwall face before emerging at the top of the cascade and the edge of the broad saddle between Mt.Nancy and Mt. Anderson in which Nancy Pond lay like Maybelline…you know… half a mile ahead.

Top of Nancy Cascade

 While most of the White Mountains were extensively logged starting in the late 1800’s and continuing into the early 1900’s, criss crossed with logging railroads and skid trails and literally cut to the ridgetops, the area around Nancy Pond was left relatively untouched and I now traveled over level boggy ground through a virgin spruce forest.

This photo of Mt. Hancock (4420′)in the East Branch Pemigewasset River valley shows how thorough the logging was.

Photo: Brad Washburn

 

Nancy Pond Trail

My original plan for the day was to visit the cascades and Nancy Pond then return to my car as I’d come, but it was still before noon, a beautiful sunny day with light winds, and as it’s my preference to do trail loops rather than return over the same path, I decided to continue on into the Pemigewasset Wilderness and walk out through Carrigian Notch and the Sawyer River Road.

Nancy Pond & Mt. Anderson

Shortly after leaving Nancy Pond I moved out of the Saco River drainage, into the East Branch of the Pemigewasset drainage, and passed by this pretty mountain bog (Little Norcross Pond) where the biggest cow moose I’d ever seen was feeding!

Later I was able to get within 75′ of the beast, but my camera chose to focus on the brush between us and I missed some good photos.

Seeing this moose confirmed what I already knew, the area around Nancy Pond was prime high country moose habitat. This caused some concern to grow in the back of my mind as it was the height of the moose rut when the love addled bulls tend not to take well to intruders in their territories, twice during this time in the past I’ve been ‘run’ by bull moose and felt lucky to have escaped without being injured or killed. Death by moose stomping doesn’t sound very appealing.

 So I continued on with some angry moose anxiety until the trail cleared the spruced up boggy ground, entered the federally designated Pemigewasset Wilderness and led to one of the most unheralded jewels of the White Mountains, Norcross Pond.

Norcross Pond

At 3,100′ Norcross exists because of  a natural ledge dam at it’s outlet now raised several feet higher (and flooding the trail along the ponds north side) by a beaver dam. At the outlet the land fell steeply away and before me lay the great East Branch of the Pemi valley with the Bonds and Franconia Ridge in the distance. Standing on the ledge next to the beaver dam with the ponds surface at my hip on one side and the broad wilderness vista before me on the other was something special.

 

 Here I had lunch before continuing on the trail which led at a gentle grade several miles down an old logging road through a beautiful forest of Red Spruce and Paper Birch to the valley below.

 

  Crossing Norcross Brook the trail now traveled on the bed of one of the old logging railroads and shortly came to Anderson Brook (no boulder hopping here, just a mad dash across 30′ of knee deep water) on whose far side was what remained of the clearing that held Camp 19, from the heyday of logging here. Quiet woodland and small forbed openings now, one can only imagine when the area was covered in temporary camps, where men, horses, oxen, and locomotives pulling flatbed cars loaded with logs and pulp, ’got the wood out’. Even today, deep in a wild reclaiming, reminders of those days remain.

Bed Frames, Site of Camp 19

Still the Nancy Pond Trail it followed the logging grade for a bit before turning off to the south, crossed the East Branch of the Pemi (another mad dash), crossed Notch Brook (pole footbridge here, yaa!), and after a few yards further on yet another railroad grade met the Carrigain Notch Trail.

 

 Turning sharp left onto the Carrigain Notch Trail, which on the right continues on to Stillwater Junction in the heart of the Pemi Wilderness, I followed a trail that at times was more brook or game path than track with no recent footprints of the human variety showing. It seemed as if every other creature of the northern forest was represented though, including bear.

Bear Track, Carrigan Notch Trail

After about a mile the trail joins with an old logging road and starts up a steeper section into the notch itself. At the height of land in this deep cleft between Vose Spur on Mt. Carrigans northeast slope and Mt. Lowell there are excellent views of the many rock slides on Lowell’s west face. The original European name for Mt. Lowell was The Brickhouse due to the reddish, almost polychromatic, color of the rock. I can’t recall having seen anything like it in the Whites and I felt a strong desire to return and attempt a scramble up the slides and cliff faces on another day.

Mt. Lowell

A gentle descent of about four miles from the notch to the Sawyer River Road followed with numerous crossings of Carrigain and further on Whiteface Brooks involving boulder hopping, mad dashes, and one time shinnying up a leaning tree on one side to where I could hang and drop down on the other.

So, seven hours and thirteen miles later from when I left the Nancy Pond Trailhead I reached the gravel surface of Sawyer River Road, with two miles still to walk on it and another mile on Rte. 302 before I reached my car. A beautiful day spent in the wild with moose met (1), humans met (0), and feet wet (2).

One last image garnered while walking the hardtop mile back to my car, one that proves that all rules have exceptions.

Bears Don't Aways Crap In The Woods

The Green Fields Of the Mind

One of my favorite walks is from where I pahk my cah out in the neighborhoods of Brookline,Ma, and stroll along Beacon Street to Fenway Park to watch the boys of spring, summer, and fall, the Red Sox, play baseball. Stopping at O’Leary’s Pub for a Harp or two and conversation with Angus, Aofie, Lisa, Dave and Davey, sweet Bobby drinking Cape Codder’s, who once told me of a favorite cow he tended as as a young man on a dairy farm in New York State wih tears in his eyes, waiting out the traffic at Audubon Circle with its bird sculptures on the lamp posts before continuing on, stopping for a moment to bullshit with my scalper buddy John in the parking lot across from the park from where I join the crush of fans on Yawkey Way, its a trip I’ve made many, many times and it’s never grown old. Those walks do however, at some point during the baseball season, end.

 

When they do I recall the words of the late Bart Giamatti, Commissioner of Baseball, President of Yale, Red Sox fan, and a true renaissance man.

 

The Green Fields Of The Mind

 

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone…

 

A Musical Interlude-Persuasion

In my estimation, few songwriter/musicians come close to matching the incomparable Richard Thompson. Seen here with his son, Teddy, performing a number written by RT and Tim Finn (of Crowded House), Persuasion. In this veiled paean to failed romance you see the anguish of the young man and the melancholy of the elder, although, to me, in Richard’s brief half smile at 3:53 you can understand that all love, failed or fulfilled, grows bittersweet with time and in the understanding and acceptance of that lies the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3DS6xglAfQ

In the half light of dawn~

I walked in a field…

where hay was baled.

I came to a stream…

which led to where the world was reflected…

in quiet waters.

The woods nearby…

had many colors.

Far off in a farmhouse a woman lay smiling…

 in the half light of dawn.

Like A Window In Your Heart

 

There is a girl in New York City,
Who calls herself the human trampoline,
And sometimes when I’m falling flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Whoa so this is what she means,
She means we’re bouncing into Graceland,
And I see losing love
Is like a window in your heart,
Everybody sees you’re blown apart,
Everybody feels the wind blow,

In Graceland Graceland,
I’m going to Graceland,
For reasons I cannot explain
There’s some part of me wants to see
Graceland,
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love every ending
Or maybe there’s no obligations now,
Maybe I’ve a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland 

 Paul Simon “Graceland”

 

It seems that as I get lost in the solitude of long distance hikes music lyrics find their way into my head.

 

Some are incongruous and interminably annoying, as when the lyrics of “Signs” from the Five Man Electrical Band got in my head when dancing ecstatic kilometers away across a moonlit Moonlight Ridge within one of the last terrestrial wildernesses while the great Southern Ocean glistened in surround.

 

Others have come at less ethereal times and given me a feeling of redemption and transcendence far beyond that which the location could on its own impart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memento Mori-Albert Dow

I knew Albert Dow, and while I didn’t feel I knew him well enough to think of him as a friend of mine he always left me feeling like I was a friend of his. He was that kind of guy. Intelligent, handsome, and open hearted he was destined for greatness. For Albert, greatness, and tragedy, arrived on January 25th,1982.

 

New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington has a reputation for having the “World’s Worst Weather”, and in fact the highest wind speed ever recorded on earth occurred there April 12th, 1934, 231 mph (372 km/h). Being the highest point in the northeastern US it draws large numbers of visitors year round to its alpine summit. Winter conditions there can be extreme.

 

Such was the case late on January 23d, 1982 when climbing phenom Hugh Herr,17, and Jeffery Baltzer,20, left the Harvard Cabin and headed into Huntington Ravine on Mt. Washington’s northeast shoulder to do some ice climbing in Odell’s Gully on the way to the summit. Conditions deteriorated during their trip and they soon found themselves lost in a whiteout blizzard.

 

Overdue in their return, with temperatures heading below 0 degrees F and wind speeds of 100mph being recorded on the summit, members of the volunteer Mountain Rescue Service headed out to search for them. On the second day of the search, January 25th, Albert and Mike Hartrick found some of Herr & Baltzer’s tracks but were unable to locate the climbers. On their descent ,and below treeline near the Lion’s Head they were overtaken by a slab avalanche which swept them further downslope through the trees. Despite the punishing circumstances, when the avalanche subsided Hartrick was alive and conscious, able to clear an airspace and use his radio to call for assistance. Later Dow’s body was recovered, it is believed he died instantly when overtaken by the crushing snowslide.

 

The next day the weather moderated, and a person snowshoeing in the Great Gulf area came upon tracks circling in the snow and shortly after Herr and Baltzer. A military helicopter was later used to remove them to an area hospital as death from hypothermia approached. Ultimately Herr was to lose both legs and Baltzer his lower left leg, toes on his right foot, and fingers on his left hand.

 

Today Herr is an Associate Professor at MIT and a respected authority in prosthetics probably best known to the general public through his work with South African sprinter and double amputee Oscar Pistorius.  Baltzer is the Director of Pastoral Care at the Lancaster(PA) Evangelical Free Church. The small building in the photo with the plaque honoring Albert is a first aid cache containing rescue gear located in Huntington Ravine.

 

photo: Brad Washburn

The Grand Loop

But what folly to attempt to draw in words the curves and colors, the coyness…,

the flashes and the  moodiness, the laughter and the plaints of these daughters of the clouds !

Thomas Starr King, 1868

Easy, dude.

 

On the northern slopes of Mt. Adams and Mt. Madison in New Hampshires Presidential Range lies some of the most rugged and wild feeling country in the Northeast. This interesting area of native forests, rock slides, ravines and mountain streams contains more waterfalls and cascades in one place than I’ve ever encountered.

From below, the area is best accessed from the maze of trails originating at the Appalachia parking lot on Rte. 2 in Randolph, NH. As this is the starting point for several trails (Airline,Valley Way,Short Line) that provide straight shots to the Northern Presidentials it’s very popular. But, the trails in the unofficial “Grand Loop” for waterfall viewing are lightly used and relatively deserted, in fact I saw no one the first day and only a handful the second.

I started out on the Link/Amphibrach Trails, where I met, crossed, and headed up Cold Brook.

Cold Brook Bridge

 The first falls were Cold Brook Falls, sort of classic with a cave in the ledges on the left side.

Taking a right side loop (and missing the Cold Spur Ledge Falls as a consequence !) on the Monaway and Cliffside Trails I came to Spur Brook Falls before rejoining the Amphibrach Trail.

I continued on the Amphibrach until its junction with the King Ravine Trail, one of the oldest trails in the White Mountains having been laid out by mountaineer Charles E. Lowe and named after White Mountains rusticater, chronicler, and Lowe client, Thomas Starr King in 1876. As a side trip I headed down this trail to where Cold Brook crossed it. Here I found what is called Canyon Falls.  

Returning to the Amphibrach Trail I climbed to the major trail junction known as the Pentadoi.  The Amphibrach had been paralleling the “Canyon” of  Cold Brook and I was thinking there might be some interesting falls there so through some controlled falls of my own, lol, I bushwhacked down into it. Here is what I found.

Cold Brook Canyon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cold Brook Canyon

Cold Brook Canyon

Cold Brook Canyon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After clawing  my way up and out of the canyon I took a side trip on the Spur Trail to elegant Chandler Falls.

 

 

 

Back to the Pentadoi and now onward on the King Ravine Trail as it headed up the ravine. After a bit I came to the gentle Mossy Falls, above which Cold Brook would soon disappear into the boulder field at the base of the King Ravine headwalls.

 

 

 

Just above Mossy Falls I came to these signs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As it was getting late, the trail rougher, and the trees smaller, I headed back down the Ravine Trail to where the forest might support my hammock and camp. After a search I found a site, one that had been used before. A cup of miso soup and dinner of quality bean noodle ramen followed camp setup. Switching out my wet outer clothes and socks for dry ones I entered the Hennessy Hammock and adjusted the down underquilt. With my sleeping bag used like a quilt over me  and lulled by the white noise of Cold Brook as it tumbled nearby I soon fell asleep and spent a restful night in my cocoon.

 

The next morning, exploring the immediate area around camp I found, as I expected, several other old campsites which trail keepers had disguised with brush to discourage permanent use, and one unofficial permanent site with a fire ring  (boo !) and recent bough bed. In the spirit of leave no trace I also covered my site with brush after I’d packed my camp away. Someone woodswise would have no trouble identifying a campsite even with the brush on it and would hopefully return it to that state when they were done with it.

 

Under a lowry sky, with the ridgelines enveloped in mist, I headed up the King Ravine Trail again. Although the Grand Loop as conceived allows you to follow the KRT to the ridgeline by the AMC’s Madison Hut, summit Mts. Adam & Madison if you wish, then return to Appalachia down the Snyder Brook drainage, I decided because of the summits being socked in to short circuit the upper part of the loop. Taking the Chemin des Dames Trail up the left side of the King Ravine headwall  I reached the Airline Trail.  If this steep, slippery, groin puller was the “Path of the Ladies” I can’t wait to see what the two alternatives, the final lurch of the King Ravine and Great Gully Trails are like ! All three are “not recommended” for descents.

Chemin des Dames Trail

Airline Trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Heading down the Mt. Madison buttress ridge the Airline Trail follows I soon turned off  onto the Upper Bruin Trail, descending into the Snyder Brook drainage, connected with the Valley Way Trail, and followed that, passing a platform tenting area, to the Lower Bruin Trail.

Along the Lower Bruin Trail I bushwhacked down into a ravine where I found this pretty little stepped cascade.

 

 

Further below in the ravine were upper, middle, and lower Duck Falls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below the Duck Falls I got off the Lower Bruin Trail and onto the Brookside Trail. From far above the Duck Falls Snyder Brook is virtually one long cascade, and this continues with the ravine  rough going and often obstructed with fallen timber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

A pretty spray

 

Salmacia Falls

 

 

Below Salmacia the gradient begins to mellow.

The wonderfully serene Upper & Lower Tama Falls.

 

 

 Upper & Lower Salroc Falls

 

 

 

Further along

  

 

The final cascade on the loop – Gordon Falls

 

 

 

All in all  a very satisfying two days spent in an area well worth exploring more.

 

          

  

Blueberries

While hiking the other day I came across the first ripe low bush blueberries of the season growing on the ledges of a not to be disclosed mountain. I took the time to pick enough (a quart/liter) for a pie.