Balancing on Bald Mountain

May 14, 2011

    Life is all about balance. Since I just spent a week in New York City, and then two days working, it was time to get out in the woods. I didn’t have all day to hike so I needed something close by.  I have been wanting to hike in to Little Concord Pond for a while to check the terrain and see what it would be like to carry a canoe in so I can fish.  I hiked in there nearly twenty years when My daughters were small. We climbed Bald Mountain and the pond is on the way so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Hike the mountain and check out the pond on the way.
    There is an old road to the pond but it is closed to motorized vehicles. That helps protect the pond and guarantees a more peaceful hike since the trail coincides with the road all the way to the pond. It is nearly 2/3rds of a mile to the pond and for most of the distance is level or slightly uphill. There is a little over a tenth of a mile near the pond that is moderately steep and will prove taxing while carrying a canoe.
    When I got to the pond. In a sheltered spot near the put in, there was a 50 foot long patch of snow, a foot and a half of snow!

With the cool weather forecast, it will last at least another week.  Today would have been  a nice day to fish but my canoe weighs 83 Lbs. No matter how bad I wanted to fish I would not lug that in here.  I walked

around the West side of the pond and discovered 7 canoes and boats a short distance  from the landing and I could see an eighth across the pond. I took a few photos and  then headed back to climb  Bald Mountain.
    The trail to Bald and Speckled Mountains diverges right from the road to the pond, within sight of it and begins immediately  to climb the west ridge of Bald Mountain. The trail climbs moderately but steadily over ledges and through woods to the rocky summit in about 3/4s of a mile.

There is a nice overlook facing West and looking over Shagg pond and Washburn pond. The mountains to the West were obscured by lowering clouds. I followed the ledges east and upon seeing the top of Speckled Mountain in the clouds, I decided to head down rather than hike another couple of miles for no view.

It was 9:40 when I began going down. I met a group of three rock climbers headed up to climb the cliff that forms the South side of Bald Mountain and gives it it’s name. I made it back to my vehicle in about 50 minutes.  Except for a couple of minutes as I passed by the rock climbers, I had the place to myself. Exactly what I was looking for after the hustle and bustle of the big city and a couple of busy days at work.

Caribou? I Don't see no Caribou!

April 30 2011

    Caribou  is a relatively small Mountain in western Maine but offers spectacular views in all directions.  I hiked today with a guy I met coming off Sunday River Whitecap, the last time I climbed it. Scott met me at my house at 8:00 and we headed to the trail head at the end of the Bog Brook Road in West Bethel.  I was looking for a  nearby and relatively snow-free hike and  had narrowed the choices to Kearsarge North in North Conway which has a mostly South facing trail and Caribou which has North Facing but is not too high. I let Scott choose. Since he had done Kearsarge several times in recent years, Caribou it was. I was able to drive to the  gate and parking lot and although a bit soft, I was able to get into the parking lot. There was one car parked in the road next to the gate with Quebec plates.
    Not sure what conditions would be like and not wanting to slog through knee deep snow, even for a short distance, we elected to carry snowshoes. We were glad we did. We geared up and set off about 9:00. The Trail starts as a road walk on a National Forest fire road. The formerly indistinct left turn a short distance from the gate, has been brushed out and the arrow that indicates the turn is now clearly visible. A tenth of a mile further, the trail turns off the fire road onto an old logging road and narrows to a mostly single file trail. There are several brook crossing but none are difficult  and we managed all with dry feet.  Approaching the Caribou- Speckled Wilderness Area sign, we started to encounter frequent patches of snow that increased as we got higher on the mountain.

We were not seeing any tracks from the occupants of the car from Quebec who we had supposed were ahead of us on the trail and did some speculating as what had become of them. We reached the trail junction around 11:15.

Here the Caribou Trail continues straight ahead and the Mud Brook Trail heads left toward the top.
     At 2,400 feet we had gained most of the elevation and with .6 of a mile and 440 feet to climb to Caribou’s summit, we set off. The snow which had previously been patchy and less than a foot in depth, quickly turned to nearly full cover and was getting deeper. As long as we stayed on the packed trail we were fine but to get off meant post-holing in a couple of feet of snow. Once, Scott plunged his entire leg out of sight and  we then put on the snow shoes and kept them on till we got to the open ledges of the summit.

 

    We topped out at noon and were treated to long views in all directions. The clouds which had been forecast to dissipate, were still hanging around but even the Presidentials peeked out at us occasionally.

We each put on an extra layer and stood there and had a quick lunch in the chilly breeze. I’m always reluctant to seek shelter from the wind and leave the views I’ve worked so hard for. After that we explored the ledges for at least a half hour before heading back to the edge of the woods where we had left our snowshoes.
    While we were getting our snowshoes back on, the sole occupant of the car came up the Mud Brook Trail. He spoke only broken English and with a heavy accent so we didn’t quiz him about which route he had taken. We started down and a short time later, the gentleman passed us on his way down. A few short minutes brought us again to the trail junction where we removed and stowed our snowshoes once again.  About a half mile down the trail we were once again overtaken by the man from Quebec and  wondered why he was behind us. His explanation, as best we could tell was that he had done a bushwhack to Tyler Notch that morning and climbed Caribou via the East ridge. Which explained why we hadn’t seen his tracks. After hitting the summit of Caribou he had done a bushwhack of Gammon Mountain to the North of Caribou trail.  He was very obviously a strong and capable outdoorsman, he had done all that in about the same time it had taken Scott and I to climb Caribou.
    He headed off and we behind him. We had an uneventful hike back to the parking area, arriving there about 3:00.  All in all, a great day out.