The weather has been crappy this summer. Trying to find a weekend with a window where the trees would be dry in the morning, and stay that way into the night has been largely impossible. Yes, it was blazing time. I was tied up on Saturday (and given Friday showers, that was fine), but Sunday looked to be a dandy. So Friday I picked up a blazing kit (a can of Viking Yellow paint and a couple of 2” brushes...) from the FS HQ. Knowing how overblazed the trail was, a good chisel/scraper and a wire brush was added to the pack. And about 10 pages of maps/satellite photos. I was out to explore some ledges off the trail in addition to the blazing, figuring there should be plenty of time. I would also be checking out the work some local high school kids did under the supervision of the AMC.
I got to the trailhead at a leisurely 8:00 and set off, anxious to make sure I too, didn't overblaze. After the brook crossing, I figured it'd be a good place for one, and was painfully careful not to screw this up. Wait a second, the current blaze is about 4.5-5 feet high. It's supposed to be 6 feet. Sigh, so paint over it and continue the bad practice or leave a scar and paint it correctly? The latter seemed the obvious choice. Voila, my first blaze.
After that I hardly painted any blazes, as the way is very obvious. I knew the red pine forest would be a completely different matter. I noticed the waterbars had been well-cleaned (despite still bristling at a newspaper account stating they had been “neglected” despite cleaning them this spring), but apparently they didn't have time for new construction, which is what I was told had been planned. Ah well, I appreciated the help nonetheless, just have to deal with some major construction soon, preferably when it's raining so I can see what's what.
I hit the red pines, and was surprised how fast I could get up this section without 20 pounds of tools. Well, this is much more pleasant! I think a lot of people think blazing is the fun part of the job (and the Forest Service gave me a lot of warnings to be careful), but I found it stressful, trying to be really careful about overdoing it. Worst case, I can add more later, but I was definitely going to be careful this time around. As I headed up, I basically blazed just after any change in direction, far enough apart that I never had to worry about the not seeing two at a time guideline.
I hit the herd path just before the SPNHF/Black Mountain State Forest boundary, and my brushing in effores had been cleared yet again. This was a concern for the FS, and I finally decided to follow it to the end. Turns out the view is rather crappy considering a far better one exists a mere 500 feet away on the trail.
So I was perplexed by this constant clearing out of my efforts to brush it in, one quite significant. I left it alone this time, it seemed futile, and hoped for some guidance from the FS. Onward to the good view,
getting a nice shot of Peaked Mountain, along with a bunch of blueberries nearby.
This is my favorite break point, not only due to the views, but because the prolonged steeps are over. Not much blazing to do here as the corridor is well defined in bushes by and large. Not long after this came the first set of off-trail ledges to check out, which offered pretty limited views. I was surprised, however, to see a cairn here.
The next ledge gave a nice view, however, including Mansfield way back there.
There were five ledges on the first stretch, many non-descript, so I headed back to the trail to where I left and continued my work. Another 80 vertical feet led to the next length of ledges. I got my first view of the Moose, and a nagging reminder of that I had a register to return to Clough. Argh. Getting up to the next ledge looked rather interesting, but not terribly bad.
This one gave a new view to the NNW, including Upper and Lower Mountain Lake.
I couldn't see a good way up to the next ledge, so I returned to the trail, again backtracking to be complete, and also because I had ditched the paint can there. There's got to be a can holster out there on the interwebs somewhere...
The next set of ledge to me were then best, hanging close to the dropoff and providing some fine views. They were essentially the same as you've seen already, just more open, and the view NE was starting to open up. Return, backtrack, carry on. And from there it was a short trip to the summit to relax for a while and enjoy the better than usual views. Not bluebird, mind you, but I have yet to be there on a bluebird day.
I immediately made my way to the northern ledges, finally discovering on my way back a roundabout way to get to them in the open instead of whacking. Dur. A full view of the Pilot Range, Cabot, the Weeks and Waumbek were in display. I imagine those would make some nice shots around sunset on a clear dry day. Franconia Ridge was not too bad thanks to a mix of sun and clouds.
Shameless SuperZoom Man couldn't help capturing the ridge on Moosilauke, where I'd be next week, managing to spot some hikers.
I again ogled this logging clearing, though a little scrbby looking, looks awesome. Must get there before it grows in!
Well, time to head down, I knew I still had the blazing half done and although all the scouting was done, I still needed to construct some small cairns in a ledgey section. This proved to be more difficult that I figured. Not the construction, the rock finding. You'd think there'd be a ton of rocks, but no, no there wasn't. I found I really needed three (and indeed some hikers asked where the trail went – this section has screwed me up too many times), and ended up with really two and half cairns. I'll have to fix that up on future trips. The rest of trip went pretty smoothly. The worst part was blazing removal. There were a lot that I needed to get rid of, because they were too close to new and better places blazes, just excessive, or I was afraid someone might re-paint them as they were aging. It was tricky removing these with minimal signs of them. The red pines were the easiest, just flake away the outside bark pieces. Others not so much, I just hope the bark ages quickly to hide them. We'll see!
