Saturday March 19, 2005

Mt Moriah

Today we headed to the summit of Mt Moriah with several other members of VFTT.

This is the route we took today.

Directions to the trailhead: From the intersection of Route 16 and Route 2 in Gorham, head west for @ 1/2 miles. Cross the river and railroad tracks then take a sharp right onto Bangor Road. Follow to the end @ 1/2 mile to the trail head on the left.

Time to summit: 6 hours

This is the profile of the hike.

A 3-D view of our hike.

We met at the trailhead at 8:00 AM. We were meeting Hiker Bob and others from VFTT. Today we would follow the Carter Moriah trail for @ 4.5 miles to the summit of Mt Moriah.

We soon split into groups. Geri and I hiked with PeakBager, his girlfriend Terry, and Sapblatt. After a start up a steep hill the trail levels out before starting a gentle climb towards Mt Surprise.

For the frst 30 minutes we were on a broken out trail, however then our luck stopped. For the next 5 1/2 hours we would break the trail through 2 feet of snow.

This was Mike's first Winter hike. What a great day he picked. The temp was in the 20's when we started under bright sunshine.

Terry came over from Vt for the hike.

Peak Bagger who is from Gorham has a wealth of hikes under his belt. He is a regular on VFTT.

The trail passes over several large open ledges providing great views to the West.

You could see the auto road pretty clearly on Mt Washington. To the right is the ravine that is the end of the Great Gulf Wilderness.

Here is Mt Madison and Adams.

Looking Esat see that the snow is unbroken - the trail is here somewhere.

Same to the West. We zig zagged our way up the slope as going straight up was difficult in the 2+ feet of snow.

EVeryone took truns breaking the trail.

This gives an idea of the steepness of the trail in sections as it goes over the ledges.

Terry decided to make some snow angels as we stop for a break.

We had great weather today - bright sunshine - warmer temps - no wind.

We ended up with some good color from the reflected sun.

At about noontime our destination came into sight.

Hard to get tired of this great view.

Looking towards the summit of Moriah, Geri wonders how long it will take to get there.

This gentleman and a friend caught up with us. They stayed with us until 1:30 when they decided that they needed to turn back due to other comittments.

Jim also caught up to us and reached the summit with us. His two friends did not bring snowshoes so had to turn back.

Once back in the trees the trail was somewhat easy to follow at times where there was an indentation. In other spots we completely lost the trail and had to bushwack in the general direction of the summit until we picked it up again.

Geri on the final approach to the summit.

Peak Bagger reaches the summit after a long 6 hours.

Geri gives him a big hug.

Peak Bagger and Terry share a hug on the summit. Of the 12 hikers that started out this morning, only 5 of us managed to summit the mountain. The return trip took @ 2 1/2 hours - much quicker.

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