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Feb 11, 2006 |
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The tempature at our cabin in Bethlehem was 6 degrees below zero with a brisk wind blowing. At 7 AM Geri, Amy, HikerBob, and I met Jim, Chris, and Tom (Wildpeaks) at the Lincoln Woods parking lot. We stayed warm in the heated rest rooms while everyone geared up. We watched as a solo hiker started out on a mountain bike headed to the Bonds, and another group started out for Mt Flume.
We soon crossed the bridge to the Wilderness trail and began our journey. The Wilderness trail had a light coating of snow over glare ice that gave just enough traction that we did not need traction devices. We made quick progress and soon found ourselves at the Black Pond trail. The trail started with good snow cover, but in sections we found all signs of snow gone. We crossed a small brook and soon found ourselves at Black Pond. Here we crossed the frozen pond and started following the well packed bushwhack trail. The trail followed a compass heading of @ 357 degrees ending at the Lincoln Brook trail. This shortens the overall hike and bypasses two large river crossings. As we made our way along the Lincoln Brook we stopped often to take photos of the ice formations. The photos can in no way do justice to the amazing views we enjoyed. The trail had good footing on snow with only one small mud sections. The two river crossings had thick solid ice around some openings where the water was very visable. We all made the crossings with bare boots and no issues. After the second crossing we met a group of 4 hikers frrom the MIT Outing Club. They had not been able to find the start of the Slide trail and were returning to Lincoln Woods until we showed them the start of the "Brutus" bushwhack that we were planning on following. It looked very well packed, so off we went following the group of 4. The trail was actually a variation of the "Brutus" one. This one headed to south gradually gaining elavation before switching back to the north and crossing an old skidder road. From here the trail climbed steep up and across the mountain until we reached the normal trail above the top of the Slide. Now following the traditional trail we soon reached the "Official" summit. We found that the summit sign has been removed, but the small carin was still present. The trail now continues on past this summit to what some say (and we agree) is the true summit, a few feet higher. Along he way we ran into another group, from the AMC that had reached the summit a few minutes ahead of us. Just past this new summit is a great view towards Franconia Ridge. We noticed that we had a little more wind here and a cooler tempature on the north side of the peak. Begining our return trip we stopped for a break in a southern facing sunny spot. Here HikerBob asked us what we thought the tempature on the summit was. After we all voiced our guess, he revealed the answer - only problem was he was reading Celcius instaed of Fahrenheit! As we descended we caught up with the MIT group, who had a nevous member with them. Keeping an eye on them we walked right past the bushwhach and soon found ourselves at the top of the Slide. Oh well - we had not planned on this, but seeing that it had good snow cover we decided to descend via it. We stopped to put crampons on to be safe over one section that had ice, but the rest of the slide had deep snow for good footing. Heading back we caught the AMC group and leap frogged them back to Black Pond. Here AMy and Geri changed into more comforatable boots for the last leg of the Wilderness trail. At the junction of the BLack Pond and Wilderness trails we ran into Youngblood and his girlfriend Melanie, Damon, and Tim Seaver. They had just completed a traverse from Hale, Zealand and the Bonds. They joined us at the Woodstock Inn for dinner to end the great day.
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Directions to the trailhead: From Lincoln head East on the Kanc until you arrive at the Lincoln Woods parking lot on the left in @ 5 miles. Time to summit: @5 1/2 hours Time to descend: @5 hours |
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and our