Mt. Tecumseh - 05.30.2015

Total Mileage: 6.67 mi
Elevation Ascent: 3,130'
Elevation Descent: 3,133'

Trip Report:

My girlfriend and I drove up to the White Mountains yesterday to hike Mt. Tecumseh.  It's nice being so close to up there now that we live in MA!  Took us a little over two hours to get to the Waterville Valley ski area parking lot by the trail head.  My girlfriend hadn't been hiking in a long while so figured this would be a nice, rather easy hike while also bagging our first NH 4000' peak!

Painted Trillium, Trillium undulatum

The trail for the first mile or so pretty gradually climbs in elevation.  It more or less follows Tecumseh Brook for a little ways, making a couple of minor crossings not long after starting the hike.  About a mile in we descended back down to Tecumseh Brook, where we crossed again.  This time a bit more considerable crossing, but nothing serious, just some slippery rocks.  

Tecumseh Brook

Some small waterfalls here, great sounds of a babbling brook.  Filled up my water bottle and treated it and started moving again.  

Start of the stone stairs

After crossing the brook, the trail starts to climb at a pretty good rate, though never getting crazy, all the way up to the ridge below the summit of Tecumseh.  

A short spur trail brought us out to this view on one of the ski trails

You get some decent views of the Tecumseh summit through the trees along part of the trail. This whole section was actually pretty well built and well maintained.  Towards the top of the climb the trail turns into a long set of stone steps. We passed an annoying group of Boy Scouts here; we'd been hearing them yelling as they went up the mountain most of the way.

This is what most of the trail is like going up

This eventually flattens out right as you get up to the ridge.  The trail is nice and flat for the most part, walking through a great fir/spruce forest.  

Trail on ridge below summit

We went up to the summit on the blue trail and this was our "toughest" hiking of the day, skirting along the side of the summit.  The summit was busy, lots of people having lunch.  We sat down, rested, and ate some snacks.  In the meantime, the Boy Scouts arrived and took over the summit area, so we took some pictures and headed back down the way we came.  

View from the summit, looking at the Tripyramids

Back at the trail junction, we took the Sosman Trail over to the south peak where the highest ski lift goes to.  Easy trail over, you come out at a radio antenna for WVFM(according to Google), walk through another 50' of trail and pop out at the ski lift. 

Radio antenna on south peak of Mt. Tecumseh

Really nice, clear open views of the valley.  Great views of Mt. Osceola and the Tripyramids. Took some photos 

Framed view of Waterville Valley from south peak

We hiked back to the trail junction and turned back down the Mt. Tecumseh trail the way we came up.  Took a while going back down, though steady it's pretty steep.  I mean, we were coming down from over 2,000 feet above the parking area.  We stopped at the brook again for a few minutes and got some water and rested.  I splashed some cold stream water on my head which felt really nice in the afternoon heat.   We continued on for the last mile or so and made it back to the car.  Changed up and went into town.  Had a really great, super filling burger with an Angry Orchard hard cider at The Valley Pub and Grill.

I thought this was a great hike!  Good mountain to introduce people to New Hampshire and the White Mountains.  Good payoff at the end with great views, not too difficult but still gave you a taste of hiking in the Whites.

All of my photos can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/49411498@N07/54465C

Paugussett Trail - 04.23.2015

Total Mileage: 13.4 mi
Elevation Ascent: 3,205'
Elevation Descent: 3,284'

Trip Report:

I hiked the Paugussett Trail recently, it's a part of the Blue-Blazed hiking trail system in Connecticut.  A remarkably scenic trail despite its location in suburban SW Connecticut. I dropped my car off at the Buddington Road trail head in Shelton and got a ride back to the beginning of the trail, off of East Village Road in Monroe.  I was a little rushed heading out in the morning, so after getting dropped off I spent about 10-15 minutes having breakfast and getting my pack in order.

I'd say I started hiking about 07:30 and the first two miles are rather nice, following Boys Halfway River down towards Lake Zoar.  The trail comes out on Cottage Street which it follows for a couple hundred feet before breaking off into the woods on the left.  The trail then starts to climb up to Webb Mountain Park in Monroe.  Webb Mountain trails were very wet and was the beginning of several wet stream crossings throughout the hike.

One of the many stream crossings encountered.

Coming out of Webb Mountain, the trail climbs up and out to Thoreau Drive.  After a few hundred foot road walk, the trail continues into the woods behind and between houses.  The blazes were slightly lacking in this section, as some were faded and a little tough to locate, coupled with the fact that you're basically in peoples' back yards.  After a 1/4-1/2 mile, the trail comes out on Boulder Path and continues Okenuck Way where it continues into City of Shelton Open Space at the end of the road.

From here, the trail basically skirts along the ridge above the Housatonic River with a couple of good climbs and some boulder scrambling. It enters the Birch Bank Open Space property.  There was a major blowdown on the trail in this section.  Getting around was slightly tricky but definitely doable. With no leaves on the trees yet, this section and continuing into Indian Wells State Park had decent views of the river below.  

I stopped in Indian Wells at a view point for lunch and a quick break before doing a short but steep climb down to Indian Well road.  There is a nice stone bridge built over Indian Hole Brook here and I stopped for a moment to take a photo.  

Stone bridge in Indian Wells State Park.

The trail continues alongside the road and climbs up some steps to Route 110.  This is a pretty busy state highway, fortunately for me in the middle of a weekday the crossing was easy.  Right after the road crossing, you climb up a few hundred feet to Mayflower Lane.  There is about a 1,000 foot road walk to the end of Mayflower Lane.  The trail starts up again past a metal gate across Meadow Street and heads through some fields here.  I spotted a red-tail hawk in the second field.


From here it generally follows some power lines for a little bit, going through various Shelton open space areas.  The trail climbs down towards Silent Waters before crossing Shelton Avenue and running along Hope Lake.  

Panorama of Silent Waters

This was a really nice section of trail, a very narrow path running right along the shoreline. You then go through Eklund Garden which had some nice specimen trees and a purple azalea bush (I believe) blooming.  

Entrance to Eklund Garden

Flowering bush in Eklund Garden

From here, you do several more small ups and downs before coming out to Buddington Road.

The trails through Shelton after Indian Wells all seem pretty well used, Indian Wells itself is pretty well used.  The Birch Bank open space section back to the beginning of the trail are definitely not hiked nearly as much.  There were a few small sections where blazes were difficult to follow.  Lots of stream crossings that required a bit of care (of course this was still in early spring after a very snowy winter).  This was a good day hike; good mileage, decent amount of elevation, varied terrain.

Slide Mountain Wilderness Loop - 06.20-22.2014

Total Mileage: 21.6 mi
Elevation Ascent: 8,130'
Elevation Descent: 8,130'

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Trip Report:

Rick Rock and I did a loop this past weekend through the Slide Mountain Wilderness. Our original goal was to hike all 9 peaks in the Southern Catskills, the Burroughs & Bushwhack ranges, even after being warned about the spruce/fir forests between Cornell and Friday! Coming from CT and Rick Rock taking the train from NYC so we arrived at the Slide Mountain parking area around 10:00 Friday night, got our stuff together and started hiking in about a mile or so to the primitive campsite along the trail on the western side of Slide. 

Got on the trail about 08:00 saturday morning and headed directly to Slide, the trail was actually pretty easy on the entire Western side. From there made the steep climb down to the col and then up Cornell, looking for a spot along the way where we could break off and head to Friday Mtn. 

Descending from Slide Mountain

Decided to cut Wittenberg off because of time, so we doubled back and found a spot to start our bushwhack.

Our view for most of the bushwhack to Friday

Went right through the thick of it, over Dink, on our way to Friday. Took what seemed to be forever to get there, spent a few minutes trying to locate the 3500 Club canister but didn't have any luck. 

Looking at Cornell and Wittenberg from Friday.  Photo by Rick Rock

It was so thick up there that we didn't want to spend a ton of time trying to find it, so we started to move on to Balsam Cap. Made it in a little over an hour to BC, found the herd path(s) going up to the summit and found the canister pretty easily. 

View of Ashokan Reservoir from Balsam Cap

As we were deciding where/how far to move on to next, a group of 4 dayhikers came by us on their way back from Lone/Rocky. When we told them where we had come from, we were congratulated on completing some of the most difficult bushwhacking in the Catskills.  They gave us some info on where we might find some pools of water they had seen at the base of the summitWe made it down into the col between BC and Rocky and set up camp. Filtered and treated water from a tiny pool, just to get us to morning, it was still a bit yellow and a little taste to it.  Had dinner, hung our bear bags, and went to sleep as soon as all the daylight was gone.

View from the col between Friday and Balsam Cap

Got moving by 07:30 on Sunday morning and hiked right away to Rondout Creek to try and get us water for the day. Had to hike down the stream bed a ways but finally found where the water was coming out and filled up for the day's climbs. It was fun hopping down the rocks in the stream bed, not so much on the way back!

Looking back up Rondout Creek

Hiked back up the creek bed for a while and then made a turn to Rocky. We approached Rocky from the South-East, not sure if people usually climb Rocky from this direction, but we came up on some really impressive ledges. This was definitely the toughest climbing of the weekend. 

Came upon a lot of this going up and over Rocky.  Photo by Rick Rock

Lots of downed trees, boulders, and difficult ledges to climb made getting to the summit a real challenge. Found the canister, signed in, and moved right on to Lone. It's ironic, I've found the hike up to Slide Mountain to be one of the easiest while being the tallest and climbing Rocky, the shortest, to be the most difficult.  

The hike between Rocky and Lone was a bit of a challenge.  Lots of ledges and balsam forests to negotiate.  Made it to the summit of Lone in about an hour, had lunch at the ledge south of the summit. The black flies were a bit much so we only stayed as long as needed. 

View from ledge on south side of Lone.  That's Peekamoose Mountain on the right.

Started making our way to Table, once we made it to the col it was actually a pretty easy hike from there. Found good herd paths most of the way up Table, went through a couple hundred feet of thick conifers and popped out on the trail. What a great feeling after being off a trail for 24 hours! We had decided to cut off Peekamoose too because of time. All the bushwhacking and climbing took more time than we thought. Hiked all the way down Table, crossed the Neversink and took the Phoenicia-East Branch Trail back to the Slide Mountain parking area.

Great weekend hike! Had beautiful weather the entire weekend. Lots of incredible ledges and great climbing! The bushwhacking was incredibly difficult at parts, this hike was a serious challenge. Got lots of quality map and compass time in which was fun.

Panorama looking north towards Devil's Path

All of my photos from this trip can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/49411498@N07/sets/72157645335322086/with/14315729817/