BLOG - Three Day Weekend In NH

We had an amazing three day weekend in New Hampshire with some truly incredible finds that will all make their way into my upcoming White Mountains You Haven't Seen book. We stopped in Grafton Notch along the way where I visited Mother Walker Falls once again and used my new water shoes for the first time. They're great, these things make stream crossings in high water so much easier, no more rock hopping for me.

A couple years ago when we were in Grafton during the spring we heard a loud brook roaring through the trees but couldn't find it. This year we did. I walked down the road following brooks until I found it, then brought Jaime along. And oh my god was it worth the wait. I mean wow.

After bushwhacking up the brook a ways and finding multiple other cascades, I stumbled upon an abandoned trail for the descent. The ledges on the falls were open and offered a great view across the notch as well. Someday I'll have to continue following it up further than the mile I did today and that was one steep mile.

We planned on doing another hike once we hit Franconia Notch but it was raining and I was really dehydrated from a day of hiking and driving. From the hotel we could hear fireworks going off over at the Indian Head hotel so we drove over and got to see a fireworks show with the Franconia ridgeline in the background, my favorite view ever. I didn't feel too good due to the dehydration but the next morning I was back to normal and headed out in search of a cascade and a balancing boulder.

There were numerous cascades, none of them large by any means but they were gorgeous and I spent a solid hour and a half exploring the area. Aside from the falls there were also numerous boulder caves, none of which were easy to get to but the wet rocks from last night's rain didn't help matters any. The balancing rock itself was far more impressive than I'd expected. This is hands down one of the coolest places I've visited, on trail or off.

For the afternoon we hiked out to Bridal Veil Falls which we had tried to do years ago but never made it so this was our first time checking out the falls. They were much more spectacular than I'd expected and despite being the very end of June the brook was raging. I also tried out my brand new hiking gaiters that arrived in the mail the day before we left. I've always had issues with getting half the forest stuck in my shoes which isn't the most comfortable and I just learned about hiking gaiters. They work! They really work. I love these things. Not a single stick, pebble, pine needle or leaf in my shoes. It's a dream come true.

Bridal Veil Falls was the main attraction but thousands of people see it every year, what I was really looking for was the abandoned Holden Falls. It surprisingly wasn't hard to find and was much bigger than I'd expected and bigger than it looks in photographs.

After over 12 miles of hiking and getting wet in waterfalls, I was done for the day. My body was a little sore the next day but I never let that stop me. So early the next morning I put on my water shoes and headed up the river behind the hotel in search of Boyce Brook. I had no idea what to expect, all I could find out about the brook was that it was once home to the Lincoln reservoir. The stream was extremely cold and difficult to cross due to its temperature and high water level but I made it to the tributary brook and followed it up. There were no cascades but I did find the abandoned reservoir which had a ten foot man made fall at its outlet, which for some reason reeked of sulfur.

After checking out of the hotel I followed a brook near Artists Bluff. The falls along the brook were nice but nothing too impressive, really no different from any other random brook in the Whites.

What really stole the show here was a cave beneath some of the enormous boulders that have fallen from the mountainside and are resting against one another.

From there we headed over to Crawford Notch before the rain hit where I searched for a couple of brooks that show up on maps. Where they do not show up however is in real life. Unfortunately it took over a mile of bushwhacking to find out the brooks do not exist except maybe during spring melt-off but the two dry brook beds showed no signs of having any water in them any time recently. Jaime picked me up down the road so I wouldn't have to bushwhack all the way back to the car, I love our walkie talkies. We ate in North Conway at a burger place which was delicious. We did a little shopping as the rain hit and ended up driving home in it the entire way. But it was worth it for an amazing weekend.

BLOG - Final Acadia Trip For Book One

Today I needed one final trip to Acadia in order to finish up the first book, with a few new locations thrown in there for the second one currently in the works. A couple chapters needed some more details and better pictures so we set out today to finish it up. My first stop was a ledge above the Loop Road which had a spectacular view over Bar Harbor and the Porcupine Islands. It will be appearing in book two.

 The first destination from Book One I needed to finish was Railway River Falls. I've followed them up quite a ways but wanted to go up further to the Cadillac auto road and make sure I wasn't missing anything. We weren't sure if there'd be any water but it must have rained last night because the rivers were raging. We drove up Cadillac Mountain and at about the halfway point we entered complete cloud cover so driving was a bit terrifying. I followed the Railway River up further than I'd been before and found this neat cascade where two streams meet up.

 I followed the left brook shortly past the auto road but it split up again so I stopped at a small gorge which would have a really nice little cascade if there were more water. On my way back down I followed the brook on the right and again found some cool but small cascades.

 I decided to go further down to the highest in the series of waterfalls on Railway River to check it out with more water in it than I'd ever seen. It was beautiful and worth the extra steps. I can't wait to visit this one after a few inches of rain.

 This was Jaime's view from the car while I was out exploring. We'd first seen this seasonal run-off about ten years ago but I never knew how many amazing waterfalls stemmed from this sometimes-there-sometimes-not brook beside the road.

 Next I needed to make a return trip to McFarland Mountain to get some pictures from the old ski slopes. I followed the abandoned ski trail to the top and then cut across to the actual summit I'd visited last fall.

 From there I followed the abandoned trail to Youngs Mountain. I took a different approach last year which was rather difficult and hard to find so I wanted to try another route. Despite the higher summits being cloaked in clouds, the view was excellent. The horseflies here were awful, I killed between 20 and thirty of them, sometimes two at once they were in such close proximity to each other. I really should have brought the bug zapper.

 At 3.5 miles round trip, this is easily one of if not the longest hike in Book One. Back on McFarland Mountain, the nearby peaks to the west were in the clouds.

 

The South Slope Slide on Champlain Mountain, a location I stumbled upon a couple years ago, has got to be the most difficult and dangerous in the entire book. So when I realized I had to go back in order to get pictures, I wasn't looking forward to it. Today was the day. So I headed up the rock slide and carefully walked along the top of the cliff in search of the second story rock slide but couldn't find it. When going over my gps tracks, it turns out I was 80 feet away but had decided to turn around because I can't in good conscience lead people up to this dangerous place. So it looks like that one is getting scrapped from the book. Here's the view coming down the main rock slide which is impressive in itself.

 I searched around the area, hoping for a nearby ledge that could replace the South Slope Slide but didn't find anything. The only ledge I found had too many trees that blocked most of the view so I decided to try a nearby spot I had seen on the map. On the slope of Enoch Mountain which is already in the book, there appeared to be some rather flat rock slabs that stretched on for a couple hundred feet. After following traces of an old trail I reached them but the mosquitoes were too horrendous to really enjoy it. I got a few pictures and ran but this spot will probably make it into one of the books.

After over 7 miles, most of it on extremely steep terrain and battling bugs for most of it, it was time to call it a day. But that should be everything I need to finish up the first book which is nearly complete and ready to be released. On the way home we stopped at Blueberry Hill for some ice cream which was exciting because we swore they had closed for the day by the time we drove by.

BLOG - Revisiting Some Acadia Destinations

I wanted to go check out a bunch of new prospects for The Acadia You Haven't Seen Volume II that I've been researching but first things first, need to finish book number one. So instead I went back to revisit some of the destinations in the first book that needed better pictures or more precise directions. The day was overcast and pretty cold. First I found a new ledge on the Whitecap with a better view than the actual summit.

Next I had to find a safer way up a small trailless summit once known as East Knob. I also needed some better pictures as the day I first did it was a bit overcast but today was no different, but at least I have more pictures to choose from, plus Jaime and I found another summit with a slightly different viewpoint. We also met a couple deer along the way.

 

 Next on the agenda was trying to get to the bottom of Otter Cliff, and no, that was an epic fail. Even at low tide it isn't reachable without climbing gear but along the way I did find an interesting little pocket beach with an overhanging ledge only reachable at low tide. That worked out perfectly because I had to eliminate another beach I'd found last year when I recently discovered a sea cave beside it which is going in the second edition.

When I finally made it to the Champlain Ridge Swamp last fall, I was in a hurry and didn't get to fully explore the area. On top of that, the swamp was completely dried up. So I went back and ended up finding the old abandoned trail that leads right by it which turned out to be a tad bit easier than the thick bushwhack I did to get there last year.

From there I continued along the abandoned trail which looked awfully familiar. It was the same trail I'd stumbled upon two summers ago when I was bushwhacking up Champlain Mountain.

Rather than try to follow the hard to find trail back down, I took the Ridge Trail back to The Bowl which I thought would be a shortcut but it was still 0.8 mile. The battery on my GPS died earlier in the day so I went a little old school on this hike. I did find another abandoned trail I was looking for on my way down but didn't have time to explore it.

The stream that drains Kief Pond was running stronger than usual so I checked that out but there was nothing too interesting. However, when I left the stream I did find an interesting boulder that had a small cave underneath it. Unfortunately I didn't have my flashlight on me so I had to use the light on my walkie talkie and the flash on my camera. It was pretty neat though and might require some more exploration.

The last stop of the day was a spot along the coast I had noticed from across the way where the waves always seem to crash extra hard. The area was a little tricky getting down to due not only to the rock cliffs but the patches of poison ivy as well. It turned out to be nothing too spectacular but there was a cool boulder cave right off the shore.

So even though I didn't get to go exploring all new areas, I still managed to find some new things. And that about wraps up The Acadia You Haven't Seen, although I think I need to go back one more time to replace some pictures for South Slope Slide and get a better trail description for Youngs Mountain. Until then I'll be working hard on the finishing touches for book one.