| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Castle Mountain - West Peak, Sugarloaf, Castle Mountain, Notch Mountain, Gore Mountain, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Brown Road, snowmobile trails, logging roads, bushwhacks, Sugarloaf Mountain Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Friday, January 2, 2015 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Parked at the entrance to the quarry on Brown Road. It appears (based upon this year and scouting last year) that the road is plowed another half mile to another house, but it was super icy beyond this point (barebooting resulted in walking like Ted Kennedy at closing time). With chains, one could drive all the way to the camps with current snow depths. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Ice - Blue, Snow - Unpacked Powder |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes, Light Traction |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Minor and generally frozen over |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
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 | Bugs: |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
Initial Brown Road walk had about 2-3" of fresh overnight powder on top of ice. Like Savage, little to snowpack prior to the overnight powder in the lower elevations.
Continuing beyond the camps through a recently logged area to the gate at the snowmobile trail, we turned left and headed northeast on the snowmobile/logging road. Where the road starting to go north, we hopped into the woods with snowshoes and bushwhacked up to West Castle. So so woods as we may have been a tad bit too south (there is a very old logging road that helps ascend, but it would have been filled with snowloaded spruce). Snowpack was 6-12" of hardpack (generally no sinking with snowshoes) with half an inch to two inches of fresh powder on top.
From West Castle, we headed northeast toward Castle, initially in some pretty crappy woods. Things opened up once we climbed out of the col. Snowpack also started to increase to 1-2 feet. We skirted Castle initially, but gained the ridge perhaps around 3,550 feet and had pretty good going all the way to Sugarloaf, staying a little northeast of the col and hitting the trail (no recent non-moose traffic, as expected with Nash Stream Road closed for the winter) maybe a tenth of a mile below the summit. Snow flurries limited the views, but we still had looks at the Percy Peaks, Savage, and the wind farm eyesore.
We then retraced our tracks and continued to the summit of Castle (no sign of a canister), then descended in so so woods toward Notch. Okay woods headed over Notch (no views, but I suspect one could poke around for some looks at adjacent peaks), and down to the col in so so woods. Nice open col. Above there, horribly thick spruce. In hindsight, we may have looked to descend below the col to the north, shoot across one of the old logging roads, then climb Gore from the northwest. But, from the south, the woods we had were thick spruce with some blowdown. Slow going.
From Gore, it was a pretty quick drop to the northwest, skirting occasional spruce and generally staying in decent woods until we finally made it to the long chain of logging roads (on the north side of Gore Branch) back out to Brown Road. Initially pretty good snow depths, but as we neared Brown Road, it became much the same of minimal base with 2-3 inches on top. |
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 | Name: |
rocket21 |
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 | E-Mail: |
rocket21@franklinwebpublishing.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2015-01-02 |
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 | Link: |
 https://www.franklinsites.com/hikephotos |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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