| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Firescrew, NH |
|
 | Trails: |
Manning Trail, Mowglis Trail, Elwell Trail, Back 80 Trail |
|
 | Date of Hike: |
Monday, January 28, 2019 |
|
 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Plenty of parking at the AMC Cardigan Lodge -- we were the only car there in the morning, and upon leaving, there were all of two additional vehicles there. Shem Valley Road is in good shape, too, for passenger cars. |
|
 | Surface Conditions: |
Ice - Blue, Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Drifts |
|
 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes |
|
 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Not an issue, although the rain and warm temperatures from last week blew out any snow bridges, meaning that some crossings require a downclimb to cross and then a climb-out to get back on the trail. |
|
 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Large recent blowdown on Back 80 Trail about 0.15 miles west from intersection with Back 80 Loop (cellar hole). It can easily be walked around. |
|
 | Dog-Related Notes: |
|
|
 | Bugs: |
|
|
 | Lost and Found: |
|
|
|
|
|
 | Comments: |
Great -- if very cold -- day to explore some of the lesser-trod trails around Cardigan.
Also, nice and quiet; we had the entire place to ourselves for the day.
We went up the Manning Trail to Firescrew; decent, well-tracked conditions to the ledges below the summit, where the plate ice under the fresh powder, and large areas of blue ice, make route-finding a bit more interesting. This is to be expected given the warm-up and rain from a few days ago; we've been up this way in some winters with no snow and nothing but a sea of blue ice.
On the Firescrew ledges, there's enough snow in spots to avoid the ice and stay in snowshoes. We had considered heading on to Cardigan, based on a report from a day earlier, but there's enough glaze ice and blue ice in spots that it just wouldn't be that much fun without traction -- and we wanted snow. So, we headed in the opposite direction, down the Mowglis Trail, toward the shelter and the Elwell Trail.
And, we got our snow -- about 2 and sometimes 3 or more feet of it, unbroken (powder atop an inch-thick ice crust atop more powder), all the way to the intersection with the Elwell Trail. There, the snow depth decreased a bit, and we found a single set of days-old snowshoe tracks, which we followed all the way to the Back 80 Trail. Trail was still mostly unbroken until the cellar hole junction with the Back 80 Loop, where there was a decent track under a few inches of fresh powder.
The beaver ponds along the Back 80 Trail are beautiful -- small, snow-covered openings. |
|
 | Name: |
Pancks and Tesco Heaney |
|
 | E-Mail: |
|
|
| Date Submitted: |
2019-01-29 |
|
 | Link: |
 https:// |
|
|
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. |
|
