| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Cave Mountain, Oak Ridge, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Mt. Langdon Trail, Cave Mountain Path, bushwhack |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Saturday, January 4, 2020 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Part of them larkinf area was plowed. Enough room for maybe a half dozen cars parked around there. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow - Trace/Minimal Depth, Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Wet/Sticky, Slush |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes, Light Traction |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
The Mount Langdon Trail crosses a small brook twice around a mile in. A very short rock hop. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Unfortunately my memory is rather foggy as I did this hike 3 days ago but I don’t recall any blowdowns. I may be mixing some of them in with the hike I did Sunday though. I do however recall some rather humorous blazing... I saw at least 3 different colors of blaze on the Mount Langdon Trail: blue, yellow, and what looked orange but I’m guessing is really a faded red. Oddly enough, it didn’t look like they had reblazed in a new color and not just done away with the old colors either because they all looked old and faded 😂 The blazing wasn’t particularly frequent either but the trail was still easy to follow although I was following bootprints which probably obscured my judgement. The blazing isn’t likely to get redone as most of the trail is in a wilderness area. Not a whole lot of blue blaze on the Cave Mtn Path. The red blazed spur, while blazed often enough once upon a time, is so old that they blazes are very difficult to spot. I followed a track off trail trying to get up to the ledges but it was too steep to ascend that way. I retraced my steps a little ways and eventually found an extraordinarily faded red/orange blaze. From there I looked around for another one and very carefully looked at hints of what direction the trail seemed to be. This worked and I kept finding the occasional blaze which led me to the lookout. The basic route is from the top of boulder caves you go right a little bit up hill, then bear left, still uphill but at a bit of a different angle, and eventually turn left again to the ledges on top. It you can’t find it just turn around and look VERY carefully for blaze. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Dogs would have probably been except for maybe on the Cave Mtn Path where there’s some steep stuff.
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 | Bugs: |
None. |
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 | Lost and Found: |
None |
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 | Comments: |
A nice little Saturday redline before a bigger hike on Sunday to redline Cave Mtn Path and finish redlining the Mount Langdon Trail. I also bushwhacks a tenth of a mile from the lookout in open woods at nice grades to the true summit of Cave Mtn. It didn’t appear to be recognized. There was some red blaze on some trees (not far from the summit) that I noticed on my bushwhack that I’m guessing marked the wilderness boundary.
With the new snow from Monday/Tuesday and thinking that this would not be a well travelled trail in winter, I figured that I would be breaking trail the entire way. I was wrong. The trail was broken and pretty much boot packed at the beginning. I was also surprised to find that the snow was soft and wet unlike on my hike near Moosilauke on Wednesday where it was pure powder. Oh well. I didn’t use snowshoes although they would have been the proper choice on my very short bushwhack. The trail isn’t very rocky so even with the minimal snow depth you could have worn them but you would have banged then up near the small water crossings. Both myself and the other person I met out there just chose to sink an inch or two in the soft snow.
I did throw on spikes on my way down the Cave Mtn Path because I was slipping and sliding so much in the nasty snow slush. Not sure they really helped but that section was short. You didn’t slip and slide so much elsewhere as it was more packed and less steep than this part of the Cave Mtn Path. So while some may prefer snowshoes and/or microspikes on this hike they really weren’t necessary as of Saturday. Although I considered continuing on to the summit of Langdon (I missed the 35yd bushwhack a couple months ago when I redlined the Mt Stanton Trail) I opted not to and just turned around at Mount Langdon trail’s jct with Mt Parker Trail. |
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 | Name: |
Liam Cooney |
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 | E-Mail: |
liamcooney96@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2020-01-07 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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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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