A late fall visit to a favorite backcountry pond. Turned back on an attempted bushwhack to a ledge on a spur of Scar Ridge.
Easy walkin' on the Little East Pond Trail, following the grade of the Woodstock & Thornton Gore Railroad (1909-1914).
View through the trees from the site of a logging camp by Clear Brook.
Part of a gravity-fed water supply that served the camp.
Looks like a hitch of some kind.
A piece of leftover rail beside the trail.
Thanks to the abundant late fall rain, the water level of Little East Pond was way up from the summer.
I hoped to bushwhack to a potential view ledge on a spur of Scar Ridge, northwest of the pond. After crossing Little East Pond Brook, I found decent woods for a ways.
Birch graveyard. Beyond here the woods quickly "went downhill" with dense conifers and blowdowns.
To get to the ridge with the ledge, it would be necessary to cross a broad, deep drainage. Going into the drainage, the woods looked like this as far as I could see. I started down, but the footing was treacherous and I could not see under the neck-high small conifers.
I do a lot of solo bushwhacking, but these woods spooked me, and the climb beyond to the cliff looked dauntingly steep.Scar Ridge was living up to its gnarly reputation. Time to head back to the pond.
Back at the pond, my consolation whack was a circuit through the woods behind the shore. This was slow going through very dense woods with copious blowdown.
Peering out from an inlet brook.
Looking up through the trees at Middle Scar Ridge.
A rare spot of sun on a gray afternoon.
View from the north shore, looking across to where the trail emerges.
An old, moss-grown beaver lodge.
Nasty!
I stumbled upon this large metal artifact on the NE shore.
It might be some kind of stove base or back. I poked around the nearby woods and didn't find any other artifacts, but it's possible that there was a temporary logging camp somewhere up on the flat floor of this basin.
View across to Scar Ridge from a hard-earned break on the pond's lone sitting rock.
On the way down I bushwhacked partway alongside Little East Pond Brook, which was in good flow this day. No real cascades, but attractive nonetheless.
I've read a lot of your posts. You have inspired me to do hikes I had not heard of until I read about your adventures. This is not one of them! That bushwacking looked painful on the ankles and painful to any exposed skin. My first thought after reading this was, I hope Steve is okay.My second thought was, I'll just stick to the pond.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Nick! It didn't take long to decide that the whack up to the ledge was a little too sketchy, especially with the short days of November. The trip around the pond was a bit painful, but a lot shorter!
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