Hedgehog East Ledges & Beyond: 1/7/20

A snowshoe trek to the East Ledges of Hedgehog Mountain, a longtime favorite objective, followed by a bushwhack down through the Oliverian Brook basin to the Passaconaway Cutoff. Returned via the Cutoff, Oliverian Brook Trail and a road walk along the Kanc. By chance, down in the valley I made an interesting discovery.

White Brook, a small stream on the NE flank of Hedgehog, was buried in snow where the UNH Trail crosses it.

Into the spruces.

View NE to Bear Mountain, Table Mountain, Big Attitash and North Moat.

Excellent 'shoeing through wintry woods.

Coming up on the East Ledges.

The Moats beyond Albany Intervale.

The Three Sisters and Mt. Chocorua.

"Resembling a breaking wave," wrote naturalist Frank Bolles in his 1893 classic, "At the North of Bercamp Water."

Looking south to Paugus Pass over the expansive Oliverian Brook valley.

The iconic Hedgehog view of Mt. Passaconaway and its eastern spurs - Nanamocomcuk Peak, Wonalancet Hedgehog and Square Ledge.

Commanding.

Westward, a ghostly glimpse of the Sleepers and South Tripyramid.

A feathered friend stopped here for a drink.

The spruce-clad crown of Hedgehog.

The full spread of the mighty Passaconaway.

Beyond the East Ledges, I dropped south off-trail into the Sandwich Range Wilderness. The foot of heavy powder provided good conditions for descending.

Great chunks of stone were strewn through the forest.

Trekking poles for scale.

Weaving a route.

"Valley of the Erratics."

Squared-off.

Nice woods.

A big old maple.

Expansive hemlock forest.

Hobblebush and meandering streams made for slower progress on the flat floor of the valley.

I stumbled upon a small clearing that turned out to be a logging camp site I had unsuccessfully searched for a couple of times in recent years.

This was a camp of the Conway Lumber Company's Swift River Railroad (1906-1916), one of seven in the Oliverian Brook valley, according to Bill Gove's "Logging Railroads of the Saco River Valley." As always, a reminder that logging artifacts should always be left as they are found; it is illegal to remove them from the WMNF.

The map in Gove's book, shows a "Lambert Camp" in this neighborhood. On the other hand, in "Albany's Recollections," by A. Bernard Perry, there is a photo of a large camp building with a dozen men in front with the caption, "St. Clair's camp on small pond between Passaconaway and Hedgehog Mts." I have visited that "small pond," now a beaver wetland holding little water, a number of times, and was headed there today. This camp is a good distance from the wetland.

I brushed the snow off the front of this partly buried stove, revealing some artful detailing.

This tributary of the West Branch of Oliverian Brook must have been the camp's water source.

Hemlock heaven.

Looking across the beaver wetland to Hedgehog's summit (L) and the East Ledges (R).

East Ledges.

Passaconaway looms large from the other side of the wetland. In 1884, AMC tramper Alford A. Butler hailed the mountain as “a perfect forest-mantled cone, the most symmetrical mountain in the landscape, a veritable sonnet in stone.”

On the left is the top of the East Slide, which fell during the Hurricane of 1938. On the right is the spur that bears the fabulous north outlook.

At least one bear is still out and about.

A familar trail junction on the way out.