With a late morning start, I headed over to the northwest side of Mt. Moosilauke for a hike up to the Little Tunnel Ravine viewpoint on the Benton Trail, followed by an impromptu bushwhack into the small ravine to the west of the trail.
I was pleased to find the gate on Tunnel Brook Road open and was able to drive in to the gated logging road that leads southward along the east side of the Tunnel Brook valley. A 2.4 mile walk up this road brought me to the Benton Trail. Though longer than the approach via Tunnel Brook Trail, it avoided what would have been a difficult crossing of Tunnel Brook near the start of the Benton Trail.
Little Tunnel Brook, from the bridge on the logging road.
Turning onto the Benton Trail where it crosses the logging road.
Nice hardwood forest along the lower Benton Trail.
Sadly, many trees are marked by the USFS for future logging very close to the trail.
This magnificent maple won't be cut, as it's above the boundary of the logging cut.
The Little Tunnel Ravine outlook is 1.3 miles up the Benton Trail, and 3.5 miles from where I parked by the start of the logging road.
Spruces are intruding on the view into the ravine, but it is still a wild and beautiful scene.
This ice-coated slab appears to be part of an old slide on the east wall of the ravine. At its base are some of the fabled Nine Cascades, which you can hear while standing at the outlook.
The outlook offers a fine view north to the Kinsmans, with Mt. Cabot and the Pilots in the distance.
A massive blowdown on the nearby ridge to the northeast.
After descending back into the hardwoods on the Benton Trail, on the spur of the moment I embarked on a bushwhack, heading south up the west side of the ridge ascended by the trail.
I meandered upward through some nice open hardwood glades.
Continuing up through mostly open conifers, I stumbled upon an old logging road running up the east side of the small ravine between Little Tunnel Ravine and Tunnel Ravine. This was likely a skid road used by the Fall Mountain Paper Company in the early 1900s when they did extensive cutting in the Tunnel Brook area. The logs cut up here were sledded down to the Wild Ammonoosuc River and then driven down the river, eventually reaching the Connecticut River. I followed this surprisingly open road up to 2900 ft....
...and then back down more than half a mile to where it meets the Benton Trail.
This looked like a chaga tree, just above the Benton Trail.
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