South Side of Mount Whiteface: 10/18/24

The south side of the Sandwich Range beckons in mid-October, as foliage tends to hang on later here than it does up in the central and northern Whites. I always enjoy the McCrillis Trail - the quiet route to Mount Whiteface - at this time of year. The lower couple of miles of the trail slip through a golden hardwood forest. The plan for this hike was the go about 3 1/2 miles up on the Flat Mountain Pond Trail/McCrillis Trail route, then drop off-trail into the ravine of White Brook and look for any signs of the great 1820 slide that fell off the south side of Whiteface. From there I would bushwhack back up to the trail and enjoy the views from various ledges around the 3200-ft. level.

Whenever I start a hike at the trailhead on Whiteface Intervale Road, I take a short walk out to the fields for the classic view of Mount Whiteface. The Blueberry Ledge Trail ascends the humpy ridge to the right. The McCrillis Trail ascends through the broad hardwood area on the left and continues up the narrower spruce ridge above.

 

The Flat Mountain Pond Trail starts out on a gravel road. A half-mile in a short side path leads to a beautiful view across a wetland to the southern Flat Mountain and distant Sandwich Dome.

Shh...

There are several turns on the gentle lower part of the trail, well-marked with signs.

A 3/4 mile section runs along a hemlock-wooded bluff above the Whiteface River. The first 1 1/2 miles of the trail are on private land protected by conservation easement.

With low water, the crossing of Whiteface River was pretty easy this day.

Into the Wilderness.

Turning onto McCrillis Trail at 1.7 miles. McCrillis is one of the older trails in the Whites. It was opened in the 1850s by the McCrillis family, who owned a farm in Whiteface Intervale and took in boarders. In his 1876 White Mountains guidebook, Moses Sweetser deemed it "somewhat difficult" and noted that it was very obscure in places. It receives little use these days; the vast majority of Whiteface hikers go up the shorter and more spectacular Blueberry Ledge Trail.

If you like forest solitude, this is your kind of path. For the next two miles the McCrillis Trail ascends at easy to moderate grades through a vast leafy forest - one of the finest "forever wild" hardwood walks in the Whites.

 

There are some large sugar maples in these woods.

Canopy color.

Near the top of the hardwoods I headed off-trail towards the ravine of White Brook.

Before long I was into the spruces.

There's a lot of blowdown on this slope, making for slow going.

One benefit of the blowdown was a unique view up to the south cliff of Whiteface, towering above.

This huge slab gave Mt. Whiteface its name. It reportedly was exposed by a great slide during a rainstorm in October, 1820. However, the name predates that slide, appearing in Sandwich town records as early as 1781, in Jeremy Belknap's 1784 journal, and on Philip Carrigain's 1816 map. So even before the 1820 slide there must have been a bare rock face on the mountain’s south side, perhaps the result of an earlier slide.

 

 

This moss-covered trunk was the biggest single blowdown I encountered.

 

For most of its length, White Brook - which served as the track of the 1820 slide - is tucked into a narrow, sharply cut ravine. A bit of crab-walking was required to get down this slope to the floor of the ravine.

There was no water flow here, but the track of the old slide was obvious, looking down...

...and up. In 1842, New Hampshire state geologist Charles T. Jackson and his survey team stayed at the house of Neal McCrillis in the Whiteface Intervale and ascended Mt. Whiteface via this ravine. "The principal ravine is the most convenient route to this summit," wrote Jackson in his 1844 report. "It is a gorge, from 30 to 50 feet deep, with abrupt precipitous sides of rocky soil, while the bottom is a confused heap of rounded and angular blocks of granite, sineite, quartz, felspar and trap rocks, which were hurled down the declivity by the great slide, which took place here many years ago." Jackson and his crew found it easy "to wade up this brook nearly to its sources." From there they left the ravine and battled their way to the summit through dense forest and rough, rocky terrain. I thought it was pretty neat to be following in their footsteps, if only for a very short distance.

There was one specific spot I wanted to visit down in the ravine - a tiny open gravel slope that is visible on recent satellite images. An adjacent second gravel slope can be seen on aerial images from the 1990s and earlier. Perhaps these are the last non-vegetated remnants from the scouring of the 1820 slide. During their sojourn in Whiteface Intervale, Jackson and his team were regaled with the story of the slide by their host, Neal McCrillis. After a dry spell, there were heavy rains for several days. “The slide took place in October, 1820,” wrote Jackson in his report, “with prodigious violence and great noise.“ The stream on the south side of the mountain was dammed up, briefly forming a pond. The raging watercourse then burst its barrier, “sweeping in its impetuous course rocks and trees in promiscuous confusion, and cutting a deep ravine in the side of the mountain several miles in extent.” The slide struck the side of a barn in the Intervale, but the animals within escaped unharmed. The meadows of the Intervale were covered with an enriching fine sediment, in places four or five feet deep.

 

The first gravel slope was indeed very small.

The second gravel slope was a bit larger, and sported some nice aspen foliage. No views from either spot.

I re-crossed the slide track below my previous crossing point. A little water was trickling here.

The climb out of the ravine was, of course, steep.

From here I headed up the slope, aiming to rejoin the McCrillis Trail several hundred feet in elevation higher than where I left it. Blowdown rules on this slope.

Lots of weaving needed to pass through this mess.

Higher up, there was a stretch of beautiful open spruce forest.

Then some rough terrain. It took quite a while to get across the slope to the trail.

After reaching the trail at 3000 ft., I headed up the ridge to the second of two ledges on the right that offer views up to the "white face" and the upper part of the ridge followed by the Blueberry Ledge Trail.

A great angle on the big slab.

A good view to the SE here also, with the Ossipee Range in the distance on the right.

 I went back down the ridge a short distance and made a short but thick and gnarly bushwhack down to ledges at the edge of a precipitous drop on the west side of the ridge. A nice SW view here to Sandwich Dome, the southern Flat Mountain and Mount Israel. With the day's excellent visibility Mount Monadnock was easily spotted on the horizon.

 

I dropped down a little farther to a wild rocky jumble laced with dangerous crevices.

 

This crack looked to be about twenty feet deep. Beware!

An unusual view here down into the trailless valley of the East Branch of Whiteface River. 

 

And up to the valley headwall, with the West Spur of Whiteface behind.

Looking out towards the Lakes Region.

Descending McCrillis Trail alongside a big boulder.

The trail is steep and wild up here in the spruce forest.

Last golden light down in the hardwoods.

A near full moon over the fields of Whiteface Intervale.