TIMBER CAMP TRAIL: 12/16/10

I decided to take an afternoon off and head down to Waterville Valley for a hike up the Timber Camp Trail, which has an interesting viewpoint looking east to the Tripyramids and Mt. Kancamagus. The morning was partly sunny, but by the time I got to the Livermore trailhead, fuzzy flurries had moved in and they persisted the rest of the day. Mine was the only car in the large parking lot. Pretty lonely out here midweek in mid-December.

Alongside the Greeley Ponds Trail, the Mad River was flowing heartily a few days after the big rain.


The Timber Camp Trail leaves L 1.4 miles from the parking area.


This trail follows a well-built logging road up into the valley of Greeley Brook, on the SE side of East Osceola. This basin is laced with logging roads that were put through to salvage timber after a hurricane devastated the area, perhaps in 1950. The trail climbs at easy to at most moderate grades. It was originally opened as an X-C trail and is also great for snowshoeing or summer hiking.

At 0.6 mile from Greeley Ponds Trail you bear L at a fork.

In another 0.6 mile, at elevation 2400 ft., the trail comes to a big open bank of gravel and runs along its base.

By clambering up to the top of the bank you gain an unusual and interesting view east to the SW ridge of Mt. Kancamagus, Flume Peak, and the Tripyramids. Unfortunately flurries blotted out the Tripyramids part of the vista.


Here's the view on a cold, clear winter day, with the top of Tripyramid's North Slide visible above Flume Peak. Scaur Peak is to the L.

There's also a look NE to the cliffs on the western face of Mt. Kancamagus.

Again, the view on a better day. The "K1" Cliff is on the R, the "K2 Cliff" on the L. Around 1910 Watervillians blazed rough trails to both of these cliffs. They must have been really rough, and didn't last long. A few years ago I tried to get down from the ridge to the top of K1 on snowshoes, but it was too steep and dicey to get out on the open rock. I did manage to work down and around to a remarkable rock jutting from the forest just below the talus slope that lies under the K1 Cliff. I dubbed this rock "The Beak" for its appearance when viewed from this spot on the Timber Camp Trail. It had quite a view of the entire E face of Osceola.

From the gravel bank the Timber Camp Trail continues another 0.3 mile up the valley; here you can see the Greeley Brook headwall ahead. This part of the trail is very wet in places and there was quite a bit of ice under a dusting of snow. (Up to the gravel bank the trail was dry with good footing and virtually no ice.)

The maintained trail ends in a stony clearing near the site of "High Camp." From here you get a dramatic look up at the Painted Cliff on a spur of East Osceola.

A zoom on the cliff, which is a hollowed-out scoop in the mountainside. According to Nathaniel Goodrich in his 1952 book, The Waterville Valley, his brother and friends blazed a "Nature Trail" up towards these cliffs and back down towards the Mad River. But shortly thereafter the path was obliterated by the 1938 hurricane.

Years ago two friends and I snowshoe-whacked up to the talus slope at the base of the cliff. The closeup of the cliff was impressive, and the view out to the E was expansive. The whack was quite thick in places and our route took us through some scary terrain with huge boulders and deep holes.

A rusting barrel lying in the woods near trail's end.

From here I followed an unofficial trail farther up the valley, then explored along an assortment of paths and old tote roads, finding two framed views of the Painted Cliff from different angles. This side view shows how steep and even concave the rock face is.

A particularly wild-looking angle with the talus slope, the scooped-out rock and the spiky ridge above all revealed.

Back down near High Camp, some kind of filter [?] along the trail. Another interesting area to explore around Waterville.

WHITEHOUSE BROOK: 12/10/10

A short hike and bushwhack on a cold morning to an open ledge slab on Whitehouse Brook, discovered last year by bushwhacking buddy John Compton. I'd visited this spot in November and wanted to see it again under a blanket of snow and ice.

I started at the Liberty Spring parking area on the Whitehouse Trail.


A look at the Pemi River along the bike path portion of Whitehouse Trail.


I turned L on the Cascade Brook Trail, went through the underpasses below I-93, and on the far side came to this view of Mt. Liberty rising above the river.

First tracks on Cascade Brook Trail in about 4" of dry, slippery powder.

The cascade just below the crossing of Whitehouse Brook had already become an icefall.

I whacked up through the woods on the south side of Whitehouse Brook. This proved to be a more difficult approach to the ledge slab than the northern approach I had used in November. There was some steep terrain, compounded by the slick snow and a maze of boulders and small brookbeds. Eventually I did circle down to the edge of the slab and a partial view of Mt. Flume and Mt. Liberty.

The craggy crest of Flume, peering over the south ridge of Liberty.



The distinctive summit of Liberty.


Whitehouse Brook just above the ledge slab.


The original plan was to continue farther up along the brook, but pushing on through the snow-laden conifers fringing the ravine, and negotiating the slippery footing, had little appeal. So I climbed up out of the ravine and into the hardwoods, and whacked back down to the trail through the open forest.

THE SCAUR & FLUME BROOK: 12/7/10

Continuing on a recent Waterville Valley theme, I returned to the Livermore trailhead for an afternoon hike to the ledgy nubble of The Scaur, one of our short hike favorites, with a plan to bushwhack down to Flume Brook and look for an old splash dam from river driving days.

The snowy ledges of The Scaur can be spotted as you approach the Depot Camp clearing a short way in on the Livermore Trail.


I made a short side trip to check out the confluence of Avalanche Brook and the Mad River.


I rarely pass by "The Boulder" set in the middle of Avalanche Brook without scooting over for a quick look.

The longer but easier route to The Scaur uses the delightful Kettles Path and the upper part of the Scaur Trail. These are very old trails, having been laid out in the late 1880s/early 1890s by summer Watervillian Arthur L. Goodrich.


The three Kettles - deep wooded bowls in the forest floor left behind when ice chunks from the receding glacier melted away - are more easily viewed with the leaves down.


I had first tracks in just an inch of snow on these pleasant trails.

The Scaur Trail wraps around the base of The Scaur, revealing some of its rocky architecture.

The upper part of the trail climbs steeply through conifers. The light snow cover was slippery, but there was only one small icy patch on the trail.

A small tree provided a convenient handhold for the scramble up a ledgy slot near the top.

Persistent snow showers fuzzed out the higher peaks in the wide southerly view at the top, but I could still see down into the valley and across to Snows Mountain.

Middle and South Tripyramid and West Sleeper were ghost mountains to the SE.

The snow guns were cranking over on Mt. Tecumseh.

The bushwhack from the Scaur Trail down to the Flume Brook Trail started out in open hardwoods.


(A lost trails note: A.L. Goodrich's 1915 map of Waterville Valley showed a "Scaur to Flume" trail leading east along the ridge from The Scaur, with an outlook and a cave shown en route. I've whacked along this ridge a couple of times, and found a hard-to-get to ledge on the northern side with a view down Flume Brook valley to the Osceolas. Have not seen the cave.)

Heading down towards the brook the whack became entangled with hobblebush.


The rest of the descent was rather miserable with dense small conifers mixed with hobblebush. This is where I emerged on the Flume Brook Trail.

I went upstream and spotted the remains of the old splash dam from the trail, not far below the merge of Flume Brook with Kancamagus Brook. This was one of the uppermost of a series of dams used to store and then release water for pulpwood drives down the Mad River, from the early 1900s to the early 1930s. According to Bill Gove's Logging Railroads Along the Pemigewasset River, the river drives always consisted of pulpwood cut into four-foot lengths; large full-length logs were not sent down the rocky Mad River.

Looking upstream past the top beams of the dam.


Lying across the main dam supports is a big axle with large gear wheels on either end.

A heavy-duty chain is wrapped around the axle.


Perhaps this mechanism was used to open the gate of the dam?

Spikes protruding from one of the support beams.

These gear wheels are just off the trail; I had never seen these on numerous previous trips along this trail. Definitely easier to spot with the leaves down and thin snow cover.

On the way out I made the short bushwhack to look at the small but pretty Towle's Fall, still in full flow.

A leisurely walk back along the Mad River on Greeley Ponds Trail completed a nice afternoon outing.