Baldface Circle Trail 1/1/11

"Snow shoes, what snow shoes?" (pictures)

Very excited for our first winter hike in the Whites and first hike of the year, we were all ready to go New Years morning! I hadn't yet decided what to hike and we agreed upon Eagle Crag next to the Baldfaces. This was a favorite spot and a relatively pleasant winter hike. We parked on the road behind another car at the trail head and geared up at 9am. The snow didn't look all that bad, mostly melted and Scott decided to leave the snow shoes behind. I was a little bummed as I finally had snow shoes and wanted to use them, but I wasn't going to carry them if I didn't need them! In the back of my mind however I knew the Northern branch of the Baldface Circle Trail would most likely not be packed out.

We began our hike on a packed out trail and unseasonably warm weather. The jackets and gloves soon came off as we enjoyed the gentle walk. At the Emerald Pool junction the beaten path went left headed towards South Baldface and a lone pair of snowshoe tracks continued straight. We stopped to build a tiny snowman who turned out to look pretty evil! A sign of whats to come? The river crossing was fine with a pretty good snow bridge acrossed it with a rather large hole in the middle of it ... creepy! We soon arrived at the Bicknell Ridge junction and sure enough the snow shoe'r went up bicknell ridge and our trail lay untouched. Doh!

Breaking trail was easy to start, just a few inches with a little ice underneath hear-and-there. I stopped often to take some so-so pics of the river and the various tree mushrooms I spotted. I found one collection of versi-color shrooms that I love so much! These were a wonderful tan/turquoise and rust color and they became my photo subject for several minutes :) As the elevation gained so did the snow accumulation. We're talking 6 inches in spots. Not the deepest we have bare booted in before. While 6 inches may sound trivial to some, when your hiking uphill in wet, sticky snow with full packs on it is pretty tough! Especially when there are rocks and bankings under the snow that you don't see and trip and slip on.

A pheasant was nice enough to take flight in the woods next to us causing us both to make a startled "yelp" We dragged on and on finally reaching the Eagle Cascade junction ... 1.6 miles to go! The snow got seemingly deeper now as we trudged on. I took my micro-spikes off that I had put on at the bicknell Ridge junction as the sticky snow was clumping up under them and creating platform shoes which was driving me nuts! We entered the pine grove I had been dying to reach and new we were getting closer. Scott now began to fall behind and I was getting pretty exhausted myself. I kept my eyes pealed ahead for the glimpse of the ledges but each corner yielded more snowy hill and another corner. I took off for one final push ignoring my very sore legs and finally I spotted the ridge through the trees in the distance. I figured we would still have at least 45 minutes to an hour left and a couple hundred feet of elevation. Scott was no where in sight behind me and at that point I evaluated the situation. We were running an hour late anyway and we were beat. And I new going down would be tough and tiresome, and it was! I hiked back down to Scott who quickly accepted defeat and lead the way down as he always does.

The river was a little more photographic now as some of the snow had melted and I took off through the woods to take some pics. We also took the time to clear some minor blow downs from the trail. The only bad one that was at a back breaking waste height was too thick for a quick axing. So I chopped down the small trees holding it up so that it was now at an easy step-over ground level. We arrived back at our snow man who had lost some weight in the warm sun. We put him back together with some new, more friendly looking parts and continued heading down. The snow bridge had melted a bit and Scott got a scare as one of his feet went through! I crossed with no problems. We reached the truck at 2pm. Snow shoes would have more than likely brought us a successful summiting ... (as I open the back hatch) "oh look, snow shoes!" Still a nice day in the woods. Wonderful weather and good conditioning for the next hike! So sore today!! I have to keep in mind that winter hiking takes longer than summer and just stick to easy smaller hikes, at least until we have some winter experience built up. And bring the snow shoes no matter what! Have to figure out how to strap them to the bags. Trip was 5 hours - Mileage: about 6.2 - Elevation Gain: about 2000ft.

Eagle Craig 2/6/10

Scott & I actually rested and up early for once arrived at the Baldface Circle Trail to find all but 1 car in the lot! It was cold but nothing like the weekend before! We geared up and headed across the street to the trail head at 9:38am. The trail was hard and crusty and well packed, temps. were in the upper 20's. We made a stop at Emerald Pool and continued on with thick ice coating many sections of the trail. We took a right at the loop junction on to the Baldface Circle Trail (counter clockwise) and arrived at the Charles Brook crossing, which was not passable at this spot. We headed up river about .1 miles to find a safe and suitable crossing. Then simply cut through the woods to the trail which runs perpindicular to the river. The trail here gets really icy as water runs through these trail sections. We negotiated our way keeping to the sides of the trail for traction on the snow. We finally made our way to the Bickell Ridge junction at the bank of Eagle Brook taking another right keeping on the BFC Trail. The snow pack became a little deeper but only 5 or so inches with grades remaining at a moderate climb, until about 2700' where steep pitches started to work themselves in.

We arrived at the first rock scramble at about 1pm, this time of year a snow & ice scramble and this one proved to be the most difficult. Still we did fine bare booting then easily made the second scramble. We crested the ridge, took a right at the trail junction and arrived at the Eagle Craig summit with light but constant winds around 1:20pm. We took pics, made our way back to the somewhat more sheltered trail junction and ate a quick sandwich. Temps. dropped to the mid teens and with the windchill I would say it was in the single digits. Views were stunning as they were in the summer with views across the rocky Eagle Craig over to Evans Notch, the Wildcat/Carter/Moriah Ranges, a glimpse of the Southern Presi's, the Baldfaces, and across the valley to Maine.

With frozen faces & fingers we packed back up and headed to the Bicknell Ridge Trail which we decided to descend by. We dropped down into the pines to find a cold, snow accumulated area and grumbled our way back up and out to the rocky ridge crest to the trail junction. We had some trouble finding the trail entrance into the pines and decided to follow the fox tracks as he seemed to know where he was going on our ascent trail. Sure enough it led us the right way. We very quickly discovered that this trail was nto a good choice. Not packed out and full of much more snow due to the pines and semi-openess of this ridge we were post-holing every few steps up to our knees. This trail would make an awesome summer ascent though, with many open ledges with South Baldface right in your face!

We continued on in this exhausting fasion all the way down the ridge arriving at the Eagle Brook river crossing just before the junction. Again we had to look for a suitable crossing which was found 100 ft. up stream. I was having a little fun on the ice trail sliding down it, Scott tried video taping it and just caught the end of it as I slipped and fell, OWCH! Another dumb moment by me! Back down quickly to the Charles Brook crossing and back on the main trail we gunned down it getting back to the road at 4:20pm. A beautiful day, a wonderful hike and it was topped off with a SPECTACULAR sunset. I got a few shots of it from Rt. 113 and was so hopeful to find a clear shot of the fiery orange over Chocorua but no such luck.

Pics of this hike here

Mt. Meader & Eagle Crag 7/19/09

The day began with the usual drive up Rt.16 with a lot of traffic for 7:00am on a Sunday. The only break of the monotony on this stretch of highway was a turkey making a mad dash across the road, neck stretched out, just barely being missed by a driver who didn't see the bird until the last minute! Turkey's along side the road were plentiful today. Then of course the classic view as you crest over and down a hill section in Wakefield, with an exciting view towards the White's with a quick view of Chocorua close by. We soon broke off 16 and onto Rt. 302 and soon Rt. 113 in Maine. As I have said before, I love 113 as it passes by and through many farm's and farmland. The only difficulty is following the very confusing Road as it makes abrupt turns, especially when heading back in the Southerly direction. We arrived at the Baldface Circle Parking area and to my surprise a half full parking lot. We geared up and headed out at 9:00am sharp. We hiked North up the road and at .1 miles crossed the street to the trailhead. Soon we were passing several groups of people, many with children (coming down) and a man in his late 60's/early 70's who commented on how busy the trail was today. That's OK, we were heading for a less visited peak. We took a picture break at some falls, got viciously barked at by an unleashed dog who scared the heck out of us (thank you to the irresponsible dog owners out there!) and continued on. A man passed us whom we soon caught up with, as he was taking pictures of some attractive funnel mushrooms. I joked, "you beat us to 'em", to which he replied, "don't worry I won't eat them!" We conversed quickly about the shrooms and soon we departed at the junction with Bicknell Ridge TR. Figuring Baldface Circle TR. (South side) and Bicknell Ridge TR were the more popular TR's we kept on Baldface Circle TR (North side). I began to think of how ironic it was, this TR is supposed to be the loop section for the Baldfaces but is little used. Perhaps it should have been called Eagle Crag Trail! This trail begins to climb over rocky terrain and was pretty wet (no surprise that it was wet...seems to be the word of the year!) as it followed the river which contained several flumes, cascades and falls. Once we passed Eagle Cascade Link the trail clearly becomes even less used than the lower section. Overgrowth has overtaken many sections. We took a quick snack stop at this point and continued on our way. Oh, did I mention the mushrooms? They are out in full bloom right now! There were so many varieties. I always "hate" this time of year as we are stopping every 10 ft. to take pics of the shrooms...I love searching for them, keeps you occupied on the trail. I even noticed two wood beatles mating on a tree mushroom...and of course took a pic of them. The forest floor now opens up with large, old trees dotting the landscape. And at about 1900 ft. the trail (which was pretty gradual at this point) began to climb steeply. After some climbing we soon came to rock ledge's and two somewhat tricky rock scrambles. After climbing these with some limited views we broke from the trees and onto the edge of Eagle Crag, a beautiful granite paradise. A short walk and we soon found ourselves on the summit at 12:30pm. Views to the Baldfaces (an exposed granite batholith) was wonderful, to the West was the Carter-Moriah Range (with cloud covered Washington just to the left of the Carters), views North to Evans Notch and Caribou-Speckled Wilderness and finally a crystal clear view East into Maine. We spent a 1/2 hour here without seeing a single soul (except for the tiny specks poking out on top of the baldfaces. We studied our 2 mile long ridge walk to Mt. Meader and headed across on the Meader Ridge TR. The ridge, like most others consists of annoying puds and muddy col's. The only views were after the large middle knoll (which I have named the Eagle's Nest), were a spur path on the West that contains a ledge (which we passed by) and a small ledge on the East. An hour later we found ourselves at the Mt. Meader Trail Junction, passing at some unknown point the true summit. A quick stop with no view and we headed down Mt. Meader TR at 2:00pm. We slowly dropped down some ledges with views to the Baldfaces and to Maine and quickly dropped back into the trees. We passed by four happy ladies (and a LEASHED dog) who exclaimed that we were the first human life forms they had seen today...same with us! We continued on as the trail dropped steeply off the heel of the ridge. This doesn't last to terribly long and the trail becomes pleasant and gradual. Found more shrooms and soon we were on an old logging road following Mill Brook. We came out to Rt.113 once again and made the trek up the road .7 miles back to the parking lot, arriving at 4:00pm. Temps. throughout the day remained in the low to mid 70's under partly to mostly cloudy skies and a light breeze. Black flies present on the ridge and mosquito's along the lower parts of Mt. Meader TR, but were not too bad. This was a beautiful, little traveled loop which I greatly enjoyed! View pics on Flickr> http://www.flickr.com/photos/excape1/sets/72157621750306416/