September 29, 2007 Hike #1
For the next two days I will have the company of my friend Peirce. I hiked with Peirce this summer up Mount Cabot and met him again for a few days when I was at Baxter State Park last month. He needs just three peaks to complete the New England 100 highest. I need the same peaks (and about 18 more), so we decided to hike these peaks together. Peirce came real close to completing the list a few years ago, but then moved out west. When he returned the list had changed a little. A couple peaks got dropped, and a couple peaks got added. As technology advances, surveying the mountains that make up this list (and other lists) gets more accurate, resulting in occasional changes.
The three remaining peaks that Peirce needs are Cupsuptic Snow, East Kennebago, and North Kennebago Divide (NKD). I figured I might ask Peirce if he would mind hitting White Cap again since it was so close to NKD. Before I could even ask, he offered not only to help me bag that peak, but came up with a plan where we could bag Boundary Peak as well. What a great guy! Thanks Peirce. So the plan is to bag 5 peaks over the next two days. We'll see. These peaks are all fairly tough to drive to because they require long drives along dirt logging roads of which many are unnamed. They also all require bushwacks. Let's take it one peak at a time and go after Cupsuptic Snow first.
After driving up Wiggle Brook Road we took a left onto a small road which we were then able to follow for a couple tenths of a mile. A four wheel drive vehicle could probably have made it further, but we were more than happy to get this close to the mountain. We were already at 2600' feet, so we only had a little over a thousand feet of elevation gain. Here's today's track.
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We hiked up the road a couple more tenths and came to a fork. We took a left, went up a hill, and Peirce spotted a small cairn that he had read about.
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We got a bearing and heading left into the woods.
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We only bushwacked a few minutes when we came across a herd path. For the most part, this herd path took us all the way to the summit. We lost it in a spot or two, but always managed to pick it up again. This was a short climb, and it only took us 1:15 to get to the 3,784' summit.
Here's Peirce at the cannister which marks the wooded summit.
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Then Peirce took my picture.
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On the New England 100 highest list, this was #98 for Peirce and #80 for me.
We began the hike down, following our footsteps for the most part. We got a bit of a view on the way down. Today was supposed to be sunny. Where's the sun?
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As we neared the spot where we had originally come across the herd path, we continued on the herd path rather than retracing our steps. We figured it would bring us out above the cairn where we had started, and it did. Peirce noticed an arrow at the cairn that we hadn't noticed before. I added a couple bigger sticks to make it a little more obvious. Now future hikers will know which way to go to find the herd path.
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We walked back down the hill . . .
. . . and then back to my truck. One peak down. That only took about 2.5 hours to hike. This is definitely one of those mountains where most of the work is driving there. We have time to hike East Kennebago today, so that's next.
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