July 19, 2009
Last year as I was nearing the completion of my New England 100 highest list, I had the pleasure of the company of Dave Thompson on several bushwhacks. Dave is currently working on his second round of the New England 100 highest. He needed Vose Spur and I told him that I would be willing to help as long as I could get Carrigain on the same hike. On my list of the New England 100 highest, Vose Spur was the only peak that I did in winter without doing in non-winter. So I did feel a little bit of a responsible to bag this peak again.
We hit the trail at 7:40.
It took no time to get the trail junction.
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At the junction we took the Carrigain Notch Trail. Having done this bushwhack before, I had a pretty good idea of the approach. I found a large rock where we had started the bushwhack on my last trip. I wasn't particularly happy with the beginning of our ascent last time, so we backed up about a hundred yards. Those first few steps off the trail always make me a little nervous. It's probably a last ditch effort on the part of my subconscious: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
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I resisted the urge to head straight up the mountain. I headed more to the west. I was pleased with the descent our group made in winter and was shooting for the ridge we came down. Once I hit it, we then made a sharp turn up the mountain. We came across a herd path which dumped us out onto a rock field. So far so good.
Dave on the rock field.
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Who says there is no view from Vose Spur???
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Looking across (and up) to Signal Ridge.
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From here we took a herd path. I had forgotten how steep this part of the mountain was. It was "reach out and touch the ground in front of you" steep. As we neared the summit about 10:30, I let Dave take the lead again. He was like a little kid in a candy store upon finding the cannister.
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Dave took my picture.
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I searched through the log until I found my name from my visit here exactly a year and a half ago.
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Now we needed Carrigain. The summit of Carrigain was just a mile away. When you look at the map, it is tempting to just bushwhack across, but I checked the Internet and couldn't find any "happy endings" to the story. We hated to lose all that elevation, but hey, who would want to miss out on that awesome workout heading up to Carrigain?
Dave descending Vose Spur
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We headed all the way back down the mountain and then all the way back down Carrigain Notch Trail to the junction. OK, now let's go get Carrigain.
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As we headed up, guess who was coming down? Bruce Pfendler.
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Congrats to Bruce who recently reached his 400th Grid peak. It is such an undertaking to take on the challenge of the Grid that after every 100 peaks, there is definitely cause to celebrate.
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Once on Signal Ridge we had a great view of Vose Spur (the mountain on the left). You can see three rock fields on Vose Spur. Our bushwhack brought us across the top one.
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There's Carrigain. I had summit fever!!
A few minutes later we were there. It was about 2:30, so it took 4 hours to go from the summit of Vose Spur, all the way down, all the way back to the trail junction, and all the way to the summit of Carrigain. Perhaps we could have made the 1 mile bushwhack in less time, but I'll take the cardio workout over the bushwhack any day.
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Dave on Carrigain
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Eric on Carrigain
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We then climbed the tower. We had incredible views. For some reason, I've always had good weather on Carrigain and have never missed the view.
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It was time to head back down to Signal Ridge.
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Once back down on Signal Ridge I said good-bye to Dave. I had an appointment that evening and needed to get moving. I would never leave a fellow hiker behind, but we had agreed before hand that if I needed to, I could head out at a faster pace. Down, down, down I went. Once on the flat section of the trail I began to jog off and on. As I neared the end of the trail I passed two hikers. I didn't recognize them at first, but they recognized me. It was Bill and Diane who I had hiked with once before back in January on the Twins.
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I walked with them for a few minutes until we reach Sawyer River Road. Time of finish: 4:45.
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