INTRODUCTION:
Cold
Brook begins in King Ravine which is a glacial cirque on the north side of Mt.
Adams in New Hampshire’s Presidential Mountain Range. A 1908 map by Louis Cutter shows eleven
cascades along this brook. As far
as I know, only five of those cascades have ever received a name, i.e. Cold
Brook Fall, Secunda Cascade, Tertia Cascade, Quarta Cascade and Mossy Fall.
Cold
Brook Fall and Mossy Fall can both be reached via hiking trails maintained by
the Randolph Mountain Club. However, any
trails that might have once led to Secunda, Tertia, and Quarta cascades have
been lost over time. And so, those
cascades can now only be reached by launching a bushwhack off the east side of
the Amphibrach Trail. This type of
adventure is one of my passions, and so off I went to visit Secunda, Tertia,
and Quarta cascades!😃
PHOTOS:
Bonus Material:
After
visiting Quarta Cascade, I made my way back up to the Amphibrach Trail and
continued onward along that trail to the point where a side path leads to a
spot named Coldspur Ledges. Here, there is a cascade (see photo below) at the
confluence of Spur Brook and Cold Brook.
Although
the scenic little cascade shown above is technically not on Cold Brook itself,
I am including it because it is where I ended my hike, and because of its close
proximity to Cold Brook. Also, this
cascade is being added since there is an interesting tidbit written by Louis
Cutter in his remembrances from a hiking trip along the Amphibrach Trail with
his grandfather in the late 1930s. He
states: “. . . we came to a clearing in the trail - Monahan's
Camp, where the Monaway goes off right and the path down to Coldspur Ledges
goes left. There was still a little iron
from an old sledge left from the lumber camp there (I brought it down as part
of the World War II scrap iron drive).
Of course it must be noted that the old Monahan’s
Camp is in the White Mountain National Forest.
And nowadays it is a
federal offense to remove, or damage, or alter historic artifacts on any federal
lands.
And here
is one last bit of trivia that might be of interest, the current-day Monaway
Trail takes its name from the old Monahan logging camp.
~ THE END ~
KEY WORDS: Cold Brook; Secunda; Tertia; Quarta; Randolph
Mountain Club; Coldspur Ledges; Monahan’s Camp
