A Mini-Pemi Adventure

Over the past several days I've done several hikes.  However, I've fallen far behind in reporting these on my Blog.  In an attempt to catch up, I've decided to just report two of these treks.  Here is the first one.  Another report will be forthcoming in the next day or so.

This report just barely made "the cut" for a Blog posting.  However, I opted to do a short write-up since it involved an adventure to that special place known as the Pemigewasset Wilderness (a.k.a., the "Pemi").

A recent report by a fellow Blogger named "Just Joe" (Click HERE) inspired me to embark on this adventure.  However, about the only similarity between my adventure and Joe's is that both were in the Pemi, and both incorporated a bike ride on the Lincoln Woods Trail up to the wilderness boundary, at which point, bikes are prohibited.  Shown below is a snapshot taken during the bike ride segment of my trek.

Bike riding along the Lincoln Woods Trail

Joe's adventure was much more aggressive and involved trekking to the remote peaks known as Bondcliff and Mt. Bond, which are located deep into this wilderness area.  By comparison, my adventure just tippy-toed inside the boundary of the Pemi, and did not involve hiking to any high peaks.  Including a short bushwhack, the round-trip mileage was about 9.5 miles. My route is shown on the map below. 

Map showing my route of travel

The only thing about my trek into the Pemi which was semi-unique was that it involved a short bushwhack to the east end of a beaver pond located near the junction of the Franconia Brook Trail and Lincoln Brook Trail.  This beaver pond shows up on GoogleEarth as a body of water.  However, on topographic maps, it is usually depicted merely as a swampy area.  (Please note that on the map shown above, I've hand-drawn the pond into the map.)

As stated above, bushwhacking to the east side of this pond was only "semi-unique". Others occasionally do it.  One such person is of course Steve Smith who wrote about this in one of his Blog reports (click HERE).

As anyone knows who has experienced the Pemi, you get such a feeling of remoteness when hiking there.  The trails are narrow corridors through awesomely beautiful woods.  I find it difficult to capture the "feeling" in a photograph.  Shown below is a segment of typical trail in this wild part of the White Mountains.  However, as I indicated, the photo lacks dimension and feeling.

Segment of trail in the Pemigewasset Wilderness

Okay, so what about this pond that I ballyhooed at the beginning of this report!  Well, looking over the pond from its eastern shore, there is a view of Mt. Flume, as shown in the next snapshot.

View toward Mt. Flume from east end of beaver pond

A wider view from the eastern shore of the pond reveals a feature nicknamed "Owl's Ear".  It is an outcropping of ledges on the southeastern end of Owl's Head Mountain. It can be seen faintly in the upper right side of the next photo.  

Ledges on "Owl's Ear" (upper right of photo).  Mt. Flume and tip of Mt. Liberty are also visible.

Several years ago, two friends (Steve and Chris) and I made a winter bushwhack to "Owl's Ear".  If you're interested in reading about this adventure, then please click HERE.

Although the next image is poor quality, I thought it might be of mild interest to include a zoomed photo of Owl's Ear.

Zoomed photo of "Owl's Ear"

To sum it up, this mini-Pemi adventure was fun and interesting to me.  However, I question whether it has much in the way of mass-audience appeal! :-)