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E-mail contact: randonneur8@yahoo.com | Facebook: facebook.com/1HappyHikerNH

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20 July 2012

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! :-)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I often do little exploits like this, but never think of writing about them. Thank you for taking the time (and I know it takes time) to share this. I enjoyed reading it.

MLT

1HappyHiker said...

And thank you for taking the time to post your comment!

John

One Day in America said...

Again, you manage to capture so much in a (relatively short) post. I like the photo taken from your mountain bike—was it difficult to steer with one hand? The woods in the middle of the White Mountains are truly "lovely, dark and deep".

The pond picture is very inviting; it looks like great wildlife habitat. Did you see any wildlife there?

Another fine post, John!

Rita

1HappyHiker said...

Hi Rita,

Can never thank you enough for taking time to add your comments to my Blog postings.

Was it difficult to steer the bike with one hand while taking a snapshot. I purposely was pedaling very slowly so that if I crashed it wouldn’t hurt too much! :-) The photo turned out much better than I’d expected it would!

Did I see any wildlife at the pond, you asked. Nope! However, I did hear a lot of bird “chatter”. Someday I hope to be able to identify birds by their calls. I’ve tried to acquire this skill, but without much success. I have a friend named Steve Smith who is very accomplished at this, and I’m in awe of his abilities to name a bird simply by the sounds they generate.

John