| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
West Huntington, Mt. Huntington, South Huntington, East Huntington, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Bushwhack, Hancock Notch Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Sunday, June 1, 2014 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Parked at the hair-pin curve on the Kanc (Fee area) |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Dry Trail, Standing/Running Water on Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Mud - Significant |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Not Bad |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
The Hancock Notch Trail is narrow and hard to spot in places. A few crossings make it hard to stick with the trail. When you get to a campsite, ignore herd paths within the site and immediately recross to stay on route. Crossings are marked with small pieces of pink tape. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
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 | Bugs: |
Not bad. I thought they would be worse. |
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 | Lost and Found: |
Lost a nalgene. At the time, the full qt. of water was the real loss. |
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 | Comments: |
I started right from the Kanc at the hairpin heading up West. The going is never great and is thick in many places. There’s lots of scrappy, twiggy stuff. There are some decent views around this peak. The trip from West to the main peak is straight forward, but thick, especially on the west side. Fairly easy going in the col to South peak. For the first three peaks, I was making awesome time, so East was certainly attainable.
I knew for East, beelining from South was not an option due to cliffs. Therefore, I cut South, intending to descend to the approximate altitude of the col and then head East. Unfortunately, I did not cut hard enough and hit the cliffs. Additionally, the going was absolutely terrible. I made a very steep decent, being forced to cut west, even though my objective was east. In some of the thickest vegetation of the day I realized I lost a nalegene with a quart of water which I could have really used for the remainder of the day.
After much struggle, I deemed I had descended enough and began to head east through very thick, flat terrain. I found the East peak harder to navigate to as the terrain is less straight forward. A field bearing helped. I made some good headway through thick, woods. The final summit push was through very very thick scrappy short vegetation. Good views as the trees were a couple feet shorter than me.
The decent due north took me down a really steep (dangerous), really thick section. I bushwhacked north to the drainage and ended up rock hoping almost all the way down as the rocks were dry. When the stream turned east I got off, bushwhacking a short distance north to the Hancock Notch trail. On the walk out I was nearly overcome by thirst as I had to do it with a qt. less than I budgeted.
I highly recommend avoiding the top of the cliffs on South Huntington. Others may have better luck, but I found East to be pretty hard from the west.
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 | Name: |
zporterColdRiverCampCook |
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 | E-Mail: |
zap88@tds.net |
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| Date Submitted: |
2014-06-02 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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