| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Mt. Moriah (attempt), NH |
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 | Trails: |
Rattle River Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Friday, November 23, 2018 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Only car there all day. Lot was plowed but it was still a tad difficult to negotiate without snow tires. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow - Trace/Minimal Depth, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Drifts |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
The first two (and only major ones) were mostly snow covered rocks with some ice and water showing on the ends. Personally, as someone who hasn’t hiked a whole lot during this time of year when snow/ice bridges are only partially formed, I felt a little concerned going over them but everything held fine. Water didn’t seem high anyway. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Lots of pain in the ass blowdowns on Rattle Riber Trail, particularly the higher up you went. Most were actually quite small or just large limbs of trees but were blocking the trail at obnoxious heights. It seemed like most of them were along the section along the river climbing along the river so it was hard to create a side path around them due to sidehilling so I usually just crawled under or went over.
The trail could use more white blaze. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
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 | Bugs: |
None |
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 | Lost and Found: |
I don’t recall anything. Probably lots of things buried under the snow though! |
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 | Comments: |
Didn’t see another soul all day. Not a well travelled trail, particularly in winter so if you’re hoping to do it, make sure to bring snowshoes and expect to be breaking trail I got a very late start (9:20) and realized that I wouldn’t likely make it to Moriah as I’d originally hoped so my goal was to just redline the Rattle River Trail. I started out at a decent pace but speed way down when it got steeper and I was climbing out of the Ravine with all the blowdowns. Made it to within just a couple tenths of a mile of the Kenduskeag Trail when I turned around.
Barebooted to the shelter then snowshoes on the rest of the day.
I didn’t find the trail hard to folllow. There was only one spot on the steeps where it looked as if the trail could go one of two ways but I quickly found it. Not a lot of white blaze in places (mostly along the river climbing out of the ravine) but the corridor was usually pretty evident. Also, as another report mentions, someone has added red blaze to trees above the first river crossing. I found it very helpful. Although there was some fresh snow and drifts, someone had broke this trail a couple days back so I could mostly follow there path particularly down low where there wasn’t as much new snow and drifts.
Snow depth wasn’t much more than a few inches and less on the path a few people had barebooted. Deep drifts at the shelter and I thought the snow depth would increase a lot from there but it didn’t. It slowly got deeper and was probably around 8 inches along the river and could at times be a bit more than a foot along the steeps approaching the trail jct.
There were still some places down low where there was only ice or rocks were showing. |
|
 | Name: |
Liam Cooney |
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 | E-Mail: |
liamcooney96@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2018-11-24 |
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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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