| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Savage Mountain, Spruce Mountain - East Peak (North Stratford), NH |
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 | Trails: |
Lamms Trail, ATV road, bushwhack |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Sunday, May 22, 2022 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Lamms Trail, shown as Bissell Rd on Gaia and some map’s apps, was much rougher than I thought it would be. If you’ve got low clearance I’d park at the bottom of the road or at the first log landing a very short ways in the road. With mid-clearance and FWD I made it 0.6mi in but there was a sketchy part just before this I didn’t love. To play it safe, I could’ve (should’ve?) parked at a second log landing not far into the road. Also, there was a small blowdown across the road where I parked. Nowhere to pull off so I just plowed down some vegetation here which worked well. Only high-clearance and 4WD (maybe AWD) is going to be making it to the T in the road. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Dry Trail, Wet Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Mud - Significant |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Crossed some drainages. Nothing significant. One that was actually on the ATV trail had some logs across it (kind of). We didn’t love the way those looked so we crossed just upstream on rocks easily. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
The ATV Trail is overgrown. Also, there’s a blowdown on Lamms Trail. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
I wouldn’t recommend Savage. It could be pretty brutal for them. Even the way we came down wasn’t great. East Spruce would be doable if your dog is used to bushwhacking. |
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 | Bugs: |
Yes. Black flies are horrendous. Recommend DEET, bug net, and perhaps a bug shirt as well.
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 | Lost and Found: |
They were probably lost on the other side of the mountain but a chance that my friend lost his bushwhacking glasses on this hike. If you happen to find them please let me know :) |
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 | Comments: |
Day 203, Peaks 196 & 197: a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, Part 2.
Our original plan was to tackle these peaks from this side. We made a last minute decision to tackle them from the east instead and got turned around due to access issues. Very frustrated with ourselves but still wanting to get some peaks for the day, we went back to our original plan and made our way up Lamms Trail in the hot sun.
Follow Lamms Trail to the T shown on Gaia. On the far side of this clearing, continue straight into the woods, heading east on an ATV trail. A road that looks just about as well travelled so diverges right. Stick left. We’d heard that there was a right turn you were supposed to make somewhere so we eventually made one at a bend in the road. Big mistake. Got us into thicker woods, tried pulling us into a drainage, and took awhile to correct. After 0.2mi or so we found the road again (thank goodness) and continued east, then NE to the col. The trail transitioned out of hardwoods and into softwoods and looked more like a lightly trodden footpath than an ATV Trail. It becomes obscure as it dumps you out onto a much larger road. Nice road but it seemed to contour around the peaks and not really head the direction we wanted it to so we stayed on it just a tenth or two of a mile to due west of the col.
Rather than head due east to the col and head directly up the peak from there, I slabbed NE. This wasn’t so much to save distance as it was because I’d read about nasty woods and blowdown patches heading straight up from the col. Well I was successful in slabbing up but didn’t change my bearing soon enough. While slabbing, the woods were generally okay. Semi-open to semi-thick but I brought us nearly to the southern ridge at 2900-2950ft. We had thick woods to our left and blowdowns to our right. We chose right. HUGE MISTAKE!! This decision was made in part because we were worried about cliff bands that seemed present everywhere other than the southern ridge according to a Gaia overlay, but, in this situation, choose cliffs over blowdowns. Seriously!
From 2950-3400ft was perhaps the worst bushwhacking I’ve ever done. Massive blowdown devastation, thick spruce, thick woods, and we still had to work our way west around a damn cliff band at about 3300ft. There were brief moment of respite but this was truly awful. DO NOT HEAD DUE NORTH FROM THE COL. You’ll hopefully live to regret it. Of course when we hit the summit plateau we found open woods coming up from the SW around the cliff bands we thought we needed to avoid. We headed E/NE in decent enough woods along the summit pleateai, following moose prints and being careful to stay in the woods and not get sucked into a blowdown area to our right. A bit of a walk to the highpoint but not hard to find the canister. We signed in, cursed the bugs, sprayed DEET on ourselves for the upteenth time, and got the hell off.
Figuring that we would’ve heard more about how awful this peak is if others had just gone what we’d gone through, we knew that the cliffs we were trying to avoid couldn’t be that bad so we decided on a slightly more SW bearing and to just stick to the best woods we could. We made our way down very carefully keeping an eye out for cliff bands and blowdown devastation ahead. Thankfully, we didn’t hit any blowdown patches and, much to our surprise, didn’t hit any cliff bands. Very steep for sure and we were in thick woods much of the time but nothing compared to what we suffered on our ascent. Again, in summary, if at any point you’re due north of the col and not along the summit ridge yet, MOVE WEST and get the hell out of there. Go through the thick woods if you have to. Don’t get pulled into the vortex like we did.
Due to our bearing, we didn’t hit the col but were a bit south. A slight PITA but it was worth it. We slabbed up at gentle grades and in pleasant woods to start toward East Spruce. We hit the summit ridge just below 2950ft which became a bit thicker but not bad. We followed it to the highpoint and canister which wasn’t hard to find. A false summit or two along the way. To get down, we slabbed N/NW roughly aiming for the wide rough around the base of the peaks. Saved a little distance by not going to col but the woods were meh. We hit the road, followed it a ways like we did on our way in, then followed the ATV road/trail back out toward our car, this time successfully staying on it the whole way. All I’ve got to say is thank God that our descent was so much smoother than our ascent. Not sure we could’ve gone through that again…
The hike was about 6.5mi with 2500ft of gain. Took us 5.25hrs. 162 more days and 168 more peaks to go… |
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 | Name: |
Liam Cooney |
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 | E-Mail: |
liamcooney96@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2022-05-22 |
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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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