| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Wocket Ledge, Bald Cap, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Mill Brook Road, Austin Brook Road, Dryad Falls Trail, Dryad Falls Spur, Peabody Brook Trail, Mahoosuc Trail, bushwhacks |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Sunday, December 25, 2022 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
A Christmas Miracle - the road was plowed!! We where able to drive 1.6 miles up Mill Brook Road and park in a large log landing. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow - Trace/Minimal Depth, Ice - Blue, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow/Ice - Frozen Granular, Leaves - Significant/Slippery, Snow/Ice - Postholes |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Water is still VERY high. We thought possibly with our crossings being up towards the headwaters, 36 hours after cresting, would be ok. Nope! We both tested the waters to see how cold it was and went in. Can confirm its cold. No solid bridges to be had. We where glad we went this way, there was no way we where going to get up Peabody Brook Trail |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
Lots of trees and limbs down, too numerous to quantify. Austin Brook Trail should not even be called a trail in this section, its a logging road that was left in terrible shape, 1:1 slope walls. Also the top 0.3 of Dryad Falls some serious love. This trail has numerous catastrophic waterbar failures which have all but destroyed it in spots. Mahoosuc IAO Dream Lake is in rough shape, too. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
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 | Bugs: |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
A SUPERB day was had in Shelburne!!! This one was hard fought but we got it for Nordic_Gal's W200 list. A true Christmas miracle to find the road plowed out. Snowshoes car to car. Austin Brook Trail, as noted above should be renamed as a road because its a logging road in this entire section. Quite scarified too in spots, the rain didn't help much. There is an absolute insane amount of flagging on this trail in lieu of blazing. There is seeming no real method to the madness of how its flagged as it looks like its part logging operation, part wetland flagging, part trail guidance. The flagging doesn't always follow the trail, either, so that was fun. We had a great time but the trail was incredibly bipolar: leaves, running water, bullet ice, 6" of breaking trail, in a manic loop. Trail firmed up nicely once we hit the ridgeline and was really lovely. As you'd expect, we where the only ones and tracks. We opted to whack from Wocket Ledge after reading Zachary's report that saying it was very thick trying to come from the the HOL at Dream Pond, this was absolutely the right call. Lovely stand of mature coniferous, largely open woods where found. An interesting elbow macaroni canister was found but the pages where frozen. There is the hardware of a replaced canister nearby, as well. We found mostly great supportive snow for our whack. It should be noted that it would likely be hard to follow our tracks as the 2' depth of snow had is floating on it for most of the time. As expected, we saw no one. A great day, way out there. Now to replace all those calories I lost, the ham just dinged! :) |
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 | Name: |
The Teal Goat & nordic_gal |
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 | E-Mail: |
sea2thebiscuit@yahoo.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2022-12-25 |
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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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