Hiked by: Tim and Valerie on October 4-5, 2008 via Lincoln Woods, Wilderness and Bondcliff trails
We arrived at Lincoln Woods at about 8:15AM on Saturday morning. It was 47 degrees. Although it had been the bluest of blue skies at our house, it was a cloudy drive up towards the Whites. When we got to the parking lot, we grabbed our packs and headed out. There were already several other groups of backpackers suiting up to take off.
We crossed the suspension bridge and headed up the Lincoln Woods trail. It's wide and flat as a pancake. It provided us with our first look at Bondcliff over the Pemi River.
Before an hour had passed, we were crossing Franconia Brook and entering the Pemi Wilderness (2.9 miles). Tim took some time to review the procedure for hanging a bear bag. This would become quite ironic later in the day.
The Wilderness trail is a bit narrower than Lincoln Woods trail, but still flat. The forest went through phases of yellow, red and brown as we passed through groves of different trees. We didn't see a single person on the Wilderness trail that day.
At 4.7 miles, we intersected with the Bondcliff trail and started heading north. The trail is no longer railroad grade flat, but still was fairly moderate. Again, we saw no other hikers for more than a mile.
We found a spot to pitch the tent along the Bondcliff trail. *I'm not allowed to say where it is - apparently, it's a rule to keep these things secret!* We set up camp, made some lunch, filtered lots of water for dinner/breakfast, switched our gear from full packs to just day-packs and then hung the bear bag. The trees in this area are mostly cedar (we think) and birch. It was very difficult to find a tree that had a branch coming off it at a reasonable height to hang the bag. After much searching, we found a tree with a small branch that Tim could throw the rope over. We hung the bag and then left for the summit of Bondcliff with our small day-packs.
The trail crosses Black Brook several times. The water was very high. We got our first glimpse of the summit after about 7.5 miles of hiking. It still seemed very far away. The fourth crossing of Black Brook was completely bone dry last August when we hiked through here. Today, it was rushing. The foliage at this elevation was past peak.
Eventually, we reached the "tricky rock scramble" described in the guidebook. We put on some warmer clothes, since we were getting close to the summit.
Our first views from Bondcliff were Franconia Ridge and Owl's Head. Looking south, we could see Black Pond. Looking down into the valleys, the colors were fantastic.
We reached the summit at about 3PM. These pictures are looking southeast towards Mt Carrigain, and then in the distance, Mt Chocorua.
Looking across Hellgate Ravine to West Bond.
Tim was disappointed that this picture of him came out blurry. The wind was blowing so hard that he could hardly sit out there on the ledge, and Val could hardly stand still with the camera. We need better equipment. :-(
More views towards the Presidentials and Franconia Ridge. Both showed snow/ice. Mt Bond also glistened white.
The hike down was uneventful. All tolled, we probably saw 40 hikers today - most headed for Guyot tent site. The ranger said that he thought they would be at capacity there for Saturday night. It was a cold night, around the freezing mark at our camp, and must have been much colder up there. We got back to camp about 5:30PM. We made dinner - dehydrated Santa Fe Chicken. It was hot, and there was plenty of it, so it was good. By the time we'd cleaned up, it was getting dark. Tim headed back off into the woods with his headlamp to put the food back up into the trees. From camp, Val heard a "snap" and then a bad word from Tim. Uuuuugh! We'd spent 20 minutes in the daylight getting that bag hung, and now the branch had broken. The bag did eventually end up in a tree, but it was a bit of a farce. Any half-witted bear could have just reached up and swatted it down. Thankfully, we have seen no bears during our camp-outs in the Whites, and tonight was no exception.
After getting the food stowed, we came back to camp and sat down. At this point, it was pitch black. Val asked what time it was... Tim said 7PM. It's only 7PM!? We can't go to bed this early or we'll be up at 4AM!! We sat in the dark and listened to the woods and talked until about 8PM. At that point, we were starting to get really chilled. We made one more pass through camp to ensure everything was secured, then headed into the tent. There was some squirming and tossing to get organized in our tiny tent. Our cold-weather sleeping bags have all sorts of adjustments to keep the drafts out, but sometimes you can feel like you're suffocating. We both slept well and stayed quite warm.
It was 32 degrees when we got up at 7AM the next morning. Tim made breakfast while Val took care of sleeping bags and sleeping pads. It was nice to see the sun shining so brightly. We made quick work of the walk out, and were at the car by 10:30AM.
This hike was a good reminder of the challenges of winter hiking. Although we weren't trying to set up our tent in the snow, the temps were cold enough that we really needed to get out of damp clothes as soon as we stopped exerting ourselves. Otherwise, we'd get very cold very quickly. We had some trouble keeping our feet warm when just sitting at camp. We'll need to work on that.
Overall, 19.2 miles over 2 days, but not evenly split. More like 12.6 and 6.6.