Hiked by Tim and Valerie on April 26, 2008 via Mt Percival Trail, Crawford Ridgepole Trail and Cotton Mtn Trail
Conditions: This hike was like a trip through three seasons in a single day.
We started at 9:15am at the Percival trailhead on Route 113. The parking lot is closed off (no idea why) so we had to park on the side of the road. It was about 48 degrees and sunny. We hadn't walked 100 yards when Tim noticed that his backpack felt wet. He took it off and removed a pile of wet clothes... His water reservoir, which we hadn't used since last fall, had leaked all over. Valerie took the worst of the clothes back to the car while Tim checked out the damage and re-packed the bag, after tightening the seal on the remaining water.
After this, the hike was on! We heard some great warblers as we entered the woods, but couldn't get a good look at them to identify them specifically. The walking was easy. The Mt Percival trail was dry and the water crossings were good. A couple muddy patches were easily traversed. This constitutes the "Spring" season in our walk. We got some pictures of a beautiful Yellow-bellied Sapsucker as he worked on a tree. We admired a rock wall that reminds us that this all was once farmland (poor farmers!). We found only one wildflower out yet - a Round-Leaved Yellow Violet. It was a sad little squished looking thing, but Tim managed to prop it up so we could get the picture.
As we came out onto the ledges near the summit of Mt Percival, we stopped and took a break in the rocks. Tim was still working to dry out his clothes. The views were great and we could see a little snow in the crevices of the mountains. Considering that it's been in the 60's and 70's for probably the last 10 days, it is surprising to still see snow. It must have accumulated there. It would not be the last that we saw. We climbed up to the very summit of Mt Percival and took more pictures to the east (Mt Chocorua) and towards the lake. But we needed to start moving, we had many more miles to walk.
The hike over to Mt Morgan was sloppy. What wasn't muddy was just sloppy, wet snow. The footing wasn't great. Sometimes the snow would hold you. Sometimes you would go in deep. Sometimes there was earth at the bottom, and sometimes there was just inches of mud under the snow. It made for slow going for us, although we were passed by a "jogger". Not sure how he was doing it. Throughout all of this, any sign of a bird flitting through the woods would stop us dead to get out the monocular and take a look.
The Mt Morgan ledges were chilly with some wind. We only stopped for a moment. There was another group of three that had arrived from the other direction (up the ladders).
We went down over the ladders and through the rock caves and reconnected with the trail in a few moments. This must be the point where things got a little stressful and we stopped taking pictures. The ladders and caves are really cool, but we took no pictures. From the intersection of Mt Morgan/Crawford Ridgepole trails over to Mt Webster was a sloppy, snowy, muddy mess. Much worse that we'd seen between the other summits earlier. It was obvious that no one but us (and a poor post-holing moose) had been on the trail in a long time. It was a frustrating battle. We were in our summer boots, and the snow was often deeper than the boots. It was so soft that it just found its way into our shoes and socks with every step and instantly melted. We were soggy. It was our fault for not being prepared, but it wouldn't have made sense to have snowshoes. It was like this: 30 feet of soft snow, 15 feet of muddy rock-hopping, 100 feet of semi-hard, semi-dry walking, 15 more feet of mud, 30 more feet of snow... you see the pattern. If we were taking off and putting on the snowshoes every time we found a patch of snow, we would still be in there. This constitutes the "Winter" season in our walk.
After about 1.5 hours of this, we stopped at a large ledge in the sun and changed our socks, ate a snack, and took a mental break. We started off again, and within minutes we were out of the snow and into a totally different environment. Warm sun, no snow, completely dry trails. The trip from Mt Webster all the way to Cotton Mountain was like this - "Autumn" walking! The biggest issue in this part of the woods were the piles of dry and slippery leaves. Just like Autumn, you put your foot down into a pile of leaves and hope not to turn an ankle. We made decent time from Mt Webster to Mt Livermore, stopping just for a few minutes so that Tim could refill his water supply and to take a picture of this Garter snake, and of course, still stopping to check out the birds every chance that we get. We saw an owl that we didn't have time to identify, as well as at least a couple types of warblers. We need to start carrying our little voice recorder so that we can capture the songs and compare at home.
The summit of Mt Livermore has been cut by the landowner so that the view is better than most of the other surrounding summits. We sat for awhile and enjoyed the views of Squam Lake, Little Squam Lake and White Oak Pond. Then on to the final summit of the day. In the col between Livermore and Cotton, we found the remains of a deer (mostly hair) spread quite wide along the trail. After the final climb up Cotton Mountain, we found a second set of remains there (also deer, also mostly hair at this point). We came down the Cotton Mtn Trail more slowly, as Val's knees were starting to feel the wear-and-tear of the day.
We were ALMOST within sight of the car, when something else came into view. WATER. LOTS OF IT. This is when Tim said "Oh, this must be the spot that Silverfox was talking about". Silverfox is a member of the ViewsFromTheTop hiking forum, and he'd apparently warned about the flooding across the trail. We looked left, and could not see the end of the flooding. We looked right, and we could see the body of water that the flooding was coming *from*. We can see across to the other side, and at this point, the trail is really a hardened dirt road. Val was exhausted and just wanted to get to the car. We decided to walk through it. It was crystal clear and still. Tim left his shoes and socks on - just pulled up his pant legs. He had another pair of shoes in the car for driving home. We didn't know how deep it was as he headed out. As Val stood on the edge and watch Tim go deeper and deeper, she decided to do it barefoot. It ended up being about shin-deep and very cold. :-)
And of course, we didn't have the thought to take any pictures of that either.
We had a good time, but will set a reminder in our calendar to do this trail at least a week later next year. We need to balance the snow and mud with the arrival of the blackflies. We saw virtually none of them today. OK, perhaps 3 all day.
Another reminder for ourselves for next year... We could have called this ScatFest 2008. We wish we'd taken pictures of all the "signs" of animals that we saw: moose, deer, snowshoe hare, coyote, bear and grouse. Those are just the ones of which we were certain. If we'd started taking pictures early in the trip, we could have done an entire section of this trail report entitled "ScatCam". And it's very obvious what some folks had for dinner. Ick.
Here's a VIDEO of the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that Tim took back at the beginning of the trip!
Overall Stats: 9.5 miles, 7.5 hours - just about the slowest walk we've done. Let's blame it on the bird-watching.