[at-l] Pemi Trip: Thursday August 5, 2004: Greenleaf Hut to Franconia Brook campground

[papabear.nyc at verizon.net (Papa Bear)]

Thursday August 5, 2004: Greenleaf Hut to Franconia Brook campground via the Lincoln Slide and Owls Head 

I slept lightly that night at Greenleaf Hut. I had packed my stuff almost completely the night before and put it out in the main room. I set my watch for 4:40 AM and got to bed early. There was some chatter from a group of young teens in the next room and an occasional "Quiet!", "Shut up!" etc. but eventually that faded away. The guy across from me snored very loudly and I wish I had remembered my ear plugs but that too didn't keep me awake. When my watch alarm went off I was very groggy, but I did what I had to do and dragged myself out of my bunk and very quietly folded my blankets "once long ways, twice cross wise ..." and stole out of the bunk room without waking anyone. When I looked out the windows and up at Lafayette I expected to see a wall of fog and clouds. Surprise: Lafayette and Lincoln stood above the Hut in full view - no clouds. This was the first time I had ever stayed at Greenleaf Hut where we were not socked in the early in the morning. Apparently the force would be with me this morning. I managed to eat a power bar and some cheese and had some lemonade that was there and I got out the door just after 5:00 AM. 

The climb up Lafayette felt easy in spite of the steep slope and my overnight pack. The adrenalin helped as did the beautiful sunrise happening before me. First I saw the sunrise clouds over Lafayette Click for photo and then near the top was the sight to the west of the sun hitting the top of Cannon Mountain behind me with the hut far below - still sleeping soundly [Click for photo]. 

I rounded the top of Lafayette and took time to change my clothes. It was quite cold (I would estimate under 50 degrees) and windy, but hardly arctic. As long as I was moving I felt warm. The chill would continue on until I got over the east side of the ridge at North Lincoln where I would get out of the wind. I had made it to the summit in just about an hour, typical for me. 

I hiked over to North Lincoln and found the spot I had marked with my red bandana the afternoon before. It was just before you reach the top of North Lincoln where there are two boulders on the left (east) of the trail [Click for photo]. 

The Lincoln Slide, summary: 
Let me summarize the slide route by breaking it into three sections: 
1) Getting onto the north prong from North Lincoln 
2) Working down the slide 
3) Getting out of the stream gully to the left bank of the stream, into the woods and doing the bushwhack. 
I would say that 1) and 2) went well and were no problem even with my pack, but 3), getting into the woods and doing the bushwhack did not go easily. Although here I am writing this so I obviously made it out. 

The Lincoln Slide: getting onto the north prong from North Lincoln: 
[See photos 88 - 93. You can go from photo to photo by clicking on the double arrowhead on the upper right of each shot. Click for photo #88 .] >From the point I had marked with my bandanna, I moved off the trail to the left, slanting southeast and moved down two or three slabs which slanted down. From the last slab, there are some boulders off about 20 yards to the right and slightly up hill. I got off the slab (on the left - the drop was too high at the tip end) and circled around below the tip of the slab towards the right and then worked my way over to the boulders. It's pretty open here and I felt a little guilty stepping on the occasional Diapensia and Mountain Azalea. When you reach the boulders you are but a few yards from the tip top of the slide. You need to just work through some Krumholz for these few yards and you are there. One thing you don't want to do is bushwhack through Krumholz if you can avoid it. You can reach the slide in 5 minutes from the trail, or 10 minutes if you are overly cautious. 

The Lincoln Slide: working down the slide: 
[See photos 93 - 103. Click for photo #93 .] I must say, the slide itself was rather easy. This is a very loose, dirty slide where most of the surface is covered by gravel and pebbles together with rocks of all sizes up to boulders. I suspect that this is because it is not as steep as some slides (Owls Head for example) where most of this small loose stuff has long since washed away. It was like walking in loose sand. On every step you would slide down a few inches (or more) and you just had to be very careful not to dislodge anything large. I stayed to the far left of the slide. The left (north) prong, which I was on, reaches higher then the main prong and seemed easier. The middle and right side of the slide looked more rocky and a fairly steep gully went down the center. I got myself down to the "bottom" of the slide in about 40 minutes from it's top, or 50 minutes from the trail on North Lincoln. 

The Lincoln Slide: getting out of the stream gully to the left bank of the stream, into the woods and doing the bushwhack: 
First off let me say there is no abrupt point where you can say the slide has ended and you are "just" in a stream gully. One of the problems is figuring out when you've had enough of the stream and make your way into the woods. Judging by other accounts, I stayed too long in the stream. I climbed down in the stream bed itself a considerable distance past photo #103 [Click for photo ] and when I finally made my way up the left bank it was a very tough push to get through the very thick brush on the very steep bank. I went up once, gave up, went down the stream further another 50 yards or so and pushed through again. This time I kept pushing since I knew some relatively open woods were in there somewhere and finally made it through to more reasonable terrain. Advice #1: find someone who has done this and find the right spot to enter the woods! 

At this point I was in a fairly easy bushwhack. But here in retrospect I realize I made my second mistake, I worked my way down hill without paying much attention to where I was with respect to the stream. I suddenly realized I could no longer hear the stream. Since I had a map and knew the bearing the stream took on its way down, I worked my way to the right about 45 degrees up from that bearing, so I would get over to the stream while still moving down the slope. After 10 or 15 minutes I could hear the stream again and I found that there was a ridge or hogback that paralleled the stream perhaps 50 or 100 yards to the left of it, and this is what I followed down. Advice #2: Always stay close enough to the stream so you can hear it. The slope eventually got gentler and I could now occasionally see the stream through the trees. No longer was it a tumbling rill, now it was just a lazy stream. I had to work around an occasional boggy area but nothing substantial. Eventually I began to hear an loader sound: I was nearing Lincoln Brook. I reached Lincoln Brook just 10 or 20 yards form the confluence with the slide stream, just at a point where a beautiful cascade tumbled down [Click for photo ]. I could rock hop across Lincoln Brook just below this cascade and after climbing perhaps 10 or 20 yards, I found myself on the Lincoln Brook Trail. It had taken me altogether 2 and a 1/2 hours from the top of the ridge. I know others have done it in half that amount of time or less. My biggest delay was due to the problems negotiating the bushwhack. If you can get some expert advice on that section you should be able to do it faster than I did. 

Owls head 
I changed out of my sweaty long bushwhack clothes and quickly hiked down the Lincoln Brook Trail to the large Cairn marking the start of the trail up to Owls head. By the measure of what I had done yesterday and this morning this was a walk in the park. I started up about 9:45. I soon reached the Owls Head slide [Click for photo ]. Ouch! This was steep and exhausting, especially with my overnight pack. This slide differed noticeably from the Lincoln Slide: it was steeper (my Maptech software reads it as a 40% - 45% grade, and the Lincoln Slide as a 30% - 35% grade) and was more rocky, with a number of ledges to scramble over. It had much less gravel and small pebbles which characterized the Lincoln Slide. Although the WMG says to stay to the right going up, I just followed the path of least resistance and moved from side to side as the terrain seemed to indicate. The slide was also shorter than the Lincoln Slide, but because I was going up, not down, it seemed to go on forever. But forever was not forever and I eventually got to the trail, which was steep at first but soon leveled off as I reached the ridge line. Then it was an easy walk along the ridge to the high point. The so called "summit" had an old blowdown to sit on, a cairn,and a sign nailed to tree. It took me an hour and 25 minutes to reach the top. It was 11:08 and I was tired so I decided it was time for lunch. 

Down the east side of Owls Head 
At about 11:45 I decided to move on. Since I was bushed, I made a decision to head to the Franconia Brook Campground tonight rather than trying to bushwhack up Bondcliff and hike over to Guyot Campground. I decided however to bushwhack down the east side of OH, bushed though I was. Actually I just didn't want to go back down the OH Slide (though I know now it would have been shorter by far then the bushwhack I took). This was long and tiring and in a word, rather bad (sorry, two words). There was a herd path leading east off the summit so I followed that for a while. After about 100' of elevation loss it petered out, but not before I found this: [Click for photo ]. This was a surprise to find in the absolute middle of no where. But I'm glad I found it! I pushed on and tried to stay on the east ridge but ended up in the gully/stream to the south of the ridge. It was probably a matter of over compensation for the thick brush that was steering me to the left, so I pushed to the right - too far it turned out. The slope got very steep and I found my self in a gully. There was a stream there but it was mostly underground up here. I decided the best course was to move down this gully but that was easier said then done. The rocks and ledges became bigger and I found myself negotiating my way down first 4' ledges and then 8' - 10' ledges. BTW, when does a ledge be come a cliff? There were bigger drops I managed to avoid but this was not a fun route. To make matters worse, blowdowns seemed to concentrate in this gully, probably because of the thin soils on the steep sections. I knew I had to get out of this gully so I pushed over towards the left side. At about this point I noticed that the bushwhack gremlins had snatched my map out of the pocket of my tummy pack. I lost both the Topozone printout I made of my route, but also my waterproof AMC Franconia/Pemmigewasset Map. To make matter worse, the gremlins also snatched by VFTT patch from where it was pinned to my tummy pack. Never mind losing the map, losing the VFTT patch really pissed me off! Around about this time I recalled a conversation I had the night before with one of the hut croo. I said I'd like to give her a copy of my route for today and explained where I would be going (including what I was doing right this minute). She said was I doing it with someone else, and I said no, I would be doing it solo. She said something like "That really doesn't seem like such a smart idea". No map, no VFTT patch, no, not too smart. But I still knew down hill from up so I pushed on and found my way to a ridge line above and to the left of the gully and slowly, very slowly, made my way down. Eventually I reached a very gentle area and the stream curved to the right. I still, of course, had my compass and knew the original bearing of the ridge and gully so I kept to that and lo and behold, I came out to Franconia Brook, running wide and swift. Much relieved, I changed to my Tevas and forded this stream (about knee deep) and made my way up to the path on the opposite shore. It was about 2:45, three hours after starting down from the OH summit. But I knew where I was, map or no map, and it was where I wanted to be, so I was as happy as a pig in shit! 

On to Franconia Brook Campground 
After changing and eating a bit, I found my way from the path I was on up a bit farther to the Franconia Brook Trail. Boy talk about contrast. This sucker could be wheel chair accessible if a wheel chair could manage to get in here! It was a literal boulevard. They had laid this trail along an old railroad right-of-way and you could actually see some old RR ties here and there. Luckily I had studied the map rather well before managing to lose it, so off I went the 3 or so miles down the trail to the Franconia Brook Campground. I first passed a couple of pretty lakes on the left and at another point the trail went to the left around a beaver bog before returning to the railroad right-of-way. At 4:30 PM, 11 and a half hours after leaving Greenleaf Hut, I crossed the East Branch of the Pemi on the stepping stones, over to the Campground. This was a USFS campground (=free!) so I just had to pick a spot an register myself. I pitched my tent, eat, hung my food and was in bed by 7:30. Quite a day. And guess what? I met not one other hiker all day long! 

Total Mileage: 9.1, elevation: +2810', -5600', time: 11:22.

I've got the pictures of this trip up: Pemi Trek Pictures. Enjoy!