Mt. Cabot, The Horn, Unknown Pond, Little East Pond, East Pond

 

Unknown Pond
The Horn in the background

This is the week of the year that I look forward to the most. During the week that has Sept 15 I get really excited for the prospect of spending my two off days fishing for false albacore. I've had some great memories during that week fishing for albies. However, the big waves produced by the hurricane have made fishing for albies impossible right now. I could have stayed home and fished for schoolie stripers somewhere. Instead, I went up to New Hampshire and FINALLY did some hiking.

I left straight from work on Wednesday afternoon. I arrived in the mountains just before dark. I got myself a campsite and went to bed under clouds. I woke up around midnight to a light rain. Thursday was supposed to be beautiful so I was not worried about the passing shower. It was still raining at first light. It wasn't a big deal but it delay my plans since I rolled over and went back to sleep for an hour. When I finally got up I had a 75 minute drive to the trailhead.

My goal for the day was the 4170 foot Mt. Cabot. Cabot is the northernmost four thousand footer. It is one of the two last hikes for me join the 4000 footers club. I took one of the longer trails on the mountain to see some other interesting sights. I took the Unknown Pond Trail to the Kilkenny  Ridge Trail. This gave me a view of Unknown Pond and also The Horn. Sadly, the summit of  Mt. Cabot is completely wooded without any views (there is a clearing .3 miles from the summit if I came from the other direction). The Horn, however, has a three hundred and sixty degree gorgeous view. My plan was to get to Cabot as fast as I could, turn around visit The Horn for an hour, rush back to Unknown Pond and stay there until it was time to get out of the woods.

The view on top of Cabot, a pile of rocks
marking the summit

This plan is very good in theory. I stuck to my plan and stayed on top of Cabot long enough to get a drink and take pictures. The problem was, I am not in shape enough to make ten mile, 3300 foot climb up a 4100 foot mountain as a first hike of the year. I would have liked to do a warm up hike weekend but since it is already mid-September, I went big.So I struggled to keep up with any kind of timetable. I ended up spending 20 minutes on the Horn and less at Unknown Pond. Also slowing me down were the birds. They seemed to be everywhere migrating through the woods. I probably spent an hour looking at them, trying to get a new year bird at multiple places.

A view from The Horn
Presidentials in the background, Cabot in the right
foreground. 

I won't bore you with the details. The sky turned bright blue by 9 am. Unknown Pond was beautiful as was the view from The Horn. It took me 9 hours and 15 minutes to hike 10 miles, enjoy the view, and look at birds.

I did see three year birds. I saw a Ruffed Grouse, Spruce Grouse, and a Black Backed Woodpecker. I am sure my Rhode Island birding buddies would love to add the latter two to their list. There were also dozens of Red Breasted Nuthatches, Juncos, and multiple warbler species.

Black Backed Woodpecker in the
middle of the picture. I'd wish I had my
big lens but I took this pic 20 minutes
after a nasty fall on wet rock.

I got out of the woods at exactly 6 pm. I made it back to my campsite just before dark. I stopped and got myself a chocolate milk to enjoy along the way. That night while lying in my tent looking at the stars, I paid the price for my newly conquered mountain. I had Charlie Horses in both legs multiple times.

Friday-

Knowing that there was no way I am in shape enough to hike up my last 4000 foot mountain,  Mt Adams (probably the hardest 4000 footer, it is right there with Washington), I decided to do a decent yetndoable hike. I was also under the time constraint of having to be home at 4 pm because Laurie and I were going to Boston Friday night. I studied my map and chose to hike to East Pond on Tripoli Road. I've been to East Pond multiple times, but I had never been to Little East Pond. One can do a loop trail to both ponds at the cost of 5 miles and a thousand vertical feet.. This was perfect. I got to see another mountain lake I'd never been to and I'd be 30 miles closer to home.

Little East Pond

When I woke I packed my tent and headed off. The weather was perfect. Although I was pretty sore from Thursday, I enjoyed my trek through the woods. The hike was plenty hard enough to make me sweat, but mellow enough to have fun. I made it to Little East Pond in no time. It is pretty, probably prettier than its big brother a mile and a half away. away. I stayed for a few minutes but there wasn't any really good sitting stones.

East Pond

I made it to East Pond at 11:15. This gave me 45 minutes to sit and enjoy the view. I wanted to be out of the woods at 12:30 so I could get home and shower before meeting Laurie. The sky was perfect and it was just a nice day to sit at a mountain lake. On my hike down I came across many Black Throated- Blue Warblers but none cooperated enough for a picture. I also found a Swainson's Thrush which was very much in the mood to sit for a photo.

Thirsty butterfly

Things I learned-

Every trip to New Hampshire I try to learn something that will be useful in the future. This trip I used a bandanna as a headband. I wrapped it tight and tied it around my head. It kept the sweat out of  my eyes. It was wet enough where I could (and did) ring it out. A butterfly seemed to enjoy drinking my sweat also.

Swainson's Thrush
My favorite photo of the trip

I also realized, I can hike most of the big mountains right now. With an early start and setting a comfortable pace, I hiked 10 miles on a pretty big mountain. That said, The really big mountains like Adams are not doable right now. Maybe with another weekend or two of solid hiking Adams would be possible, but I think there is a good chance, it will have to wait until 2019

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Female Common Yellowthroat