Middle & North Tripyramid

b]Date(s) Hiked:[/b] 01-27-2007

Trails(s) Hiked: Sabbaday Brook, Tripyramid Trail, Pine Bend

Total Distance: 10 miles 3200 feet elevation gain

Difficulty: Moderate with a couple of difficult spots

Conditions: Water crossing looked harder than they were on Sabbaday, we skipped first two & bushwhack was a little harder than planned but still short, we put crampons on for 3rd crossing & a crossing of a tributary. Some downed trees, only 3-5 inches of snow & well packed


Special Required Equipment: crampons helpful, three of us wore them on the steep section of Sabbaday, the one who did not wear them led the way up.


Trip Report:

A brutally cold forecast turned into a cold but not much colder than what shold be expected for late January with very little but occassional wind & just enough snow falling to make it look nice. Cloud ceiling appeared to be abit over 4200 feet but Tecumseh was a bit murky from Middle Tripyramid. Started around 8:35 & finished a little before five. Had cars spotted.

I did the same loop back in November (except I didn't have a car spotted so I had to walk the kanc :sad: . The crossings on Sabbaday were brutal when I went. High water made it tough, I ended up bushwhacking more of the route than I would have ever liked. To make matters worse it was dark when I started!

Other than that its a great loop. The views of the North Slide from Pine Bend are awesome.

:beer:

It wasn't so much that the crossings were hard but no clear path had been made across the ice & with some open water nearby & everyone with packs weighing between 210 - 260 we were just waiting for one of us to fall in. The Pine Bend end in the dark would have been no prolem, those Sabbaday crossings in heavy water deserve extra care.

Mike P. said:

b]Date(s) Hiked:[/b] 01-27-2007

b]Trails(s) Hiked:[/b] Sabbaday Brook, Tripyramid Trail, Pine Bend

Total Distance: 10 miles 3200 feet elevation gain

Difficulty: Moderate with a couple of difficult spots

Conditions: Water crossing looked harder than they were on Sabbaday, we skipped first two & bushwhack was a little harder than planned but still short, we put crampons on for 3rd crossing & a crossing of a tributary. Some downed trees, only 3-5 inches of snow & well packed

Click to expand...

Hey Mike,

I have not hiked the Trypyramid's yet and was interersted in your trail report. I have not had a chance until now to actually sit down and read the Sabbaday trail description in the WMG, and it even mentions bushwacking for the water crossing's during high wates.

It also says that you cross the Sabbaay brook a total of 7 times! What makes these crossing so difficult. Just curious.

And just a thought about your other thread, (My vote goes for Mt. Moosilauke because its a total open 360 view) and i think it would be a cool way to end!

The brook is fairly wide & deep at the first three crossings. We skipped the first two & put crampons on the third & also at a large tributary. Without Ice I think the trib could be crossed even in higher than normal conditions. It was fairly steep & had you slipped you could have bounced a couple of times. After that there was less water although one crossing was a little tricky it was not any harder than normal small brook frozen crossings

With the snow & ice along the bank we missed a couple of spots where the more typical bushwhack follows the brook

If I was just going to climb these peaks once, outside of winter, my choice would be up the North Slide & down the South Slide. At some point, I'll have to do these as a Spring hike, the verdict is still out for how. We met a couple of people who were out with a guy who did the Tri's Sleepers & Whiteface & Passaconaway. That sounds like an option but likely not this year.

I'll come up with my choices on the other question later....

I agree, if not in the winter, then go up the slides (follow Livermore "trail" (its a road)) The slides are extremely awesome (go up North and down South not the other way around!). Pine bend is also a good trail as it only has really only a few stream crossings and they are all very easy. Problem with pine bend is there is no parking lot at the base so you have to park on the kanc (or walk a mile on the kanc to the Sabbaday parking spot).

If you don't mind the stream crossings Sabbaday would be good. Actually I had a lot of fun crossing the streams (because I never fell in amazingly!) but they added a lot of time simply cause I missed one crossing and had to bushwhack FAR *which was frustrating). There are still some relics of the old logging operation along the trail (the trail is an old logging rd, hence all the crossings).

Also, of the 7 crossings I think only 4 of them were big. 3 of them were far enough up where they were only 3-6 feet wide and easy.

In Summer if I was going to do the Pine Bend & Sabbaday, I'd go up Pine Bend & walk down Sabbaday & cross through the streams & cool off. (My first preferecne is still the slide route)