Owls Head March 22nd

[walkerd2]

Date(s) Hiked: March 22nd 2007

Trails(s) Hiked: Wilderness Tr. to Black Pond Bushwack to Lincoln Brook Tr. to Owls head path then back via Franconia Brook Tr. and East Side Pemi Tr.

Total Distance: About 17 miles, 2850 elevation gain

Difficulty: Long, other than that pretty straight forward

Special Required Equipment: Snowshoes and crampons

Trip Report: Well I finally decided that Thursday would be the day to get out to the dreaded Owls Head.
I arrived at the Lincoln Woods parking lot right at 7:00 in the morning. I geared up and headed down the trail. The wilderness trail was real icy, so I switched to crampons and headed on my way. I made it to the Black Pond trail quickly and continued on. I had decided not to bring snowshoes to save weight, which ended up being a mistake. At Black Pond, I started following snowshoe tracks up through the woods, excited that I did not have to find my own path through the woods. Then, 15 minutes in, the tracks ended, so I took a due north bearing and followed that through beautiful, open woods. Having not brought any snowshoes, I was post holing a couple of inches, but it was not too bad since the snow was so wet and heavy.
Upon reaching the Lincoln Brook Tr,, I plodded along. The trail was relatively easy to follow, and there were 2 tracks of snowshoe prints to follow. As the day warmed up, the snow became softer, and I began sinking into the snow about 6 inches at each step, sometimes deeper. Sorry. When I reached the Owls Head path, the going got really steep really quick. Man, what a fun hike that was. As you head up, the ground drops quickly below you and the views are great. The slide was mostly snow and mixed ice and rocks. Finally I made it up and stopped for a minute at the official summit, then I headed north and tried to find the new summit. After 20 minutes of walking through spruce trap hell, were I sunk up to my stomach more times than I care to think about, I looked left and saw a pile of rocks and a piece of yellow surveying tape tied to a tree. Then right next to it was the wooden sign. It was 2:15.
Heading back down was the toughest part of the trip. I took my time getting down the slide, not wanting to get hurt by myself this far out in the Pemi. Making it down ok, I started the long hike out. I decided to take my luck following the Lincoln Brook Tr. to the Franconia Brook Tr., and had no problems. The stream crossings were all frozen over and easy to cross. Finally I made it back to the car at 8:00, tired but happy I was down.
Owls Head is actually a really fun hike and doesn't deserve the reputation it has. The views from the slide were amazing, and the bushwack from Black Pond was a blast. The fact that Thursday was a beautiful day until around 6:00 helped too. Number 43.

Pictures Here

 

[MarcHowes]

Good job!

Which bad reputation are you talking about with regards to Owls Head? There are "more than one" some of them being well deserved I guess there is also an "all encompassing" bad rep which probably is not a fair reputation to give it!!!!

Here are some of the bad reps I think its earned:

-Terrible Bushwhack: Ya its a mean one, but obviously if you don't bushwhack it, then this is meaningless. I did a bypass bushwhack when I climbed it, and encountered some of the most god awful spruce I have ever seen.

-No view from the summit: Some people are grumpy that there is no view -- IE you hike so damned far then then get nothing But the slide views are definitely worth while.


Owl's head however is a great way to end a pemi loop (if done in 2 days). I personally thought Owl's head was a real neat mountain. I guess one of its drawbacks is unless you are peak bagging you would never visit it

 

[walkerd2]

The views from the slide were great, they are way underrated and made the hike worth it.

The isolation was pretty cool too. There isn't many places in the WMNF you can head and be that far in the middle of nowhere.

It is definately an ass buster though, and the long march out on the FBT and Lincoln Woods trail stinks since I've done it more times than I care to remember.

 

[MarcHowes]

The key is to get yourself into some sort of trance, you'll be back to the trail head in no time This is definately one of the longer unexciting sections of trail in the whites, actually I think I can say it is -the- longest.

Thankfully I am interested in dead railroad ROWs so I can keep myself mildly entertained there the old railgrades follow the river most of the way up to the slide trail head if you keep your eyes peeled.

 

[walkerd2]

Have you ever just wandered around following some of the old grades?

I've been entertaining the idea of wandering around in the back country trying to find some of the more remote logging camps. When we BW out to Red Rock Pond we followed a rail road grade most of the way, and we ended up finding these.

 

[MarcHowes]

oh yes, I have definitely gone rail grade hunting before, http://www.hoosactunnel.net/HTW <-- an old website I never really finished on the HT&W rr in MA/VT and the logging railroad (DRRR) that it acted as the mainline for.

I have stumbled across several in the whites, some I didnt even know where there until I hiked on them. A good example is on the bunnel notch side of Cabot. Unknown Pd tr, and the tr that leads up to the weeks both follow old grades. Isolation Tr along the river follows an old grade, and of course the trail to the hancocks (from the hairpin on the kanc) follows a fringe branch of the East Branch RR (IE the rr that once extended in the pemi). The kanc actually follows along side the old grade for the entire distance from Lincoln woods to the hairpin.

Thats just scratching the surface too, there were others extending out towards Isolation, zealand notch etc.

Sawyer River rd is on an old grade (well, most is anyways).. Tripoli rd was an old rr (there was a small mining operation at east pond too..) beebee river had an old logging rr that almost made it over to Whiteface mtn from campton. The list goes on I know im forgetting some too!!!!

 

[walkerd2]

I remember reading somewhere that hikers used to actually take the train that was turned into the kanc from Lincoln to get to the Hancocks and surrounding peaks.

Pretty amazing stumbling upon some of them so far out into the woods. It's hard to imagine that just around 100 years ago the woods we hike through were completely clearcut and actually had trains running through them.

 

[Mike P.]

I'm thinking I am spreading those bad rep's on Owl's Head, IMO the view from the slide is over-rated, it just happens to be the only view. That said, when I was there last a couple of May's ago, a couple of trees not far from the old summit had blown down allowing a partial view back at Franconia Ridge.

I'm planning to go back this fall (for season 3, still need winter) to see the new summit. Figure after winter, I'll only go back a 5th time with my kids & even then I don't know if I'll go above the slide.

 

[MarcHowes]

BTW, where those old relics you found on your BW portions of a stove? its a bit hard to tell.

Nancy Pond Tr has the ruins of an old steam donkey (a stationary steam engine used as a wince for pulling logs from the forest) There are also lots of goodies near the nature trail if your eyes gaze off into the woods at the right moment (I have seen pictures of an old RR spur -- rails, cross ties and all!)

By far the coolest thing I have heard of found in the whites was a saw blade found on an Isolation Bushwhack http://hikenh.netfirms.com/PDIsolat.htm (the picture is not there any more who knows why...) this was like a 3-4 foot across blade lodged in the ground. In the middle of nowhere!

[found the picture here: http://images.google.com/images?hl=...gle+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi ]

 

[walkerd2]

Yep, we found a saw blade too.

Everything was found in a little clearing a couple hundred feet north of the red rock brook, maybe 1-1.5 miles in from were it intersects the Franconia Brook trail. We kind of stumbled upon them, and it was a 1 in a million chance that we found them. If we had been a little to the left or right, we would have walked right past them.