New England 100 Highest - Scar Ridge (bushwacking!)

Thursday, June 7, 2018 - Having completed the "New England 4000 footers" last year, the next list is the "New England 100 Highest", which includes (of course) the 67 mountains over 4,000 feet, plus another 33 - my map of the 33:


I am looking at the ones in New Hampshire, around the Kancamagus Highway:


Scar Ridge is just above the Loon Mountain ski area, so that looks like a good "Thursday hike" (not too far away):

Breakfast in Boston, errands, up 93. Started at 11:50, finished at 6:10

9.94 miles in 6 hours 20 minutes

After my trail-clearing work last week, and remembering all those people getting their "100 Highest" awards last March at the AMC meeting, I felt comfortable tackling today's challenge: hike up a ski slope, then a "herd path" for 0.6 miles, then 1 mile/2 miles/?? miles bushwacking to the top (Scar Ridge).

DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!
1- What is the name of the peak you want to hike?
2 - Where is it? (Google Maps, paper maps)
3 - If it is on the trail-to-a-4000-footer, it will appear in a very nice description in one of AMC's Guide Books:

4 - If it IS NOT on the trail-to-a-4000-footer, there are a number of blogs out there - I read 3 of them to prepare for Scar Ridge [no trail, bushwacking].

Maine Wanderlust click for blog
Hike-NewEngland.com click for blog
4000footers.com click for blog
Trail to Summit click for blog
White Mountain Explorer click for blog
Section Hiker click for blog
Its Not About The Hike click for blog

At Loon, the East Branch Pemigewasset River is beautiful today:


I then hiked up Broadway and Lower Bear Claw to get to the Camp III Lodge:

It is overcast and relatively cool, so a nice hike.

The view today:

is a little different from December 18, 2014:


At 1:13, 3 photos from almost-the-top-of Upper Walking Boss:
Looking north/downhill

looking west = The top of the chairlift

and eastward, where I find the "herd path"

just to the right of the center tree.

As mentioned in the other blogs, the herd path is actually quite nice:


0.6 miles later = on the right, the best entry into the woods:


Bushwacking can be fairly easy

or moderately-difficult (the rubbed-off log is where people have stepped):

or really kind of almost impossible:


(oh, and by the way, I lost a hiking pole in all that blowdown!)

At 3:15, as I was looking around trying to figure out where to go next, I LOOKED UP AND BURST OUT LAUGHING:

(it was very funny to suddenly see it!)

Bushwacking UP to a peak has (at least) one easy component to it - you are always heading UP. This means that (generally), if you keep your right-and-left sides converging in front of you, you should not get into too much trouble. Unfortunately, that is reversed going downhill - "downhill" is on your left, on your right, AND straight in front of you. The orange line is my "bushwack track" up and down, with the "problem areas going downhill" in yellow::

I was able to use MapMyWalk to correct myself when I got off-track.

Out of the woods at 5:25, in time for another comparison photo::

versus March 24, 2014:


At the car at 6:10, Home a little after 8, for a big kiss from my Wonderful Wife, and a Hot Bath! Thank you God for these wonderful adventures!!

While I was researching the blogs for this hike, I came across some quotes from William Butler Yeats (Irish poet 1865-1939). Besides poetry, he wrote plays; this quote (the character speaking is "Marie Bruin") is from The Land of Heart's Desire:

Come, faeries, take me out of this dull house!
Let me have all the freedom I have lost;
Work when I will and idle when I will!
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame!

I will wait for next week to quote his poem "When You Are Old" - stay tuned.

Today's driving music was cds and from my big iPod:

Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Got A Mind To Give Up Living: Live 1966, 1966


Elizabeth & The Catapult - Like It Never Happened, 2014


Bananarama - Bananarama, 1990


lyrics to "Through a Child's Eyes":

"The sun shines forever
Through a child's eyes
The sun shines forever
No worries no ties
Laughing and learning
As time goes by

I never believed that I'd grow old"

and then the drive home, after the hike:

The Beatles - Help!, 1965


Carly Simon - Hello Big Man, 1983


John Mayer - Heavier Things, 2003