Date of Hike: 8/1/10
Lincoln Woods/Wilderness Trail: 4.7 miles
Bondcliff/West Bond Spur Trail: 13.2 miles
Wilderness Trail: 1.8 miles
Pemi East Side beyond boring Trail: 3.0 miles
Total Miles: 22.9 miles (4,750 elevation gain)
Trip Report:
- I was pretty drained and exhausted but the weather forecast for Sunday called for another great day that I couldn't pass up so I headed deep into the Pemigewasset Wilderness to hike one of the most secluded and greatest stretch of mountains in all the White's...the Bonds.
- On Trail at 8am, cursing out loud on a trail even more annoying than the LW/Wilderness Trail at 5:30pm, Finished at 6pm. Temps above 60 degrees all day, no wind, terrific views!
- So what do you do after hiking over 28 miles and 12,000 feet of elevation gain in two days...hike another 20 plus miles and close to 5,000 more feet of elevation gain in a day!
- The hike between Cliff of the Bonds and Mount Bond is one of my favorite stretches in all of the White Mountains, HOWEVER, the hike to get there is one of the most annoying and boring in all of the White's thanks to the Lincoln Woods/Wilderness Trail!
- I was in rough shape by the time I got to the Bondcliff Trail and for the first part of the Bondlcliff Trail I was thinking maybe this wasn't such a great idea, maybe I should have just done the easier classic Franconia Ridge - Little Haystack / Lincoln / Lafayette Loop.
- However once crossing the dried out brook bed and the climbing really started I finally got in a grove and actually made better time than I thought up to the ledges of Bondcliff where the views no matter how many times you've been there are always beyond amazing!
- I started to run into lots of people and chatted it up with a nice lady working on her second round of the 48-4,000 footers and a group of three guys on vacation hiking to Guyot for the day, then doing a Zealand, Hale, Twins, Galhead, and maybe Garfield traverse to 13 Falls campsite on Monday and an Owl's Head hike back out to Lincoln Woods on Tuesday.
- One of the hikers has been hiking in the White Mountains since the early 1960's, I asked him if he hiked the Adams Slide Trail before it was abandoned and said he did and called it the steepest and most dangerous hiking he's ever done in the Whites!
- The views all day were simply amazing and I had the summits of Bond and West Bond all to myself and I'm starting to think the view from West Bond could be the best in all the White Mountains.
- Now it was time for the long descent which isn't to bad until you get back to treeline and have to slog it another 9 miles or so with no views.
- Back on the Wildeness trail I went a little slower and checked out some of the old railroad parts off trail hoping to find something interesting to take home but mostly it was just old pieces of rusted railroad parts, cans, buckets, and junk.
- When I reached the end of the Pemi Wilderness I decided to cross the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River and hike back along the Pemi East Side Trail hoping it would be less mind numbing than the LW/Wilderness Trail.
- The Pemi East Side Trail does not have Rail Road ties!!! HOWEVER other than that it's actually worse than the LW/W Trail, it's a dirt road with a couple of tiny hills, and it doesn't follow close by the river at all times, making it even more boring, and of course it never ends....I started to swear by the end of it "this trail is F**&%$! pointless, those campsites suck, this road sucks, that tree sucks, get out of my way chipmunk you suck, wthe frig this trail sucks!!!!!
- Back at the car I was just about dead but happy to be finished and very happy to have caught a third strait day with killer views and even more thrilled to be out of the woods!
Picures: Click here for all Pictures
Bondcliff and West Bond Mountain
Owl's Head and the Franconia Range
Twin Range
Pemigewasset Wilderness
Bondcliff
Please don't take any railroad souvenirs home. It's against the law and not fair to future generations of hikers.
ReplyDeleteHey Anonymous
ReplyDeleteNo worries, whenever I write a trip report about hiking on the LW/W trail I mention the RR parts and joke about it so I wasn't being serious, I would never take any "souvenirs" of the old rusted cans, buckets, pots, pieces of rusted metal scraps, and the ridiculous amount of old rusted wire wrapped around a tree about 50 feet off trail from the Bondcliff Trail junction and drag it all the way back to the trailhead! =)
Happy Hiking!
While a reminder of many years ago some of those railroad parts are a serious eyesore, I wish someone would take them away!
ReplyDeleteGreat trip report and pics, thanks for sharing =)
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou should have taken a look around Chris's blog and seen all the reports, pics, information, and the fun he has on his hikes and the people he runs across and you'd see how he respects the mountains and everything about them. Instead you find one line out of dozens of trip reports and make some snarky comment about breaking laws and don't even leave your name...lighten up!
EVA P.
Exactly what "souvenirs" are you talking about Anonymous??? I've been on that trail dozens of times over the past 40 years and there is nothing but a bunch of old rusted cans, buckets, and some scraps left because everything unique had been taken out by HIKERS over the years!
ReplyDeleteHe stated he was off trail, if he wants to take a rusted piece of trash out of the wilderness then that's fine with me!