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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
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<title>Peak Above the Nubble Bushwhack</title>
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<h1>Peak Above the Nubble, Trip Report</h1>
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This is a report on a trip that I made, with three
friends, to Peak Above the Nubble (a trailless peak on the
<a href="ne-hundred-highest.html">New England 100 Highest</a>
list). Roger and I had both finished the NE 100 Highest list, Mike
and Claude were working on it. There are many possible ways of
approaching that peak, we chose the old trail that goes to Haystack
Mountain, followed by a bushwhack.
<p>You will probably want to bring the real USGS South Twin quad
with you on the trip, I am including a pointer to a
<a href="http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=19&n=4900254&e=294823&s=25">
Topozone map</a> of the area for your convenience while you read
the description. The access road is not shown on this map, it is
clearly shown on the USGS topo and on the AMC Pemi map.</p>
<p>We drove down the Galehead side of the Gale River Loop Forest
Service road, and instead of making the final sharp right to the
Gale River trailhead we continued straight to a gate about a mile
further. We walked 10 to 15 minutes further on the road (overgrown
with grasses) until we came to a junction with an older road near
the hight of land. That road is obvious, we found a small cairn
after we had seen the road. We followed the road (to the right,
roughly south) until we came to a fork with two clear paths. The
road itself continued roughly SW, while a well beaten trail
branched off SE. That trail led us in about 30 minutes to the south
side of Haystack Mountain.</p>
<p>The trail appears to be quite heavily used, it is probably used
often by locals for going to Haystack Mountain. It follows a brook
closely for a short distance, the rocks on which it goes are
slippery. There is no need to watch out carefully for the stream
crossing, after following the stream (but not crossing it) it
diverges for a short time, then returns to it at an unmistakable
crossing. Beyond that it crosses two tributaries, you must step on
very slippery rocks, one of our party fell here on the return
trip.</p>
<p>We did not climb Haystack Mountain, it should be fun but we
decided to keep going. We did climb up a short distance and got a
field bearing on Peak Above the Nubble (160°) that agreed with
our map bearing. This is always a good sign! The distance is about
0.8 mile. We started on a herd path that led us to a campsite
complete with empty beer bottles. Beyond that we came upon a line
of surveyor's tape that was initially right on our bearing, though
the hight of the tape made us suspect that it was not put there by
peakbaggers. Sure enough, the tape line soon went off our course.
We continued, on gently rising terrain and through open woods until
the 2,800 foot contour, which is where the real fun started.</p>
<p>Here the woods became denser, and the slope <i>much</i> steeper.
We all took turns leading, and had mixed luck. We encountered
everything: easy going, moderately dense going, dense going,
blowdowns. We tried to avoid the densest stuff, and ended up a bit
to the west of our course. Fortunately the peak rises to an
unmistakable summit, so towards the end we just went uphill, and
reached a blowdown patch with the cannister. Though we did not go
through anything really bad it took us a bit less than three hours
to do the 0.8 miles from Haystack Mountain to the peak.</p>
<p>We spent about half an hour on the summit, which has limited
views on North Twin and the Little River. The return trip was
slightly more <i>interesting</i> than anticipated. To avoid the
densest growth we chose to go quite a bit more east than the ridge.
That gave us great going, until we found ourselves at the top of a
steep rocky area. I do not believe that this was the "impressive
cliffs" that the notes warn about, but it was something we had to
work around. We ended up traversing quite a bit until we were clear
of them, then we resumed our descent. Through sheer luck rather
than any great navigational skill we passed by the campground and
beer bottles, and soon were at the south end of Haystack Mountain.
It had taken us roughly as long to go down as to go up.</p>
<p>How difficult would I rate this trip? This is a difficult
question to answer, as there is no rating system for bushwhacks
that I know of. The upper section was steep, rising about 1,000
feet in under half a mile. This made everything harder, but we were
able to avoid having to do <i>any</i> rock scrambling. There were
areas of dense going, but it was through <i>young</i> spruce, which
is not too difficult to push out of your way. We did not encounter
any of the older trees with dead branches that are so difficult to
go through. The blowdowns that we encountered were mostly isolated,
and could be dealt with one at a time. I think that we only had to
walk on one (maybe two) blowdowns, very different from Scar Ridge
where I remember walking on blowdowns high above the ground,
something I <i>really</i> dislike.</p>
<p>And the summit was obvious. There are few things I hate more
than mountains that have a broad, flat "summit" on which you spend
half an hour searching for either the cannister, or at least a
point that you feel is the summit.</p>
<p><b>Comments or Suggestions?</b> Have <i>you</i> done Peak Above
the Nubble, or do you have any comments on the discussion of
bushwhacking difficulty? That is what the
<a href="http://www.voy.com/76694/">Peakbagging Forum</a> is
for!</p>
<br />
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