Old Speck

Old Speck + Mahoosuc Notch via a big 25-mile loop

Eric and Matthew Gilbertson
4.2.2011

Statistics:
14 hours
8:30am to 10:30pm
25 miles total
15 miles hiking
10 miles xc-skiing
Miles of broken trail: 0
Miles we were certain we were on the trail: 10
Average Snow depth: Trail blaze height + 1 inch
Total number of AT blazes spotted: 17

Old Speck has eluded Matthew and I on one too many occasions – when we hiked the Appalachian Trail we didn’t give it a second thought because it was a 0.25-mile side trial that didn’t have white blazes, and on a Mahoosuc Traverse one summer we were running to reach the car before dark and again didn’t take the side trail. This time would be different. We planned to devote a full day and do whatever it took to finally reach the summit of the 40th tallest peak in New England.

But if we got to Old Spec early in the day we might as well go and tag Mahoosuc Notch too, since that’s always fun in the winter and not too far away. And if we made it all the way to Mahoosuc Notch we might as well hike the extra few more miles to Success Pond Road so we could get some cross country skiing in to round out the day. And so the plan for the Old-Speck + Mahoosuc-Notch-via-a-big-25-mile-loop trip was born.

We drove up to Grafton Notch on Friday night just after a big snowstorm had dumped over a foot of snow in the mountains. The calendar said April 1st but it sure looked and felt like the middle of winter up in Maine. The road was basically unplowed for the last few miles going into Grafton Notch and our poor rental car kept slipping on the way up. We made it to Moose Cave and spotted a plow clearing out the parking lot – great! Maybe he’s cleared out the Old Speck lot too, we thought.

Nope. Our parking lot had 8 inches of snow in it and there was no way our car could ever make it in or out. We parked on the shoulder to consider our options:

1: wait around on the shoulder and hope the plow saves the day
2: plow part of the lot ourselves with our snowshoes
3: go back and park in the Moose Cave lot 2 miles down the road and walk to the old-speck lot the next morning (making for a 29-mile day Saturday – ouch).

After a few minutes we saw the plow approach the lot, and keep roaring by without giving it even a glance.

“We could shovel out a spot for ourselves tonight and park there, but that plow driver will be awefully mad if he comes in the middle of the night and has to plow around our car. He might just plow us out of the way with the snow,” Matthew said.

We grudgingly concluded that the Moose Cave lot was our only option, so we drove back and parked. At least this car was big enough that we could just fold the seats down in the back and sleep inside – no need to wallow through the deep, blowing snow and howling wind to set up a tent on the side of the road. We made it to sleep around 10pm with the plan to get up when we got up and start the hike well-rested.

The sun woke us up around 6:30 and we decided we might as well drive over to the Old Speck lot, just in case it magically got plowed overnight. That turned out to be a brilliant choice, because it was completely free of snow!

With no other cars in the lot and no sign that anyone had hiked our trail in the last few weeks, we set off around 8:30am. We alternated breaking trail, and spent the first few miles trying to figure out the best attachment scheme for our cross country skis. We didn’t want them sticking up too high because they would just push all the snow from the low branches onto our heads. I figured out how to attach mine so they almost reached the ground and only stuck up an extra 6 inches from my head. Matthew didn’t have much luck with this method so ended up just carrying the skis most of the way, before tying them with a string to his pack and dragging them (it actually worked pretty well).

Eventually we reached the top of the ridge where the side trail to Old Speck should start – and we lost the trail. The snow had been getting deeper and deeper until we figured out it was deeper than all the trail blazes. We spent 15 minutes brushing snow off trees we thought ought to have blazes, and then I finally found one. At that point we figured it was best to just drop our packs and bushwack the quarter mile up the ridge to the summit.

Matthew led the way, sinking into the snow much deeper than he should have (the size small MITOC snowshoes didn’t quite cut it). In a few minutes we stumbled across the trail and then reached the clearing on the summit. There was even a big fire tower to give us a view!

We climbed up and caught glimpses west to Mahoosuc Notch through the low clouds. It looked menacing with big icy rock faces, and we knew we had to check it out. It was 11am by now, and there was still plenty of day left to complete our trip.

We took the trail the whole way back to our packs this time, and then started our descent to Spec Pond. Note to future winter school leaders: If you ever consider the idea of a hockey + snow shelters at Speck Pond overnight trip, perhaps you should reconsider. Nobody hikes there in the winter and it will take a winter school trip at least a full day to get in.

We had even more trouble finding the trail to Spec Pond, and eventually just gave up and chose our own path of least resistance through the trees. Every once in a while we’d stumble across a cut branch and comment “what do you know, they decided to put a trail where we’re hiking.”

Spec Pond was a nice respite from the trees – it was completely frozen and we just walked right across. We took our first food break then in preparation for what I predicted would be the hardest part of the day – Mahoosuc Arm. Now Old Spec probably sees a few hikers in the winter since it’s only a few miles from the road and has a nice fire tower on top, and Spec Pond might see a hiking party or two in the winter since it has shelters, but I doubt anyone ever goes beyond Spec Pond in the winter. That means the trail would be nearly impossible to find. And, it’s one of the steepest sections of the Appalachian Trail, so might be even trickier. One might guess Mahoosuc Notch would be the most difficult part of our day (it is considered the hardest mile of the Appalachian Trail), but I knew from being in there in the winter before that the boulder field basically fills in with snow and it’s pretty easy to walk through in late winter. There aren’t even any bushes to thrash through.

We soon lost the trail again – as expected – and just headed up trying to reach the summit of Mahoosuc Arm where we knew the trail was. After sinking into a bunch of spruce traps we finally reached the summit, and even found a trail sign that wasn’t covered in snow!

“As long as we can get to Mahoosuc Notch by dark we’ll be golden, but if we get turned around in these woods on Mahoosuc Arm come dark we’ll be in trouble,” I noted, as I saw it was already 4pm.

We caught another view into Mahoosuc Notch from the summit, and then started heading down. Within 5 minutes we again lost the trail and decided to just head down through the woods and hope for the best. I joked this was the “Matthew’s Arm” trail, since he was leading.

Bushwacking was actually surprisingly fast with all the new snow because the mountain was steep enough that we were sliding down in our snowshoes most of the way. Occasionally we crossed something that might have been the trail, but we were never certain. About halfway down we intersected what looked like a streambed and we followed that all the way down to the notch at the base of Mahoosuc Mountain.

The streambed opened up more and more until it was like a super-highway with no trees to worry about and no branches to smack us in the face. We soon cut off the streambed toward Mahoosuc Notch, and happened upon a white blaze. You’d think we were actually following a trail or something.

I had actually been in Mahoosuc Notch the previous week to go ice climbing (taking a much easier approach from Ketchum), and recognized my campsite at the bottom of the notch. From here we were finally certain we could find our way home. We even had a few hours of daylight left to get to Success Pond road before dark.

We started hiking through the notch and there was even more snow than I remembered. The boulder field was mostly smoothed over, but there were still gaping bottomless holes every once in a while that could swallow you up like crevasses if you weren’t careful.

I took a few pictures of the ice in there to show to my climbing friends, but mostly we avoided any tom foolery – Matthew was anxious to get to the road and finally get some easy miles for the day.

At the top of the notch I donned my skis and we started our descent down the shelter brook trail. Finally, no more ski tips pulling me back when they get caught in the bushes. The descent was a piece of cake and we actually stayed on the whole way (except for a mile in the middle).

We reached Success Pond Road at 6pm and took another well-earned calorie break. Mileage-wise we were less than halfway done with the day, but the remaining 10-miles of skiing + 3 miles of road walking were all known variables with little chance of us getting lost. Thus we felt like we were almost finished.

I led the way kicking and gliding to the road. It was amazing moving four times faster than we had moved all day. We reached the Maine-NH state line just as the sun was setting. We got our headlamps handy, but it turned out we could ski by starlight for quite a while because the sky was open above us and the white snow was pretty reflected. We got passed by a few snowmobilers once, but those were the only other people we saw all day.

By 9:30pm we reached route 26 at the end of Success Pond road. Matthew was whipped and considered hitching the last 3 miles back to the car. We took another 10-minute food break and no cars passed. It was clear we might be waiting all night, so we donned our packs and started walking up the road.

By 10:30pm we were back to the car, completing our big loop in 14 hours. We cooked some pasta and went to sleep by midnight, already thinking of our next trip on Sunday, the infamous Nubble Peak in New Hampshire.

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