Owls Head

Eric ascending the Owls Head slide

Owls Head

4,025 ft

Dates Climbed: 2/13/2006, 5/31/2009

Owl’s Head Bushwack + trip report 2/11

Participants: Eric, Matthew, Tom, and Srini

Distance: ~16 miles
We originally planned on doing Owl’s head as a day trip and camping at the trailhead, but we decided to hike in a few miles on Friday night and camp in the woods to give us our best shot at summiting Saturday. Unfortunately the wilderness trail was a complete sheet of ice with about 1cm of snow on top, so it was quite a struggle to ski in to our campsite and only Tom and I managed to make it the whole way without walking. We found a flat spot and set up camp around midnight.

I remember debating whether to bring 0-degree bags or -20 degree bags, and I’m glad I chose the warmer ones because it was -12F when we got up Saturday morning – brrrrrr. We left our tents up to take care of when we returned, and headed up the trail at about 7am sans skis. Very soon we were passed by a mountain biker, which was surprising for the winter. As we were turning up to the black pond trail we passed another group of 9 hikers who coincidentally were also going to Owl’s head – little did we know this only half of the circus we would encounter at the top.

At black pond I got my map and compass out and lead our group on a bushwack due north to the lincoln brook trail. It let us bypass two stream crossings and saved a mile of hiking, so it was well worth it. By 9am we were back on a beaten trail and cruising over the ice in our crampons toward the Owl’s head slide trail. Unfortunately for newcomers to this area, there are no signs or even cairns to tell hikers where trail intersections are (it’s supposed to be a wilderness with minimal evidence of humans). This wouldn’t be a problem in the summer, but in the winter in deep snow it was impossible for us to tell where to turn off. So, we decided to bushwack up and stop when the terrain was down in all directions. I guess it wouldn’t officially count as bushwacking, since we were taking the same route as a group that was an hour ahead of us, but we definitely had a rough time squeezing through the dense undergrowth, especially with snowshoes and a sled strapped to our packs.

By about 12:30 we finally reached the summit (marked by a cairn that probably shouldn’t be there), and it was a regular circus up there! There had to be at least 20 people walking around, half of them with GPS units trying to pinpoint the exact summit. I actually followed a couple of them hiking a little farther north of the cairn because they said there was a spot 2 feet higher over there that was the “true summit” as opposed to the AMC-designated summit. We couldn’t stick around long because it was only O degrees and we weren’t generating any body heat just resting, so we grabbed some food and headed down.

This time we vowed not to get stuck bushwacking again, so we took the more dangerous alternative of descending the slide. It was steep, icy, and exposed, but I guess one consolation was that there were intermittent boulders that you would run into before sliding too far if you fell, so ice axes weren’t really necessary. We all made it down alive, and even got some amazing views of Franconia ridge in the process.

My main concern on the trip was having to bushwack back in the dark, but fortunately we reached that part of the journey by about 4:30pm, and got back to our tents just as the sun was setting. After packing up, Matthew finally got to use that sled he hauled all the way to the summit – he pulled Srini and some backpacks back on the wilderness trail.

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