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Two of us headed up Weston Mt from Crow Clearing this past Monday with the purpose of taking that easy quarter mile or so ridge walk to Peaked Mt. I had forgotten what a nice pleasant walk the trail to Gulf Lean-to is. A real gem of a route through the forest to a nice lean-to. The DEC sign at Gulf Lean-to read 1.1 miles to the lean-to at lost Pond. When reaching the lean-to the sign there says Gulf Lean-to .7 miles. The trail up to Lost Pond is rather steep, not overly so but you notice the difference compared to that gentle stroll into the junction with the trail to Hurricane Mt at Gulf Lean-to. BTW that hike up Hurricane from there, really nice.
Lost Pond is a pretty body of water, however, the trail rarely presents any views of it as you follow the western edge. One informal trail at the southern end appeared to lead to the shore and perhaps a campsite. There were no obviously suitable campsites along the trail. The lean-to is poorly situated at the end of a wetland well north of the pond without views of anything. Though the shelter was in good shape the site was reminescent of the old Bradley Pond Lt site. I can't imagine why anyone would backpack into this camp.
The climb up Weston from here was short with a few moderately steep pitches. Certainly nothing to get worked up about. We had completed the Nun Da Ga O Ridge twice having hiked it from both directions on previous trips. Weston has nice views and is well worth the modest effort to hike it, appx six miles round trip from Crow Clearing. The complete ridge is outstanding and more than worth the energy it takes to complete the loop.
My hiking partner and I were curious as to why we never bothered to pop over to Peaked on any of the several trips to Weston in the past, afterall it's only a quarter of a mile along the ridge. Once on Weston it all came back, you can't see the darn thing. My buddy pointed to a pointed hill north of Hurricane and asked, "that it? It looks peaked." A glance told me, "nope there is a parallel ridge between us and it, besides it's in the wrong direction." Map and compass suggested we were looking at Ausable #4. Orienteering the map we determined a ne bearing along the ridge. Trouble was all we could see were trees, not even the ridge line.
Off we went along the Nun Da Ga O Ridge trail to the north. Oh the first few hundred linear feet northward from Weston features plenty of blowdown. Not sure how extensive this is along the route but at least from this vantage point it suggested it may be a rough go. After crashing north a short distance we could see no connecting ridge to Peaked, so back we went. Again from the summit of Weston we followed the top of the ridge keeping to a NE bearing without benefit of any line of sight. We descended along the ridge losing about a hundred feet into a narrow col. I am sure it was closer to 120 feet though my altimeter said 100 and bob's gps said 110. I swear forced as I was to keep looking down at my feet I could clearly see each of the six brown contour lines as I crossed them.
I did say we had a gps didn't I? Well for what good it was, it seems the owner of the gps did not load in any waypoints and as he has yet to buy a map program we were required to navigate via the old fashioned way, map and compass. I would suggest from this experience a gps unit is like an ice axe. If you don't know how to use it
The most difficult part of following the ridge is it is rather thick with no real line of sight
. You spend more time watching where you are stepping than anything else. Fortunately it is a short hike with slight elevation changes. A hundred foot or so down and two hundred feet up. Since Peaked is a tad bit higher than Weston it raises the question does Weston qualify as a second mountain? Hmm, not that it really matters. We got over and back without serious difficulty but it was much more than the mere glance at the map suggest.
Lost Pond is a pretty body of water, however, the trail rarely presents any views of it as you follow the western edge. One informal trail at the southern end appeared to lead to the shore and perhaps a campsite. There were no obviously suitable campsites along the trail. The lean-to is poorly situated at the end of a wetland well north of the pond without views of anything. Though the shelter was in good shape the site was reminescent of the old Bradley Pond Lt site. I can't imagine why anyone would backpack into this camp.
The climb up Weston from here was short with a few moderately steep pitches. Certainly nothing to get worked up about. We had completed the Nun Da Ga O Ridge twice having hiked it from both directions on previous trips. Weston has nice views and is well worth the modest effort to hike it, appx six miles round trip from Crow Clearing. The complete ridge is outstanding and more than worth the energy it takes to complete the loop.
My hiking partner and I were curious as to why we never bothered to pop over to Peaked on any of the several trips to Weston in the past, afterall it's only a quarter of a mile along the ridge. Once on Weston it all came back, you can't see the darn thing. My buddy pointed to a pointed hill north of Hurricane and asked, "that it? It looks peaked." A glance told me, "nope there is a parallel ridge between us and it, besides it's in the wrong direction." Map and compass suggested we were looking at Ausable #4. Orienteering the map we determined a ne bearing along the ridge. Trouble was all we could see were trees, not even the ridge line.
Off we went along the Nun Da Ga O Ridge trail to the north. Oh the first few hundred linear feet northward from Weston features plenty of blowdown. Not sure how extensive this is along the route but at least from this vantage point it suggested it may be a rough go. After crashing north a short distance we could see no connecting ridge to Peaked, so back we went. Again from the summit of Weston we followed the top of the ridge keeping to a NE bearing without benefit of any line of sight. We descended along the ridge losing about a hundred feet into a narrow col. I am sure it was closer to 120 feet though my altimeter said 100 and bob's gps said 110. I swear forced as I was to keep looking down at my feet I could clearly see each of the six brown contour lines as I crossed them.
I did say we had a gps didn't I? Well for what good it was, it seems the owner of the gps did not load in any waypoints and as he has yet to buy a map program we were required to navigate via the old fashioned way, map and compass. I would suggest from this experience a gps unit is like an ice axe. If you don't know how to use it
The most difficult part of following the ridge is it is rather thick with no real line of sight
. You spend more time watching where you are stepping than anything else. Fortunately it is a short hike with slight elevation changes. A hundred foot or so down and two hundred feet up. Since Peaked is a tad bit higher than Weston it raises the question does Weston qualify as a second mountain? Hmm, not that it really matters. We got over and back without serious difficulty but it was much more than the mere glance at the map suggest.
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